Identifying your skills. Thinking skills. What are skills?

Identifying your skills. Thinking skills.

1. 
   What are skills?
   

This may seem like a silly question but it’s actually something worth clarifying. From some of my discussions with students during their appointments, there seems to be some confusion between ‘skills’ and ‘experience’. They are not the same thing and it’s important to know the difference.
A skill is something that you are good at doing: it could come easy to you or be something you learn. An experience is where you learn skills through work, study or activities you do in your spare time.
When discussing what to put on their CV, lots of students say ‘I don’t have any relevant experience’. They think that recruiters are only interested in experience in a chosen field. Recruiters acknowledge students may not have relevant experience, so they want evidence of skills that you’ve learnt from any type of experience that is transferable for use in their work environment.
(Recruiters are not expecting you to do the job unsupervised from day one so they expect to provide you with on-the-job training.)

2. 
   Types of Skills
   

Skills can be divided into two categories; technical or soft skills.

• 
  Technical (Specialist) Skills
  

You learn technical skills during your degree, with extra training (such as an online course) or from previous work experience e.g. using specific software packages or specialist equipment.

• 
  Soft (Transferable) Skills
  

The term ‘soft skills’ under sells what they are; they are better defined as ‘transferable skills’. They are skills you might learn in one experience which you can adapt to another i.e. they are transferable! They are skills that can work in every type of job – and that’s why they’re so important. They go beyond the ability to use a specific piece of equipment or do one specific thing.
Typical transferable skills sought after by recruiters are problem-solving, time management, communication, teamwork and leadership.

3.