Page 35 - Career Transitions Workbook - 2021

Where Do Where
No. 4 –Taking Inventory – I Want to Now?
Am I
Be?
Dialing Down on My Skills
What's Creating

Estimated Time: 5 hours My Plan? the Tools I
Need
4A – Skills from Jobs –2 hours
4B – Skills from Education/Training – 1 1/2 hours
4C – Skills from Other Sources – 1 1/2 hours

Overview/Goals:
This exercise focuses on identifying your skills and talents, even those you don’t know you have!
Job applications only give you so much room to list your skills, and usually they only want to know
For Evaluation Only
job-related skills, the things you can already do on the job.
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In this exercise you will be looking for three types of skills:
• Technical Skills or “hard skills” – these are usually physical things you can do or special
knowledge you have to do a task or solve a problem.

• Soft Skills – sometimes known as “people skills” or how you relate to other people. Soft

skills also deal with management, communication, teamwork, character, time management,
and your ability to organize. Soft skills are often harder to identify than technical skills.
• Transferable Skills – Transferable skills are skills that you can take from one area or
occupation and use in another. If you have good management skills, you can become a
manager in a bank or a manager in a retail shop. You will use many of the same skills, just in
a different setting. You can take the skill of helping people and being a good communicator
and use it in health care, social services, public service, or any number of occupations.
Transferable skills can be hard or soft skills. These are also skills that you get from other
sources than your job or education. Activities you do on your own personal time,
volunteering, hobbies, memberships, and jobs that you hold that don’t seem to relate to
your career are all sources of transferable skills.

For example, let’s look at the skills of your family doctor:

Technical Skills Soft Skills Transferable Skills
(Physical Skills/Knowledge) (Interpersonal Skills) (Skills obtained outside of work)

• Reading a chart • Communicating with • Professional speaking – is a
• Prescribing medication patients member of a professional
• Performing routine exams • Managing appointments group
• Performing an operation • Listening and asking • Interacts well with kids – is a
• Operating medical questions parent with three children
equipment • Interacting with office staff • Writing skills – writes a
• Dictating medical notes • Working and communicating weekly blog on being a
with a nurse doctor

No. 4 – Taking Inventory – Dialing Down On My Skills 29