Finding the Right Career For Your Skills
Would you stand in front of a packed house and belt out a tune from your hit parade of shower singles if you did not have the skill to sing? Unless you have the training or the skill set most folks could not imagine just jumping in and belting out a tune in front of a live audience. Skills are the ability either learned or natural (which most experts will tell you is rare) to perform certain tasks. Your skills can make or break your career. Determining Your Skills Oftentimes former job titles offer little in defining what skills you have. You have to literally dissect each position you have had including volunteer positions, club positions, school activities to learn what you are skilled in. For instance if you have worked as a volunteer at a hospital and had to speak to incoming patients, or answered phones and you were good at it, that could be translated into administrative skills. If you were a treasurer for a group or club and did your job well that could be translated into book keeping skills. If you tutored other students at school and enjoyed it and were successful that could be translated into teaching skills. Waiting tables requires more than taking orders and slinging food onto a table, as a waitress/waiter you provide customer service, and have to have an outgoing personality to be successful; this can be translated into customer service skills and sales skills. There are professional skill assessment’s available that one could partake in to get a professional look at what career your skills are well suited for. Each of us has a talent that can be translated into specific skills for a particular career. Why Should I Match My Skills to a Career? We spend a lot of time at work. We probably spend more time at work than we do with our families and friends. It is really important to feel successful at what we do at work. Success has a few different faces. Money is important but when workers are surveyed money does play a role in feeling successful, but it is superseded by feelings of accomplishment for a job well done. Job satisfaction directly correlates to how well we do at our job. The best way to insure that you do well in your career is be sure your skills match your chosen career path. That does not mean that you should not attempt to learn new skills to fit better into a chosen career but should be translated to mean if you can’t type a lick than maybe medical transcription is something you should put off until you can learn to type. If boiling water is a reach for you than maybe a couple of years at that culinary arts school might be the way to go before you apply for the top chef position at that swanky golf club. Learn to recognize your skills, do some research into what careers they fit into, then take the plunge and learn what you need to about the career field and bone up on those skills. Success will be right around the corner.
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