Knowing
your skills &
attributes
Careers Great Southern
Phone:(08) 9892 8749 Fax: (08) 9892 8898
Email:
[email protected] a.edu.au
Careers South West
Phone:(08) 9780 7210 or 9780 7070
Email: careers_sw @swrc.wa.edu.au
Wha t do we mean by skills and a ttributes?
skill is the ability to perform a particular mental or physical activity which may be developed by
training or practice. (From the National Centre for Vocational Education Research glossary at
http://www.ncver.edu.au/research/core/cp9812.pdf)
An
attribute is a personal characteristic or attitude, like reliability or adaptability.
Why do you need to know yours?
Knowing your skills and attributes is important in planning your career path, but also crucial to getting a
job. Throughout the recruitment process in networking, developing your resume, application and
interviews you will need to know your skills and strengths and how to communicate them effectively to
potential employers.
Think of your skills in
two ca te gories:
Wha t skills to Employers
want?
1. Technical skills (or industry-specific
Its not enough to have just the technical skills for
skills), usually acquired through formal
a job. Employers will also judge your suitability
on- or off-the-job training and can be
and capacity for a job through your employability
used in a limited number of jobs.
skills and personal attributes.
These skills and attributes were identified by
2.
Employability skills (also called
employers in a major Government-funded survey
transferable or generic skills). These
in 2002. To see the report go to http://
skills apply in almost all jobs they are
www.acci.asn.au/text_files/issues_papers/
transferable from one role to another and
Employ_Educ/ee21.pdf.
you can continue to build on them
throughout your life.
To see our summary of these skills and attributes
see overleaf.
Read on to find out how to identify
your skills and a ttributes
Knowing your skills & attributes
Identifying and communica ting
your skills & a ttributes
Start to list them
To get started, see the Job Search Guides Recognise your Skills and Abilities at http://
www.det.wa.edu.au/training/sub-sites/jobsearch/recognise.htm
Swinburne University of Technologys Skills and Attributes http://www.swinburne.edu.au/corporate/
careers/Skills%20and%20Attributes.pdf sheet has heaps of great info and examples on how to
identify and describe your skills
Use words from our summary of Personal Attributes and Skills from the Employablity Skills report
(below & page3/4)
Continue to build your list of skills and attributes
.and examples of how youve used them.
As you build skills, add them to your resume so its always current and READY TO GO!
You can keep a diary or list of examples of how youve used your skills especially the transferable
ones - and attitudes. Youll almost always get asked questions about these in applications and
interviews, and they can sometimes be hard to remember on-the-spot, so have a few ready to go
with! (If you havent done much paid work, use other examples from other situations such as
Use the employablity skills list
Use our summary of Personal Attributes and Skills from the Employablity Skills report (below) as
a checklist to see where your strengths are and what you need to work on.
Personal ATTRIBUTES
Commitment
Personal presentation
Commonsense
Balanced attitude to work
and home life
Honesty and integrity
Positive self-esteem
Ability to deal with pressure
Enthusiasm
Sense of humour
Motivation
Reliability
Adaptability
Loyalty
Knowing your skills & attributes
Employability SKILLS
The Skill
The Elements (facets of the skill that employers identified as important,
noting that the mix and priority of these facets would vary from job to
job)
Communication
Listening and understanding
that contributes to
Speaking clearly and directly
productive and har-
Writing to the needs of the audience
monious relations
between employees
and customers
Negotiating responsively
Reading independently
Empathising
Using numeracy effectively understanding the needs of internal and external
customers
Persuading effectively
Establishing and using networks
Being assertive
Sharing information
Speaking and writing in languages other than English
Teamwork that contributes to productive
working relationships
and outcomes
Working with people of different ages, gender, race, religion or political persuasion
Working as an individual and as a member of a team
Applying teamwork skills to a range of situations, eg. Futures planning, crisis
problem solving
Identifying the strengths of team members
Coaching, mentoring and giving feedback
Problem solving
Developing creative, innovative solutions
that contributes to
Developing practical solutions
productive outcomes
Showing independence and initiative in identifying problems and solving
them
Solving problems in teams
Applying problem-solving strategies across a range of areas
Testing assumptions taking the context of data and circumstances into account
Resolving customer concerns in relation to complex project issues
Initiative and enter-
Adapting to new situations
prise that contrib-
Developing a strategic, creative, long-term vision
utes to innovative
Being creative
outcomes
Identifying opportunities not obvious to others
Translating ideas into action
Generating a range of options
Initiating innovative solutions
Knowing your skills & attributes
The Skill (contd)
Planning and organising that contribute to long-term
and short-term strategic planning
The Elements (facets of the skill that employers identified as important,
noting that the mix and priority of these facets would vary from job to
job)
Managing time and priorities setting timelines, coordinating tasks for self
and with others
Being resourceful
Taking initiative and making decisions
Adapting resource allocations to cope with contingencies
Establishing clear project goals and deliverables
Allocating people and other resources to tasks
Planning the use of resources including time management
Participating in continuous improvement and planning processes
Developing a vision and a proactive plan to accompany it
Predicting weighing up risk, evaluating alternatives and applying evaluation
criteria
Collecting, analysing and organising information
Understanding basic business systems and their relationships
Learning that con-
Managing own learning
tributes to ongoing
Contributing to the learning community at the workplace
improvement and
Using a range of mediums to learn mentoring, peer support, networking,
information technology (IT), courses
expansion in employee and company
Applying learning to technical issues (eg. Learning about products) and
people issues (eg. Interpersonal and cultural aspects of work)
operations and out-
Having enthusiasm for ongoing learning
comes
Being willing to learn in any setting on and off the job
Being open to new ideas and techniques
Being prepared to invest time and effort in learning new skills
Acknowledging the need to learn in order to accommodate change
Technology that
Having a range of basic IT skills
contributes to effec-
Applying IT as a management tool
tive execution of
Using IT to organise data
tasks
Being willing to learn new IT skills
Having the occupational health and safety knowledge to apply technology
Having the appropriate physical capacity
From Employability Skills for the Future (DEST 2002).
This report was generated after extensive consultation with employers across Australia.
