Skills Audit

You have a variety of skills. Finding out what skills you have demonstrated in your life can help to give a clearer picture for your career path.

What do you desire?

Uploaded by Bagicha Padilla on Jan 25 2013

Skills you have used may have been through work, education or during your leisure time. Categories of skills include:

1)Interpersonal

2)Personal

3)Practical

4)Technical

1) Interpersonal skills involve how you deal with people. Your communication skills with fellow employees, management, customers and suppliers. Demonstrations of these skills can involve working as part of a team, telephone skills, negotiation skills and feedback

2) Personal skills involve your ability to work on your own initiative. Demonstrations of these skills could include meeting deadlines, punctuality, confidentiality, attendance as well as organization skills.

3) Practical skills involve skills that demonstrate your ability to perform certain tasks. Demonstrations of this could be designing flyers, editing databases, producing profit & loss accounts and cash flows  and having an ability to analyse them, knowing another language etc. You may be currently learning these skills as you progress through college.

4) Technical Skills involve a specialized skill where you can demonstrate an ability to use a technical product. Different courses will have more specific technical skills. General examples could include word processing or being able to operate a switchboard.

How do I find out what skills I have?

• For each job  you have worked in, take a seperate sheet and brainstorm all the tasks that this job involved. List everything you did that was associated with that job. Break down your duties into subpoints eg barwork- managed orders, interacted with customers, negotiated with suppliers, in charge of stock control, liaised with kitchen and restaurant staff etc
• What skills have you learned as a result of carrying out these tasks? What skills were needed?

Click on this link for helpful advice regarding how to describe some of the skills you have:
http://www.how-to-change-careers.com/a-list-of-personal-skills.html

Work Experience CV

Your CV is what sells you. In 2013 in Ireland it is an employers market. You are now in a more competitive market for jobs than in 2006. As a result, you may be competing for a job against someone with 10 years experience. Your potential employer hasn't met you yet and you are one of a bundle of CV's. At this stage your CV and cover letter is the only piece of information they have about you. How are you going to promote yourself? How are you with your CV, going to make the difference between getting an interview or not?
Is there spelling mistakes? Over 80% of CV's have spelling mistakes in them. What signal are you sending out to your employer about you if there are a lot of spelling mistakes?

Youtube Video

Jobs Club 2: CV Preparation - TV3's Ireland AM with Brightwater

Uploaded by BrightwaterGroup on 20 Aug 2009

 

Please take a moment to give me some feedback in the comments section

What was difficult in this task?

What did you learn?

Is there anything else that could have been included in the topic to make it easier for you to understand?

Was the topic explained well or not?

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(if so please copy and paste the link in the comments section with a sentence explaining what it is)

Work Experience

The importance of work experience can help you with your future career prospects. Your work experience can signal to a future employer that you have the ability to work as part of a team or be suitable for future job positions within a business. By being able to demonstrate what you have learned about the world of work as well as the skills you have developed as a result of your work experience can greatly increase your employment prospects.

When considering your place for work, you need to consider what type of experience will best suit your career goals. It is as important to know what you don't want as well as what you do want.
What type of experience do you need to gain to further your career?
What kind of skills are required and do you have the necessary skills for a particular type of employment?

College certificates and degrees are very important however relevant experience in the world of work which demonstrates some of your personal skills can be crucial in getting you to stand out. How you demonstrate your employ-ability through your work experience can make you stand out from the rest of the candidates. What was unique to you about your experience? Can you link anything that you have learned in theory into practice?

 
Here is a PDF document from gradireland entitled Work Experience & Time Out which provides helpful advice regarding skills, how to get a placement, getting the most from your placement, work experience after graduation, details about voluntary work and more.