Skills For A Job

This section should maybe have been titled “assets” because if they are skills for a job that you can use, they are indeed assets.  If you stop to think about it, actual assets ie; money, equity, investment plans can easily be assets in your job search.  How?  As an example, let’s say you decide (having put all the foregoing into practice) to hold out for the perfect opportunity.  Actual assets (money for example!) can be used to not only fund your search but also yourself and your family during the search.  It is a total release of pressure to know that you do not need to work for twelve months!  That you have time to secure the new job or career change that really is exactly what you want.

If you are nearing the end of your working life, it may be that such assets can release you into less remunerative work that is personally more appealing or hobby orientated.

However, your main advantages are not of a literal sense.  The investments in learning skills throughout your life, now become advantages in your job search.  Examples of such advantages are as follows;-

Job Skills and Abilities

• A reputation as one of the best in your market. (You have made one hell of an investment to be recognised by your peers as one of your markets best!).
• A degree or other (possibly vocational) educational assets
• A particular market / topic specialisation (being an expert or authority on a given subject).
• A hobby
• A network of contacts

These advantages are very difficult to discuss here, because they will be very personal to you, but you get the idea.  To illustrate how this might work in practice, let’s take an example.

Skills Set

Say, you studied, and got a first in French at university.  After leaving university you join a major investment bank in the City of London and end up on the floor trading derivatives.  A highly plausible situation.  After a number of years with the bank, your French is only used on the occasional holiday, and has faded a little.

Then one Sunday, you are reading the paper or surfing the job boards, and there, in the recruitment section, is a high powered job as a derivatives specialist, paying a mega salary with a French bank.  Hey presto, suddenly your French degree is a major advantage and a valuable piece of your skills set.  I hope you are starting to see what I mean by advantages and assets.

Career Skills

Other examples, an old holiday job selling on the market could turn out to be an asset, that children’s summer camp you did in 1994 might just turn to your advantage one day, maybe even that stint you did as treasurer of the pub football team might just come in handy.  You never know when these skills and experiences might suddenly become an advantage.  It is difficult to imagine right now, but really, you never know.

These advantages you have, are like playing two’s wild, you never know when a particular feature might suddenly become an asset.

This also illustrates a further point. Like actual assets (investments etc), you should always be looking to add to your portfolio, as well as investing further in existing assets.  Remember what I said about learning earlier, it will always pay dividends.  Indeed, the more you invest, as in literal assets, the more you will reap the dividend.  It is the same with your personal assets.

You should always aim to have some sort of learning or asset investment project on the go!

So, that covers the four areas that you need to address when deciding what you want.  Once you have completed this assessment, you will know where you want to go as far as your career is concerned.  You may well have re-defined some major areas of your life as well!  With the pace of change getting faster, it is vitally important that you understand how you can make the best of any given situation, how you will react, how you can take advantage.

What you should now have is a complete profile of yourself, basically what makes you tick.  What motivates you, what excites you, what new areas you can move into and generally how to maximise your potential as far as the career  / job situation is concerned.

Job Skills

As a final thought in this chapter, we Brits are very conservative when it comes to career changes, we are known to stay in one career stream for life.  Now we have already discussed why that will no longer be possible, but it is interesting to note that Americans expect to change career track (on average) five times during their working life.

In the U.K we are going to have to get used to that sort of batting average, and following the guidelines in this chapter is one sure way of making certain you are ready to meet the challenge.  In the end, you have to know what you want and what your job skills can bring you. Then you have to make a compelling case to a potential employer by using your Desires or Needs, Job Skills and Abilities, Personality and Advantages or Assets.  In other words, sell yourself, and don’t forget to close the deal!