Career Skills are the abilities you have to that enable you to do your job and to manage your career. These are over and above the skills and technical knowledge you need to perform the tasks that are part of your job.
There are numerous reasons why career skills are important – from the expected arrival of robots and other technologies that will change jobs to the reality that being good at what you do is just not enough to ensure that your work is valued and to allow you to keep moving forward in your career.
The question is – What are the skills that are required to be effective in your job and manage you career?
And the supplementary question – Are these different skills?
Taking the second question first…no these are not different skills. The skills required to be effective in your job and manage you career are the same. Bonus! Which means that you can be developing the skills you need for your career and get even better at the job you are doing (which is only going to help your career anyway!). Double Bonus! And if you need to, you can justify the time and effort you invest in developing your skills as they are helping you in your current job. Bonus! Bonus! Bonus!
They are the sum of your knowledge, skills and experience.
They will determine your success in decision making, influencing others and getting the job done (well).
They will ensure that you are able to get the job you want, negotiate your salary and are prepared for your future. The one that you want. (Not one that is dictated for you by others).
So the crucial question, what exactly are career skills?
They fall into 3 main categories:
- the skills that you have to communicate with others
- the skills that form your operating style – how you work (whether anyone is watching or not)
- Career development skills
Let’s have a quick look at each of these:
Communication
Communication is the currency of work.
It’s the mechanism of how work is done in organizations. Your interactions with others is how you build your reputation and relationships – and get stuff done. It’s how you ask for what you need and let people know what you’ve done.
Understanding and adapting your communication to the accepted style of business can have a substantial impact on your career potential, how much you enjoy your work and whether your contributions are recognized.
These skills enable you to be able to say what you mean and have what you mean understood.
Operating Style
Your Operating Style is how you work and importantly how you are seen to work.
It is the expertise that underlies how you work and interact with others. It’s how you naturally work when you don’t think about how you are working!
Developing these skills, such as how you work in teams, behave in meetings, negotiate and resolve conflict will enable you to work efficiently and productively, allowing you to think about what you are doing not how you are doing it.
How do others think about your capability? Your competence? Do they see you as someone who is able to get things done? Effective? Efficient? A good thinker? A strong leader?
How others view us determines credibility and professional reputation.
The skills that determine and influence your Operating Style are not often talked about but they can be learnt.
They are not techniques to trick others into thinking that you are good at your job if you are not. Rather they are specific and tangible tactics to optimize your time, your energy and your potential for career success.
Your Operating Style is the expertise that underlies how you behave and interact. It is fundamental to success in a business career.
Career Development
Developing your career requires the skills to plan, negotiate, build networks, learn from your experiences and understand who you are.
It’s also essential to develop the ability to recognize opportunities and threats (and be ready to act on them).
The skills you develop and the support you put in place to manage your career for the long term will also help you today. It’s human nature to evolve, transform and develop. Working towards the future you want will not only put you in the best position to get what you want, it will give you confidence about what you are doing today and the choices you are making. And theses skills also help you improve your performance in your current job. It’s a win-win!
The world of work is full of subtleties and nuances, competing priorities, too much work and too tight deadlines.
The more skills you have, the better equipped you are to be effective and positively impact your destiny and manage the complexity of how work works. Knowledge, skills and experience are the keys to career success. Focusing on the areas that are most important and have the biggest impact is vital.
The Career Tip To Go: Take the time and effort to develop how you do what you do.
Next week: How communication skills help and what they are.
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Karen Adamedes is an experienced executive, author and career-tipster. In her most recent book ‘Professional in Pajamas: 101 Tips for Working from Home’ Karen shares many of the insights she has gained during a decade of working from home, where she has negotiated multi-million dollar deals, led national teams and delivered major projects. She does admit to sometimes working in her pajamas.
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