Focus on your skills not on your profession, or even your industry. With an uncertain job market, it is especially important that you take a skill inventory to understand your soft and hard skills, as well as those skills that are transferable. Some of your skills will likely need to be polished and updated and if you have studied your industry, including the competitors, suppliers, customers, and the trends, it will be clear that some new skills will need to be added.
Hard skills are ones that will be needed when you make a job change. These skills are teachable, if not through on the job training then through study and training.
Some examples of Hard Skills:
Computer Technology, Data Analysis.
Certifications and Licenses. Writing
Marketing, Accounting
Project Management, Legal
Design, & Cloud Computing.
Soft skills are the abilities that make you a good employee, such as etiquette, communication, listening, and getting along with other people. Calling these skills “soft” suggests that they are natural and can not be learned, but that isn’t true. They can be taught and are important skills.
Examples of Soft Skills:
Communication Skills.
Problem Solving Skills.
Leadership Skills, Teamwork.
Emotional Intelligence.
Adaptability, & Work Ethic.
Transferable Skills help making industry changes
Transferable skills are skills you acquire during your education, internships, or through work experience that you bring with you to future employment settings. Transferable skills bring as benefits for candidates and employers: flexibility, diversity, portability, and employ-ability.
Including transferable skills on a resume is especially important for individuals who are changing job titles, or who are moving to different fields altogether. They are also critical for recent college graduate. Soft skills also can be included with transferable skills.
Transferable Skills Examples
Computer experience, Management experience
Language Proficiency, Typing, Customer service
Written and verbal, Communication, Problem-solving
Having a job is of critical importance, but things change and often a job cannot be counted on. Skills are often transferable to the next job and because of that they may be more important over the long run than the job, or industry that you have always relied on.
Everyone brings some skills with them to the job, but now is always the right time to give some thought to preparing for the next layoff, the next job, and the impact of the economic changes.
Skills development is the process of identifying your skill gaps and developing and honing these skills. To make the best of the shifting times ahead in the job market it will be important to focus on this because your skills determine your ability to make job changes when needed and to execute your plans with success.