Careers

When we coach clients through a career change or job search, they will often focus heavily on their technical skills and experience while neglecting to recognise the significance of their soft skills.  The benefit to be gained by considering values and employability skills alongside the technical skills allows us to identify a good culture and job fit in organisations and careers.

An ability to articulate your employability skills and values are the secret to developing a compelling “value proposition” to potential employers.

In our work with organisations and individuals, we are seeing a trend toward hiring for values and soft skills.  Sure, the hiring manager wants to ensure that the technical skills are there (or nearly there, as technical skills can be taught), but what they’re finding is that the interpersonal skills are the ones that operate as the glue to bond people within teams and provide the drive to deliver excellence.

In fact, LinkedIn’s new 2020 Skills Report showed how we respond and interact with others is a key consideration for employees in the new decade.

In this two-part blog, we’ll be looking at two aspects of those transferable skills:

• Employability Skills

• Values

Firstly, let’s look at Employability Skills.  What are employability skills you may be asking?  The chart-toppers in the LinkedIn report were:

1. Creativity

2. Persuasion

3. Collaboration

4. Adaptability; and

5. Emotional Intelligence

When we work with our clients, the challenge often lies in not just paying lip-service to these skills but in identifying whether they are relevant and determining how to best authentically communicate the skills in application documents and interviews.

The first step is to clarify your ‘value proposition’ for yourself, so that you can assess whether the hiring organisation or career space is a good fit for you and whether you have what the hiring manager is looking for.  The second step is to gather evidence through stories to help you prove your skills.

To get you started, we’ve provided a brief review of what each is and how to demonstrate your capacity:

Creativity – this is the ability to bring original thinking to the table.

Can you think of a time when you’ve identified a new process or tool or an improvement?  This might be a widget design or a new way of tracking documents, down to a new idea for dealing with customer complaints.

Persuasion – This is the ability to tell a story and provide context for a decision or pursuing a new idea.  Communicating the ‘why’.

Can you identify a time in a previous role (or your current one) when you’ve been able to promote a change in process or a new concept to get people on board?  How did you achieve success?  What were the hurdles you overcame?

Collaboration – The old saying that ‘we are greater than the sum of our parts’ continues to hold true.  Effective teams can deliver outstanding results by working together for a common outcome.

Do you have a story where you’ve been part of a high-functioning team and have helped to deliver an outcome through teamwork, collaboration and relationships?  What was your role?  What was the result?  What difference did it make to your team or organisation?

Adaptability – Change is a constant and it is increasing in rapidity.  Adaptability is a core skill in every working environment.

Can you remember an occasion where you’ve embraced change and shown up with a positive attitude and open-minded professionalism?  What were the benefits that were realised through your flexible approach? 

Emotional Intelligence – here’s where things can come unstuck.  Emotional intelligence, or emotional quotient (EQ) is the ability to regulate your own emotions and recognise, appraise and respond to those of others.

The stories you need here are the ones where you demonstrated a capacity to work with others in a range of difficult situations.  It may have been the way you handled negative customer feedback or supported a colleague through a difficult project.  It could also have been the way you managed your own emotions.

Considering these five key employability skills, knowing your stories, adding them to your resume and ensuring that you have examples primed and practised, will place you in a good position to demonstrate that you are more than the sum of your technical skills and will truly add value to your new employer beyond the responsibilities of the role.

In the next chapter, we’ll further discuss values and how they also have an impact.

If you struggle with this work or would like to workshop how to best articulate your skills, we have a range of services including, career counselling, job search coaching, interview skill training and a great online career management program to support you.  Get in touch for a chat today.

I love the beach (and career counselling)!

Swimming is my thing.  It maintains my mental and physical health and I do it all year round.  Never in a pool, mind you – it only works for me if it’s in the ocean.

While taking the plunge recently, it struck me how a visit to the beach in Winter can be a little like approaching a career change.

In the summer months, it’s easy…the mornings are very warm and the sea sparkles with an invitation to dive in.  During the colder winter months, it’s an entirely different affair.  The wind is chill, the shadow of the dunes on the beach make the sand cold, the sea has an ambient temperature of about 10oC and when the sky is grey and threatening rain, it just doesn’t look like fun.

However, it strikes me again and again, how, as I traipse down the ramp to the beach on a cold morning, rugged up against the inclement weather with my buddy, I’m cold, stiff and wondering why I’m not drinking a hot chocolate right now, I persevere.  The walk eventually starts to warm my limbs (although that did not happen this morning!) and, by the time we come back to strip off some of the warmer layers, I’m thinking about the next step – dipping my toes into that icy cold cauldron.

Every day, it surprises me how cold it is, how difficult it is to submerge my body with every ounce of my being wanting to step back onto the shore and replace the woolly jacket and head home to that hot chocolate.  Every day, I continue in (encouraged by my buddy) and take the plunge, many days inch by chilly inch, until I’ve finally submerged myself in the icy cold.  Swimming energetically, aware of every millimeter of skin exposed to the unforgiving elements, burning with the cold.

Then, after some time, something odd happens.  I acclimatize to the temperature of the ocean, I begin to regain feeling in my extremities, and I could almost imagine it’s a warm day in mid-February, despite it’s a cold morning in August.  My body adjusts and I start to enjoy the sensation of floating in the ocean, keeping my eyes peeled for passing dolphins.

Every day, I finish my swim, and come out again, feeling refreshed, revived and glad that I persevered and made the effort to come and submit.

I guess this is an allegory for life, or careers for that matter; it’s the agony before the ecstasy.  When we decide to do something, we know is good for us and will make us a better person, worker, etc.  But it’s the hard work at the beginning, intellectualizing the benefits before we can realise them in our future, that presents the challenge.  Staying the course, doing the hard work and persevering – these are the key ingredients in a successful (career) change strategy.  It isn’t about showing up on the sunny days, it’s about hauling yourself through the dark, dank, wet and cold days, that delivers success over time.

When you’re considering a career change, I encourage you to consider the end-goal – the new career, the better future, the improved earnings potential, the better fit with strengths, interests and values.   Visualizing what you want and identifying your “motivating why” is essential.

Then I want you to consider all the roadblocks that may present along the way – what’s going to stop you? What will slow you down and discourage you?  Identify it, own it and then commit to working through all the challenges, stay the course and keep your eye on the prize.

Believe me – it’s worth it.  Every day I’m surprised how much it’s worth it.  Every day the challenge is a new one, but every single day the joyful, exuberant feeling of accomplishment at the end is worth every ounce of difficulty at the start.

If you find that you need your own buddy on the journey, we’re here to help.  As Perth’s leading career advisors, we can provide the career guidance and coaching to support you in identifying what it is that you want and then help you develop a road map to get you there.  Contact us.