A List Of Personal Skills

What are you good at and what skills do you enjoy using?

 

I have created a list of personal skills below which you can read through and review in two key ways:

• assess and rate the skills you think you have

• assess and rate the skills you really enjoy using

These two steps are important, because when you are exploring new career ideas you should be looking at the things you are good at and that you really enjoy. Many of us develop skills over the years because we have to, but these may not be the ones that you take pleasure in exercising.

For example, over the years I have got to be quite competent at using a computer, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I will want a job where I have to use or develop a high level of IT skills.

What matters is that when you are doing a personal skills audit, you use the two ratings together to get a real sense of what skills will be the most significant in your new career.

A List of Personal Skills

Skills can be grouped in different ways. You will see that I here, have broken the list down into four types of skills…

• People
• Data and Information
• Things and Tools
• Creativity and Ideas

You may find it helpful to see if your skills fall more in one area than another. This could give you another clue about the direction for your career change.

Scan through this list of abilities and skills – it is a long one! You might find it easier if you print out this page so you can sit back and do this exercise in comfort. Be sure to take your time over it.

For each skill, give yourself a rating on a 1- 4 scale

a) on how competent you are at this skill and
b) on how much you enjoy using this particular skill.

Highlight the skills where you have rated highly on both factors.

You should also look carefully at the skills you rated highly for enjoyment. Are these connected to activities that you want to make sure play a bigger part in your new career?

You should end up with a list of personal skills relevant to your career change plans.

Here’s the list…

People	Data and Information
Advising	Analysing information and data
Adjusting communication style	Applying statistical analysis
Advocating for people	Auditing records
Anticipating people’s needs and reactions	Attending to detail
Appreciating others	Being thorough
Being patient	Budgeting
Building relationships	Calculating
Caring for people	Checking for accuracy
Conducting meetings	Classifying and sorting data
Conflict management	Comparing and evaluating information
Coaching and mentoring	Compiling numerical and statistical data
Debating ideas with others	Coordinating and presenting information
Delegating	Creating efficient systems
Demonstrating empathy	Creating implementation guidelines
Developing people’s abilities	Developing plans and setting objectives
Developing rapport easily	Editing and proofreading written material
Directing others	Ensuring completion of tasks
Explaining things	Evaluating information
Expressing opinions without offending	Following procedures and instructions
Facilitating groups	Forecasting, estimating expenses and income
Facilitating self-awareness in others	Gathering information from varied sources
Helping others	Getting things right
Influencing others	Having an eye for detail
Interviewing people to get information	Identifying and organising tasks or information
Leading	Finding appropriate information sources
Listening	Interpreting plans & diagrams
Managing people	Keeping financial records
Motivating people	Manipulating numbers rapidly
Negotiating	Memorising
Open minded & non-judgemental	Organising and improving systems
Participating in group discussions	Patiently searching for hard-to-find information
Persuading	Presenting data diagrammatically
Providing service to others	Problem solving
Public speaking	Recording facts
Responding to non-verbal cues	Researching
Showing sensitivity and tolerance	Sequencing information and actions
Supervising others	Setting up and keeping to time schedules
Teaching and training	Studying data to extract facts
Working well in a team	Tracking progress of projects
Working well with the public	Using technology for statistical analysis

Things and Tools	Creativity and Ideas
Analysing and correcting faults	Acting and/or dancing
Assembling things	Adapting flexibly and easily/td>
Building things	Brainstorming
Constructing self assembly items	Communicating using metaphor
Driving and operating vehicles	Composing music
Finding out how things work	Conveying ideas through drawing or painting
Fixing or repairing things	Creating novel solutions
Gardening and farming	Designing building and interiors
Hand-eye co-ordination	Designing new processes and systems
Handling things with precision	Developing others’ ideas
Inspecting equipment and machinery	Expressing ideas through art
Installing technical equipment	Graphic design
Making things	Improvising
Manual dexterity	Innovating
Monitoring systems	Insight
Physical strength & stamina	Intuiting strategies and solutions
Physically inspecting things	Inventing products and processes
Raising, training, tending animals	Lateral thinking
Repairing machines and equipment	Photography
Restoring objects	Seeing alternatives
Sporting ability	Seeing things from different perspectives
Tending plants	Showing artistic flair
Understanding machinery	Strategic thinking
Using hand tools	Using accurate spatial memory
Using scientific or medical equipment	Using colour, shape and form creatively
Using spatial awareness for practical tasks	Using imagination
Using technical equipment and machinery	Utilising computers for artistic creations
Utilising computer software and equipment	Visualising concepts and possibilities
Working physically	Writing creatively

Phew! That was quite a list! How did you get on?

What did you find?

Once you have been through it carefully you will have a better idea which will be the best new career skills for you to focus on when you change careers.

Did you notice if your best/favourite skills fell into a particular category – People, Data, Things or Ideas? What does
that tell you about your career choice?

Make a note of what you have learned about your skills in your Career Change Project File. A list of personal skills will add to the understanding you have of yourself and this will help you to work out your new career direction.

Why not continue exploring what makes you tick to help you with your Career Change Project?

You can look at…

Your Values – Your Interests – Your Personality – Your Achievements