The Kloodle Guide to Skills How to generate the skills you need for 21st Century employment and how to evidence them. By Phillip Hayes & Steven Cheetham The Kloodle Skills Guide Phillip Hayes & Steven Cheetham Copyright 2010 by Kloodle UK Smashwords Edition This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient (it is, after all, free). If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, then please return to amazon.co.uk and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. Contents Introduction What are the top skills for graduate employers? How do I get these skills? How do I evidence these skills? Introduction The 21st Century is different. The world now knows what you are up to virtually all the time thanks to your Facebook statuses and tweets. All the information the world has ever known resides in the palm of your hand in the form of a smart phone. Manufacturing industries are being outsourced from so-called western countries to developing countries, countries who seem to have developed far beyond the so called developed. All of these changes have impacted upon our daily lives. We go about our business somewhat different to years gone by. If you take yourself back 20 or 30 years, the world of careers was an entirely different beast. For starters, University was entirely elitist. Only the smartest of the smart went to university. The number of universities was far less than today, and the number of places meant that selection was a tough old task. A place at university really was a golden ticket. When you are part of a rare breed you become in demand. Companies will pay a premium for your perceived greater intelligence and employability, and they will be falling over themselves to employ you. In short, if you went to university, you had it made. Fast forward a couple of decades. Universities are now ten a penny. Places are so numerous, Thomas, Richard, and also Harry are now able to go to university. That once-rare breed of lesser spotted graduate is now more numerous than frog spawn, and as a result, the competition for jobs is greater than ever. How do you stand out from the crowd when faced with so much competition? Well, that is extremely difficult. You are in amongst a procession of people who have all travelled the same educational journey, all with similar qualifications and credentials on paper, and all applying for similar jobs. You have to differentiate yourself somehow. The economy is somewhat different to years gone by. Technology has facilitated change at an alarming rate. Jobs which were once popular, are now becoming obsolete, and jobs we have never heard of are coming to the fore as valid career options. How many social media marketing gurus were there in the 90s? Also, back in the day, there was a valid concept called “A job for life”. This has now gone the way of the dodo and Manchester United's title winning. It no longer exists (I am a United fan so I am allowed to joke). In order to be successful, you have to be transferable. You have to be able to hop between careers ladders like a spider monkey. You have to be able to blend into these new environments like a chameleon, and you have to be able to adapt like bacteria. The thing is, 5 years down the line, you may be doing something that you have not had any formal experience of, nor formal education in. You may even find yourself in a job that didn't exist when you graduated. This creates a problem. How do you know what to study in order to pursue a career that doesn't yet exist? The answer is transferable skills. The new economy requires people with an ability to learn quickly, to fit in easily into new environments, to work effectively as part of a team, to communicate exceptionally and to be dynamic, hard-working, entrepreneurial and willing to learn. They don't need to necessarily know specifics, but they do need to be able to adapt. This is the skills based economy. Your skills give an insight into your potential. There are a number of non-negotiable skills you need to possess in order to be a successful contributor to the new economy. This ebook will show you what those skills are, how you can get them, and how to evidence them to any would be employer. Your skillset is limited by your own creativity and passion. So strap yourself in, we are about to create Employee 2.0. Enjoy the ride! What are the top skills for graduate employers? There are a number of generic skills that apply across the board to all forms of employment. There are also a number of subtle variations on these depending on what you read. In our opinion, these are the most important: Communication Teamwork Commercial Awareness Initiative Determination Organisation Adaptability Leadership ICT Skills Each one of these skills represents an generic foundation upon which you can build a successful career. By working upon these skills you are developing the ability to integrate into any organisation, and an ability to become an effective part of this organisation. These skills are the “atoms” of employability – the smallest individual units that make up somebody who is employable. Your goal is to possess and evidence all of them. Communication Communication may well be considered a basic life skill. The ability to talk to another person is a trait bound upon us as children; but is that all there is to communication? Other than having the ability to hold a good conversation, communication covers writing and listening skills. It is about being clear, concise and having an understanding to whom your are communicating with. Being able to tailor your message for a specific audience is an important skill that many employers regard as essential. Clear, concise written communication is an employable asset in itself. To detail relevant information and capture your audience is an ever-long skill. With the use of email becoming the most prominent form of contact, a good knowledge of language and grammar is incredibly important. Another form of communication is the art of listening. How well can you listen and pick out the most essential information from within a conversation. When discussions are mid flow, often lots of jargon and circumlocution goes on. Listening carefully to pick out often crucial points and asking the right questions is a fantastic strength and shows an eye, or an ear in this case for detail. Teamwork Teamwork has been identified as one of the fundamental skills that employers look for and is on the vast majority of graduate recruiters' high priority list. Most employers want a team player, and you'll need to prove that is what you are. A huge misconception when people think of a “team player,” is to think of a person who is able to work on a project or task as part of a group. Yes that is important, but it is also having the ability to manage and delegate to others. Take on responsibility when needed. Remember every team needs a good captain. Employers want workers to build positive working relationships. Relationships that help everyone to achieve positive goals and business objectives. Old proverbs say that, “many hands make light work” and that is the ethos that most companies adopt. However, if all of these hands are pulling in different directions then it is pointless. An ability to encourage and inspire others is a strong key skill and helps keep company morale up, an irreplaceable quality. Like any team, every member offers something slightly different. That helps to build the most successful team possible. Those who can help incorporate and engage with all of the different skills are the graduates that employees look for. Being able to demonstrate that you can work as part of a team, will help any candidate stand out from the crowd. Commercial Awareness Commercial awareness is about knowing how a business or industry works and what makes a company tick. An ability to show that you have an understanding of what that company or organisation wants to achieve, through its products, what services it offers and how it competes in its marketplace. Business Awareness is vital for potential employers, as they will need to see that their potential graduate employees have an understanding of how business patterns have formed through time, know financial year cycles and intelligently speculate about the future. The most eligible graduates know how the business world works. They are aware of trends in the sector and understand how different events may affect a company. Obviously different employers will have their own interpretation of what commercial awareness is. For some, it will mean reading the Financial Times every day. While other employers, it will mean having a grasp of the importance of cost-effectiveness and the need for efficiency. The good news is that your commercial awareness will not be tested directly. Most employers won’t expect you to know everything there is to know without being a part of their company. They will however, expect a level of understanding regarding their business, demonstrating a knowledge of their product and the daily activities of the organisation. They would also expect an understanding of the specific marketplace and major competitors. Unfortunately, there is no quick way to gain commercial awareness. However, any practical, handson business experience, whether it be work experience, an internship, extracurricular activities or a part-time job are all ways to demonstrate that you do have business awareness. Try to follow industry news, subscribe to specialist journals, read industry magazines and follow twitter campaigns. You may also try looking at different companies in the sector you are interested in, and see what differences you can spot. Initiative Victor Hugo, French writer wrote, "Initiative is doing the right thing without being told.” But often it’s not that simple. It maybe defined as a work behaviour of a self-driven nature, a proactive approach to work and being persistent in overcoming issues that arise in pursuit of a goal. Basically, it is getting off your backside and using your own brain and judgement to work out any problems that may arise within a working environment. Not waiting to be told what to do. When a person shows initiative, they act instead of reacting. They find out details, work out a solution to problems and issues, seize on opportunities that others have missed and show courage to act on their own judgement. Having said that, there is no point in flogging a dead horse. There must be good reasoning and understanding as to why a person would go out and act. A level of rational is required with initiative, and often just a quick sense-check goes a long way. Most graduates have gone through university using their initiative. Forming an opinion from a tutors’ lecture, taking notes on an informative study or even the way a certain article is perceived then enables a student or graduate to use their initiative when writing a summarising essay with their own opinion being prominent. Determination The firmness of purpose needed to get the job done. Too many people throw around the word determined on a CV. How many people actually do whatever it takes to succeed and how can a person honestly show their determination? Many graduate employers will be looking for their candidates to grow into a roll, very few walk straight in at the top fresh from university. Highlight to an employer that you want to earn value and will work your way up and tackle any challenge. Determination can come in many different ways, whether it be showing the determination to finish a task before a deadline at any cost or it can be the overall determination to succeed in life. But nothing in this life comes without hard work and those that do not shy away from that succeed. In 1989, Simon Cowell was forced to move back to his mothers home aged 40. His company that he had set up had folded and he was jobless. Later that year, though drastically over qualified, Simon took a job at the record label “BMG” acting as a consultant. His raw grit, drive and determination allowed him to climb the corporate ladder, where he went on to sell more than 150 million records, 70 top-charting singles in the UK and United States and set up hit talent scout TV programmes, Xfactor and Britain’s got talent. How’s that for inspiration… Organisation It goes without saying that the people who are most organised, have the best time management skills; and lets be honest, time is money. So how much is your time worth? Throughout university, students are given deadlines and timetables and the majority of students like to use all of the allocated time. Employers are looking for those who are on the ball, show tenacity when given a task and can use resources effectively. Organisation is the key to all of these things. Be prepared to assign yourself to set tasks but be organised enough to allow enough time to other important tasks. Keep written notes, have an organised diary and be sure to be a good time keeper. Adaptability Arguably the most important of all key skills. Unfortunately, life dictates that there is no such thing as a job for life anymore. So those who adapt and transfer their skills are the ones that succeed. Much like Charles Darwin’s theory, that only the strongest survive, those who adapt best go furthest in life. From a young age, as humans we pick up many skills, learning to walk, learning to talk, learning to read etc but many people do not realise that they have picked up many valuable, employable skills along the way. By creating a professional online portfolio like on Kloodle, you can store and show examples of all the skills you have gained and show a potential employer that you can adapt quickly to a new environment, pick up work company policies and settle into a role seamlessly. Adaptability is a sought-after skill. Employers increasingly rotate employees into different roles and dynamics within society or a certain industry often change. An ability to adapt to changing situations and expectations makes you more valuable to a prospective employer. It also allows scope for a variety of career opportunities. ICT Skills ICT stands for information and communication technology, and has become a huge part of everyday life. We are without a doubt in the digital era and without a certain level of ICT understanding, you will be left out in the cold. Most employers will need a basic level of computer training and a capability to use basic software such as word, excel, powerpoint and access. Although not all employers, use Microsoft programmes or windows, it is often considered the standard bench mark for ICT training. While graduates often lack in work experience and a level of business understanding, most graduates can make up for this with better understanding of computer technology and use vibrant new programmes to their advantage. With the imminent arrival of computer coding becoming part of the national curriculum at school level it is essential to stay ahead of the next generation and continue to learn about all formats of technology and upcoming hard and software How do I get these skills? Once you have a clear idea of what each of these skills are about, it is now your job to work upon each of them. University is all about generating these employable skills. It is tempting to think that you are on your university course simply to learn more about History, Chemistry or Human Anthropology. Alas, it isn't quite that simple. The most basic skill you are acquiring at university is learning how to learn. This is absolutely essential in the new economy, as it is your ability to learn quickly and effectively that will propel you in any career. Aside from learning how to learn, your degree course equips you with skills on the sly. The activities you do as part of your degree all contribute to the skills described above. It is your job to decipher exactly how your university course contributes to the development of these skills, and then it is your task to enhance these skills by extra curricular activities and projects. Communication. Communication is a fairly obvious one within university. As part of your course, you are going to undertake plenty of written work. This is obviously going to demonstrate written communication. Many university courses will also require you to present your work to the group. This, again, somewhat obviously, requires verbal communication. There are much more powerful ways of developing this skill throughout university. For instance, play a team sport? Any team sport requires effective communication to be successful. Assume an organisation role within your team – organise away games, social events, training session – pretty much anything you can think of. These activities will enable you to demonstrate your ability to communicate your ideas to a group. The internet nowadays gives you much easier access to ways of showing and improving your written communication. Start a blog on something you are passionate about. Write revision guides to your university course and post them on the internet. Create a series of videos describing the difficult topics on your course. Write an ebook about a subject of your choice – sell it on Amazon, you may even make a few quid for a pint! You are limited by your own creativity. Go wild, create something and share it with the world. More importantly, share it with future employers. Teamwork Teamwork is present in academic assignments that involve group work. These are often the most dreaded of tasks as the effectiveness of a team can be somewhat undermined by a few lazy individuals. Fear not! See group work as an opportunity to really enhance how you function as part of a team. An ability to work in a team carries so much more weight than the moniker “teamwork” suggests. In order to work effectively, you need to possess empathy. Empathy is an ability to put yourself in other's shoes and see their point of view. Work out what drives their behaviour, why they are suggesting certain things, why they react in a certain way and why they say certain things. Also, be empathetic towards their personality and use this to guide what you say, how you say it and when you say it. Empathy is a skill of someone with high emotional intelligence. Look to cultivate this in your group work. As empathy is such an important skill, you should look for outlets where you can develop this. Volunteering is a great way to demonstrate this skill. I found working with adults with learning difficulties developed my empathetic skills. Having to try to understand the frustrations and challenges another person would feel when they struggled to communicate their basic wants and desires was an essential part of the job. Realising that this frustration drove most of their behaviour enabled me to become an effective volunteer. It is this kind of empathy and understanding that employers will seek out. After all, the person who can negotiate an angry customer by seeing it form their point of view and save some business, is a highly valued employee. Teamwork also involves an element of the other essential skills here on this list: - skills such as communication and leadership. By seeking out opportunities to be a member of a team, you are also improving these other skills. Leadership Leadership is often misunderstood as being in charge. Leadership is much more fundamental than that. As a leader your job is to recognise where you are at at this moment in time, decide where you want to be in the future, and decide on the steps and action points that will get you to this point. You then act in order to bring along other people to this point. That is the fundamental act of leadership. Teaching is a great way to demonstrate leadership skills. As a teacher, you have to recognise the point other people are at, decide where they need to be, and decide on the actions you need to take to get them to that point. Set up a revision group. Start the week by deciding who is going to be the expert and in which topic. Each person then “swats up” on their particular topic. The group then meets at a later point in the week and teaches each other their expert topic. Hey presto, you are leading a group! Again, extra curricular activities such as sport are great ways to demonstrate leadership. Assume an organisation role. Be a captain. A secretary. Anything. This is also a great way to demonstrate leadership. Analytical Analytical skills can be all pervading in your degree subject, depending on what subject this is. Other subjects may have a less obvious link to analysis. Outside of a degree subject, analytical skills can be obtained through a number of avenues. My personal favourite is to firstly develop a strong daily reading habit. This should include newspapers, blog posts, fiction, and non-fiction work. Each work you read you should engage with fully by asking questions continuously. “Why does the writer think that?” “In what way could the writer be biased?” “What is my personal opinion on this?” “What may bias my opinion?” “Are there any counter arguments that I know of that refute this writing?” “What themes are present in this story?” If you are going to go one step further, you can keep a notebook of your thoughts and feelings on a these musings. This is a good habit anyway as creative thought comes from personal interpretation of our experiences and learnings. The more you read, learn and rehash, the more you will create. This analysis of written work and information is what employers are looking for, and heavy emphasis will be placed upon these skills in any graduate role. Initiative Initiative should be the mantra by which you live day to day at university. From studying to your spare time, you should constantly be using your initiative to get ahead in what you are doing. Achievement is all about being proactive and not reactive. You should be constantly thinking what you can be doing to put yourself in front. If you are doing things that are important but not urgent, you are being proactive and not reactive. If you are doing things that are important and urgent, you are too late and being reactive. Distil the important things to do in your activities and do them early, without time pressure. That is taking initiative and getting ahead of the game. This attitude will stand you in great stead in any future employment. Determination Determination can be demonstrated by any number of means. One example would be to take on one of the many charity raising events that possess a degree of difficulty and challenge. Events such as marathons, treks, triathlons and other things of that ilk require a degree of personal dedication, determination and self motivation to achieve. Putting yourself in the ring for one of these events show to a would-be employer that you have more strings to your bow than just education and you have the determination to handle a heavy work load and see things through. Organisation Organisation is a skill best demonstrated through a leadership role within an extra curricular activity. Play for the football team? Take up a role where you have to organise a trip away. Raising money for charity? Organise a significant event, then organise the sale of tickets, marketing, logistics, entertainment, etc. Become the social secretary for your halls of residence and organise a party or a trip. Become the secretary of your degree's society and organise the end of year ball. These are not insignificant endeavours and the work and organisation that go into such events will not go unnoticed by a future potential employer. Adaptability Adaptability is the ability to react easily to change, to learn on the spot, and reorganise your skill set and abilities to a new context. Take up a completely new hobby at university and adapt to the new requirements. A new sport, game or activity. Learn a new language. Learn how to program a computer. Any activity that is new and unfamiliar is a great way to improve your adaptability. One skill that should be linked in with adaptability is an ability to overcome failure. Whenever you try anything new, there is a strong chance you may fail. You need to become resilient and open to the learning experiences that failure brings to the table. Thomas Eddison failed in his attempts to produce the light bulb. His spin? He didn't fail, he just found numerous ways not to make a light bulb. Failing regularly allows you to converge upon success. Look to fail quicker, and more readily. Learn quickly and move on. Time management Time management is a bit of a tricky one. In my humble opinion, time management not only involves organising your tasks effectively, it is more concerned with deciding what tasks are valuable and worth doing. For this, you have to have a picture of the context of your activities. At university? What is a better way to spend your time – listening in a lecture or answering questions on an important topic whilst sat in the lecture? This discrimination of activities and constant evaluation of whether a task is valuable is an excellent asset to foster. In a business environment, resources are at a premium and everything has it's cost. If you are able to weigh up quickly what tasks are value producing, and execute these tasks quickly and effectively, you will be an effective employee. The way to develop time management? Make yourself as busy as possible. Cram as much as you possibly can into your life. Then decide which activities contribute to you being successful within all of these tasks How do I evidence these skills? In a former life, the way a person documented their achievements and skills was in a CV. The humble CV is still kicking around today, refusing to be resigned to history which is where it surely must be banished. For nowadays, we have a whole range of media at our instant disposal. You are limited only by your creativity. For example, a well written blog post that explains a piece of analytical reading you have just done is a miles more effective way to demonstrate this skill than simply putting it as a skill on a CV. A blog effectively shows your own individual thought, communication and ability to use your initiative. This is hard evidence an employer can actually see. A blog post can be used to describe anything you undertake – a learning journey, a new experience, a holiday, how you achieved something, something you are proud of, a sporting occasion, your take on a recent piece of news. Again, use your noggin and think of a creative way to express what you have been up to. Sometimes, a picture explains more than 1000 words. Won the cup with your university football team? Snap it and use it as evidence of your extra curricular activities. Done a particularly tough experiment in labs? Take a picture of it. Group work at uni? Take a picture of it. Pictures can demonstrate your personality effectively, quickly and simply to any would be employer. Get snapping! Another effective way to showcase your achievements is to upload your work directly to the internet for the world to see. Your dissertation? Stick it online – after all, countless days word processing and hard graft deserves more reward than the piece of paper being read twice by your exam moderators. Use it to impress somebody with your work ethic and intelligence – give employers direct access to it. Done a presentation? Upload the slides. Coded a website? Upload the code. Finally, a great way to give employers a real insight into your personality is through video. Instead of writing your personal bio, why not record it. Given a great presentation at university? Film it. Playd in an important game of sport? FILM IT! Essentially film is a powerful way of getting your message across. Fortunately, Kloodle offers all of these facilities. If you want to evidence your skill acquisition in any of the manners described above, you have the power to do so on kloodle. Kloodle has all the sections you would expect of an old-style CV, and more. The dynamic aspects of kloodle (blogs, videos, photos and document uploads) all allow you to showcase your talents better than ever before. Get yourself marketed to employers. Join kloodle now. Click the logo!