Skillseeker-lesson-1
Welcome to The Career Advancement Mastery Program
This first lesson is called "Skills Inventory"...
…which will help you list all the experiences you’ve had that can translate, later, into transferable skills.
Why is this important?
You may believe you have no skills and experience…
But if you’ve only done some volunteering, working for a family member for a short time, or have had one or more jobs, you definitely have inventory-able skills!
Skills show work ethic and train-ability. That’s something employers want to see – clearly (and that’s what this page starts on).
By knowing exactly what those skills are, you’re an instantly better candidate than someone else who thinks they have nothing!
Preparing for this process:
You’ll need:
- Paper and a pen OR
- a word/note program open.
I highly recommend physical paper for this. It just works clearer for most people.
We’re going to start with your most recent job first.
If you haven’t had one yet, think about any volunteer experience you have, or people you’ve helped even casually.
What we are going to make is your basic skills list!
Take your time with this part. This part alone often takes people a solid week to do and can be intense.
This pays off like crazy once it’s done!
Figuring out your basic skills
Let’s start with your current, or most recent job. Put yourself back into it. Think about what you did daily!
Step 1
Write a category called Minute by Minute – and your Current Job's Name.
What did you do minute by minute?
Keep in mine, I mean both "MInute tasks, and miNUTE tasks!"
Write the tasks that took you a few minutes or tasks you did a few times an hour. Both can go into this category.
Step 2
Then write an Hour by Hour category under that.
What did you do hour by hour?
Write the things that took an hour to do, or you did a few times in a day!
Nah, doesn't have to be every hour, or even every minute!
Step 3
Repeat for Week by Week.
Write weekly only tasks, or tasks you did a few times in a month!
Nah, doesn't have to be every week, or every month.
Step 4
Same for Month by Month if you have them (many don’t.) Things you did once a month, or a few times in a year.
Doesn't have to be every year 🙂
Step 5
Repeat this same process for your previous jobs, going back as far as you can! Even if you don't remember much of what you did, write what you remember and add more as you remember later.
Helpful tip 1
As you get older, the long this list is going to get. By age 30, you may find you have a 6 page list! It’s going to be a bit time consuming, yes – most people 4-7 days for this first page. You’ll only need to “grind” this process once, and be able to add to it from there.
Helpful tip 2
Not sure what’s too many teensy skills vs not enough? If you deal with items and do minor changes to each items, it’s good enough to generalize what you do for 1 item, you do for them all! Example: Machining holes, slits, rounding edges…count that all as one.
Helpful tip 3
Yes, you can list jobs like “Stay at home mom” and “entrepreneur/ startup”! All skills count. Don’t worry about an official company or title.
Helpful tip 4
Don’t touch your resume at this point, until you’re finished with the CAMP course! When you’ve finished, you can then start redoing it with your new “drag and drop” skills ready to be tweaked and targeted.
Examples - Bad vs Good
Here's an example of a badly written skill from my last job
Teaching 10-35 students in a classroom.
This is badly written because...that is a minute, day, week, month, and year all in one! It gives no information of my abilities and skills other than “teaching”!
An example from the resume of Nikki, a past client:
Project Management
This is bad because that's a hell of a big category! That's the thing...categories are bad. Direct actions you did is better!
Here is an example of one of my hour by hour good skills
Preparing lesson plans tailored for each class’ abilities and schedule.
That is literally what I do that takes one hour! It tells a hiring manager that I am capable of preparing lesson plans in the teaching category.
An example from Nikki:
Assigned tasks to staff.
This is what she does for one of her MinuteByMinute tasks! A direct action of her project management category!
Try wording it like this: Verb - Noun - Prepositional phrase
Example: I Arranged(v) Consultations(n) With Clients (prep.phrase)
Here’s a few of my current Minute-to-Minutes.
- Writing blog posts and respond to requests for info on social media sites.
- Edit website wording to make information clear and concise.
- Locating pictures and information on the internet for use in website.
- Arranging consultations with worldwide clients.
- Researching jobs via internet and job hunting websites for job seekers tailored to their goals and current skills.
Here’s some Hour-by-Hours
- Consulting with job seekers on their skills and resume structure
- Arranging presentations for business clients tailored to their needs
- Writing, editing, and stylizing of new pages for website
If I were to write these hour-by-hours the bad way, it would look like this:
- Talking to customers
- Making powerpoints/documents
- Editing and making new pages for website
See the difference? One gives great context, the other…doesn’t. They are too “category-like”.
Go ahead and write your skills with as much “direct action” as you can!
Also, some words aren’t the greatest to use, as they don’t denote actions you physically did. Some bad verbs:
Handled
Attended
Went to
Watched
Learned
Take your time and list it all.
Take the time you need before moving onto the next step! This is where you want to list every job and experience you’ve ever had…even ones you don’t think qualify. It all counts for now!
Why? Because remember, we are only doing a skills list for the moment. Your skills list doesn’t matter how well you know a skill, at all. It simply lists things you’ve done! Don’t worry about how it’s written yet – this isn’t going directly to your resume yet. We’ll get to that part later.