How to Develop your Skill Set

Introduction 

A skillset plays a significant role in our lives in order to perform various tasks. These skills could be accounting, computer programming, researching, leadership, communication, or others. The time, energy, and resources you spend on improving and developing your skills would help you to achieve your goals and amplify your earnings. Today, we’ll discuss how to develop your skill set in order to move up in your career. 

What is a Skill Set? 

A skill set is an integration of the abilities of your abilities, experiences, qualities, and skills. Everyone has a different skill set based on one’s technical knowledge, personal qualities, natural abilities, and interests. The skillset allows you to amplify your professional expertise so that you could perform your job better. Your experiences and education level would help you to improve and develop your skill. 

Types of Skill 

We can categories the skills into two main types; soft skills and hard skills. 

Soft Skills 

However, soft skills are relevant to the personality characteristics and interpersonal skills that provide you an opportunity to work and talk with others. They have got great value because you can transfer them. Some of the main examples of soft skills are as follows; 

• Time Management 
• Teamwork 
• Motivation 
• Leadership 
• Decision Making 
• Creativity 
• Conflict Resolution 
• Communication 
• Adaptability 

Hard Skills 

Hard skills are the capabilities, expertise, and technical skills that a person uses to solve a specific task on the job. Practice, experience, tutorial, and training help you to improve you hard skill. Some of the main examples of hard skills are as follows; 

• SEM/SEO Marketing 
• Mathematics 
• IT
• Graphic Designing 
• Foreign Language Fluency 
• Event Planning & Organizing 
• Data Analysis 
• Copywriting 
• Accounting 

It’s better if you create a separate list of both soft and hard skills that you have. Whenever you apply for a certain job, then you should include only those skills that are relevant to the job. 

We can further subcategorize the soft skills and hard skills into the following groups; 

Job Specific Skills 

A certain job position requires job-specific skills, it could be a soft or hard skill. However, you could learn job-specific skills either by experience or by education. Therefore, you should carefully study the job description portion. It would help you to know that what specific skill the employer is looking for. 

Transferable Skills 

Transferable skills are those skills that you can apply to any job in various industries. They usually fall under the category of soft skills and sometimes hard skills depending upon the industry. Like mathematics, communication, problem-solving, etc. 

Hybrid Skills 

Hybrid skills are the integration of both soft and hard skills. Many prospective recruiters prefer those employees that have hybrid skills. For instance, customer service is a hybrid skill; a person has spreadsheet management, conflict resolution, and excellent communication skill. 

How to Find your Skills 

Before starting the discussion of how to develop your skill set, you should know about your skillset. It’s advisable if you study “swot analysis of yourself” for self analysis. If you don’t know about your skills and expertise, then you should follow the below-mentioned points; 

Interests & Passion 

You should create a list of things that you enjoy it. For instance, problem-solving, active listening, communication, teaching, or others 

Admiration & Appreciation 

You should consider the compliments and admiring comments that you receive it from colleagues, people, and manager. Why people come and what types of favors they usually ask from you. For instance, your high performance in the teamwork, etc 

Past Achievements 

Your achievements in the past, big or small, and the things that help you to stand out in the crowd. For instance, the award you have won for completing the project, etc. 

How to Develop your Skill Set 

It’s time to address the main question that how to develop your skill set, some of the main points of building and improving your skillset are as follows; 

Goals & Objectives 

You should set precise goals in order to stay on the right track in your career. While developing your goals, make sure your goals should relevant to your profession, achievable, and measurable. However, you should set a specific timeline with your goals, and subdividing them, so that you could achieve them easily. 

Mentor 

A mentor is a professional superior person that you look up to with trust and respect. After finding your mentor, you should have an informal meeting with him and then develop a professional relationship. 

Feedback 

You should ask for honest feedback from friends, relatives, colleagues, and superiors about your strengths and weaknesses. It’s important to welcome honest and constructive criticism rather than false appreciation. After knowing your weaknesses, you should work on rectification them. 

Analyzing & Reviewing Job Description 

Carefully reviewing the job description would help you to identify what type of job skill you need for a certain position. After analyzing and identifying the lacking skill set, you should take part in the educational programs that would help you to improve your required skill set. 

Online Courses 

Many businesses and companies provide financial assistance to their employees so that they could complete their educational degrees and promote learning. If you’re planning to advance in your career programs like accounting and finance, then you can transfer the credit hours. 

Educational Courses 

Many colleges, universities, and training institutes have well-experienced and skilled professionals in their institutes. They offer a variety of courses in different fields of study. It’s necessary for employees to have a degree in order to stay in the field.

Training Sessions 

Many independent training institutes and companies have specialized experts and they offer various training sessions. Therefore, you should check out with your superiors whether your company offers such training or not. If it does provide training, then you should take part in them. 

Job Shadowing 

Job shadowing is when you participate in the daily operations of other professions and start learning new skills. Here you follow an expert professional doing his job so that you could learn something different from them. 

Professional Association 

You should expand your network and communicate with professionals in the industry. It would help you to discover what type of skills you should develop to move up in your career. 

Conclusion: How to develop your skill set 

After an in-depth study of how to develop your skill set, we’ve concluded that skill set is necessary to execute various operations in your personal and professional life. If you want to develop and improve your skillset, then carefully follow the abovementioned points.