Know your skills, know your worth

Have you gotten to the point of dreading Monday's, living for holiday's, feeling burned out (or close to it)? You know deep down that a change is needed, but you feel too scared to find a new job? You really don't know what else you can do, and you don't want to jump into the exact same role, with the exact same problems. You wish a magic genie would appear and tell you what else you can do, what you are good at, make a list of your skills and point you in the direction. You don't need a genie, or even a Career Coach – read on to learn how to do this for yourself.

WHAT ARE SKILLS?

In essence your skills are a unique mix of the things you have learned to do (work history), the qualifications you have, your strengths and competencies, and your personality. Blended together, they make each person unique. Like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, you need to know how to assemble & present them effectively.

HARD SKILLS

Hard skills are what you can do, or have done, at work. And if you've completed very specific training / education, they can be the skills you learned during this time. The biggest issue with hard skills is that people fail to identify just how many they have. Most of us go above and beyond in our jobs, often taking on work that is not in your job description (JD). But you define yourself by your title and the associated skills, which is very limiting and not a clear representation of who you are. Consider times you've stepped in to help a colleague / manager etc. Did you do something outside your usual scope? Maybe you chaired a meeting, introduced training, solved a technical error. The list is endless, but you are most likely not even making the connection between what you did and your hard skills. If you did anything outside of your usual scope, even once, then you can consider this one of your skills, and you should be adding them all to your personal brand.

SOFT SKILLS

People mistakenly equate their skills with their job experience & limit themselves to their hard skills. By doing this you overlook many soft skills and transferable skills. In my experience this is for two reasons; 1: people don't understand what soft skills are 2: people have not learned how to brand their skills and make them transferable.

Think of soft skills as your core personality. Are you a strong leader in your social circle, do you love planning events, do others describe you as a peace-keeper ? All of these are essential soft skills that employers love. Moreover they can be transferred over to the workplace and highlight your suitability for a role. When you are branding yourself, it's not just your work history that matters, it's who you are as a person. This will also be evident in the workplace, think of how others describe you, or reflect on positive feedback. But don't just consider what others tell you, reflect on how you are as a person, both in and out of the workplace, and know that these skills are just as important as your hard skills. In fact, recent employment trends show that soft skills are more and more considered to be of higher value when it comes to recruiting. We know that learning hard skills is pretty easy, but a persons core personality and competencies are more fixed. Companies are increasingly looking at the personality fit for a role, above the hard skills. So it's in your interest to know and understand your soft skills, and use them to brand yourself for the roles you want. In my personal branding training I go deep into this and teach how to do this. And for the month of July, you can join for 50% off if you are a member of my Facebook group.

THE MOST IMPORTANT SKILL

The most important soft-skill a person can have, is to have or chose to adopt a growth mindset. This means that you understand that you can always learn new things and develop new skills. You are not limited, and you will never stop learning. I talk a lot in my free Facebook group about how even confidence is a skill we can learn and develop. Remember that anything you know now, you once had to learn, so anything you don't know now, you can learn. Approaching life and work with this attitude is something employers love, and in addition will make you feel so much more optimistic – it's a win win situation.