WHAT YOU
HAVE TO OFFER
The most important element in job search is
self-esteem. What you think about yourself affects how you feel
about yourself and shapes your expectations. Your behavior
follows. If you think you can't succeed ("no one will want
me because I was laid off/I'm too old/I'm not educated
enough"), you'll feel defeated by your negative thoughts and
expect rejection. And you'll behave in a way that's likely to
create that result.
Henry Ford once said: "Whether you believe you can or you
can't, you will be right."
Skills Inventory
Start gathering information about yourself by identifying your
skills. Make a list of all the skills you know you have. (That's
product knowledge.) These will fall into three groups: technical
skills, transferable skills and self-management skills. The
skills most job-seekers are aware of are their technical or work
content skills.
1. Technical
skills: These are the skills
you most likely learned in a formal training or academic program
or through a combination of school, college and on-the-job
training. This group of skills may be the least useful as you
look for work outside your field. 16i Frank's technical skills in
petroleum skills . engineering are not in demand in the
workplace. These are his least marketable
2. Transferable
skills: Also called
functional skills, these are the skills you have been developing
throughout your life. They are transferable to almost any work
situation.
3. Self-Management skills: These are the skills that job seekers seem to be least
aware of. Yet employer selection decisions are most influenced by
this set of skills.
Your self-management skills communicate your attitude and
motivation. These are the skills you have immediate control over
and the power to change!
Myth: Get a university degree and your success is guaranteed.
Reality: That was true 30 years ago, but it's not true today.
Often, vocational and community college graduates are as
employable as university grads since employers increasingly seek
job-ready applicants with specific technical and work content
skills.