Day 2 - Skills

People who often overlook the skills they have developed through apparently unrelated or unpaid activities are missing out. For instance, take a look below at the conversation and think about your own experiences.

When James was asked about the skills gained in his last job, he answered,
“My last job was only a job in a small computer shop.”
“What did you do?”
“I was just a sales assistant.”
“For how long?”
“I was there for 3 years.”
“You must have gained a range of skills. Now tell us about the skills.”
James looked a bit lost.

Now, if you were James, what skills would you have mentioned straightaway?
Well, James gained these skills and maybe more:
• sales ability
• persuasive skill
• communication
• numeracy
• patience & tact
• cash handling
• leadership
• interpersonal
After you know your skills, you still have to relate them to the role that you are applying for.

Relating skills to opportunities
How do you know the skills to highlight when compiling your CV, covering letter or application?

•Consider how your motivation, personal qualities and aspirations reflect the ethos of the company that you are applying to and the opportunity on offer.
•Understand the skills and competencies required for the role. This will be transparent where a job specification is made available. Take a highlighter and highlight the skills. Then, try and relate them to the skills gained from your previous role, experience, interests, hobbies etc.
•Decide on the best way to sell your skills. Which CV format will you use? What should you to put in your covering letter? See our CV and covering letter tips for advice on making effective applications.

Do you have employability appeal?

Employability appeal is a combination of educational achievement, personal attributes, generic skills and experience. It can’t be measured in real terms, but it’s about how attractive you are as a prospective employee.

What are Employers looking for in a potential employee?

A successful applicant must be aware of his/her transferable skills and, more importantly, is able to provide evidence of having used them. Spending time researching an organisation, identifying and understanding the skill set they require could well tip the balance in your favour!

What are Transferable Skills?

These are skills you develop in any working situation, be it a part-time job, casual work, voluntary work, vacation work or an internship.

Remember that working with customers and other employees will provide evidence of communication skills, problem solving and sometimes leadership.

You will have evidence of the ability to adhere to working practices such as time keeping, attendance and meeting deadlines. If your work experience has been in a commercial environment you will surely have developed commercial awareness, regardless of the capacity in which you worked.

Your self -reliance and self-awareness will have been enhanced as you are more aware of the tasks you like to do and are good at.

Transferable skills can be identified in many situations, but ‘real’ work experience is probably the most fruitful area in which to find evidence.
Popular Transferable Skills that Employers seek

The 10 transferable skills that are particularly popular with most employers are:
1. Communication - ability to communicate orally, in writing, or via e-mail or any electronic means, in a manner appropriate to the audience
2. Teamwork – being a constructive team member, contributing practically to the success of the team and following the team’s common goal.
3. Leadership – being able to motivate and encourage others, whilst taking the lead;
4. Initiative – ability to use your own sense of reasoning/idea, see opportunities and to set and achieve goals;
5. Problem solving – thinking things through in a logical way in order to determine key issues, often also including creative thinking;
6. Flexibility/adaptability – ability to handle change and adapt to new situations;
7. Organisation/Planning- Deals with your ability to design, plan, organise, and implement projects and tasks within an allotted timeframe. Also involves goal setting.
8. Commitment/motivation – having the energy, the follow through and enthusiasm in pursuing projects;
9. Interpersonal skills – ability to relate well to others and to establish good working relationships;
10. IT skills - Almost all jobs now require some basic understanding of computer hardware and software, especially word processing, spreadsheets, and email.

Additionally, depending on the role that you are applying for, some companies or employers like to see that applicants have some commercial awareness.

Once you have thought about your skills and how they will demonstrate your abilities to potential employers, you will need to work out how to market yourself effectively.

Presenting the evidence of your skills

Your principal concern should be to present proof of the skills and qualities that the employer is seeking. This could be in the form of achievements, responsibilities during work experience or voluntary activities, involvement in societies, or management of any activities.

The key is to equal the evidence in your application with what the employer wants. Recruiters want to read about the skills and qualities that are of interest to them and their selection criteria.

When examining your past involvements more closely, perhaps consider these questions:

•What exactly have I done in the past?
•What was I responsible for achieving?
•What were the outcomes of my actions?
•How did I achieve success?
•Is there evidence of ‘how’ I have demonstrated the relevant skills this role require?

Although it’s important to be concise on your CV, simply listing your skills is not enough. Prepare evidences because employers can’t simply take your word for it. To help you to do this, think STAR –

S – Situation
T – Task
A – Action
R – Result

Courtesy of Catherine's Career Corner

The Covering Letter

The covering letter is a companion to your CV, but is written entirely separate from it. Its purpose is to introduce you briefly as a candidate, indicating your career goals and objectives. Essentially, it is a slightly longer version of the profile section of your CV if you have one, but it should not be overly wordy, ideally remaining under 100 words.

The recommendation is that your covering letter should be as easy as a PIE

(P = Passion, I = Interest, E = Excellence).

If you are looking to stand out and not to follow the pack of 90% of job seekers who get the same results, compose all your job search and career design letters with the PIE method in mind.

Passion: Write the letter with energy, enthusiasm and passion. Draw the connections between the company’s needs and what you, the candidate can offer. You build a rapport with the reader when you write with enthusiasm. Passion helps to overcome obstacles and liabilities. Right or wrong, fair or unfair, a lifeless letter reflects a lifeless person.

Interest: Using passionate words but having little to say is a waste of passion. Obviously, you must have something of interest to say that would result in a prospective employer developing a strong interest in you as a potential contributor to their organisation.

You must determine, in advance of writing the letter, what information will spark their interest in you. Investigate research and uncover the critical messages that you feel must be conveyed to generate immediate interest in you. Address the company’s needs as you understand them and draw the connections between those needs and your skills as means to meet them.

Excellence: Any potential employer is interested in knowing your level of commitment to excellence. Today, the job market is a shrinking, global village where only the ones that are ready to commit to excellence will survive. Most companies are looking for a few good people to hire and retain. Though, it may seem difficult to find a good position, hiring managers are probably of the opinion that it is just as difficult to find good candidates. So, it is imperative that you are able to package yourself for that first dynamic introduction so you will automatically be perceived as a potential good hire.

Do not forget to communicate your level of integrity, competence, confidence, and trustworthiness that most employers seek. Remember that a powerful cover letter should embody a compelling message, depict a professional commitment to excellence in one’s chosen career, and must be communicated with passion. Let your letter answer the following questions:

• What is the company or the hiring department really looking for? What do they need?
• What qualifications and experience do I have that are valuable to the company or the hiring department?
• What can I offer? What specific contributions have I made in the past that will excite the potential employer?
• How can I capture this concisely in my letter?
• What type of personality do I have?
• Why do I want to apply for this job and why this company/department?
• Finally, what separates me from the rest?

If you can answer or address these points, you are on your way to construct a winning cover letter. However, you must always edit and polish your letter, get two other people (your mentor, manager, or any other hiring manager that you know) to read through for you. It is recommended that a good cover letter should include the following information:

• The exact position for which you are applying.
• How you came to apply for the position, as this can be useful to the organisation in terms of assessment of recruitment procedures.
• Long and short-term job objectives, with brief reference to information contained in the CV.
• Behavioural and other strengths that especially equip you to do the job well.

In the attempt to fit this information in such a small space, you may adopt the following policies with regard to the writing style of your cover letter:

• Impress your suitability for the role upon the reader by describing your character and experience in a way that matches those characteristics described in the job advertisement.
• Vary your vocabulary carefully to avoid repetitions and overuse of any one word or phrase.
• Avoid using over-exaggerated adjectives
• Use carefully selected strong verbs like ‘managed’, ‘developed’, ‘achieved’, ‘initiated’ and ‘directed’
• Always write in complete and grammatically correct sentences e.g., ‘ I look forward to hearing from you’.
• Keep your style simple and your tone businesslike and friendly, just as you would if you were speaking to the reader of the letter
• The interviewer is looking to employ you in the future, not your past, so orient everything you write with a bias to the future
• Always end the letter on a positive note
• Finally, remember the Three P’s! (Professional, Pertinent, Punchy)

In addition, there are a number of layout considerations to be carefully thought about when writing your covering letter:

• Use a standard business letter layout for your covering letter
• Ensure that your letter is perfect in every way i.e. spelling, grammar, and consistency of information with the details contained in your CV
• Margins must be appropriate in order to frame your letter attractively
• Only single line spacing should be used and correct line spaces must be left after addresses, between paragraphs and before and after ‘Yours faithfully or sincerely’
• Typically, a block or justified paragraph format is used rather than the outdated indented paragraph format.
• Do not forget to sign or type sign your letter if sending it electronically. It is surprising how easy it is to commit this error in haste to submit application.
• Detail enclosed documents.
• Use a standard, clean typeface or font – highly stylised text is distracting to the reader and indicates an unprofessional approach.
• Career changers seeking a new direction must highlight those transferable skills as well as explaining the rationale behind their application and passion to succeed in their new sector.

Courtesy of Catherine's Career Corner