Discussion—Enhancing Your Employability

Develop two sets of skills to enhance your employability: hard skills and soft skills.

Hard skills include career-specific techniques, knowledge, and experience related to the tasks you will perform on the job. For example, to become a psychologist, you would need to develop hard skills such as knowledge of counseling theories, the ability to administer psychological tests, and the ability to diagnose mental illnesses.
Soft skills, on the other hand, are the skills you will need in order to succeed interpersonally in any job. They are behaviors and attitudes that aid the ability to communicate effectively with others, either verbally or nonverbally. These have also been referred to as signs of emotional intelligence, people skills, or interpersonal skills.

In 2006, a consortium of four organizations conducted a survey of four hundred employers to determine which skills they most valued in recently hired employees. The employers listed soft skills as more desirable than hard skills. The employers listed the following skills as the most important: “professionalism/work ethic, oral and written communications, and teamwork/collaboration” (The Conference Board, Inc., et al., 2006). Download the “List of Skills” document from the link available in the sidebar for a list of applied skills.

Access the following link to review the key skills most valued by employers:

The Conference Board, Inc., the Partnership for
21st Century Skills, Corporate Voices for Working Families,
and the Society for Human Resource Management. (2006). Are they really ready to work? Employers’ perspectives on the basic knowledge and applied skills of new entrants to the 21st century U. S. workforce. ISBN No. 0-8237-0888-8. Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/documents/FINAL_REPORT_PDF09-29-06.pdf

Complete the following:

Select at least three skills you believe you have demonstrated well in school or at work and provide illustrative examples of situations in which you have demonstrated the skills.
Select three skills you believe you need to acquire in order to further develop. Provide examples of situations in which you might have demonstrated weakness in those areas. Provide specific details when describing each of the situations. Cover the following:
How do you think you can improve your skills in those three areas?
Are there any specific steps you can take to increase your aptitude in those particular areas?

Write your initial response in a minimum of 300–400 words. Apply APA standards to citation of sources.
List of Skills
Critical Thinking/Problem Solving
Exercise sound reasoning and analytical thinking; use knowledge, facts, and data to solve workplace
problems; apply math and science concepts
to problem solving.
Oral Communications
Articulate thoughts,
ideas clearly and effectively; have public speaking skills.
Written Communications
Write memos, letters
,
and complex technical reports clearly and effectively.
Teamwork/Collaboration
Build collaborative relationships with colleagues and customers;
be ab
le to work with diverse teams and
negotiate and manage conflicts.
Diversity
Learn from and work collaboratively with individuals representing diverse cultures,
races, ages, gender,
religions, lifestyles, and viewpoints.
Information Technology Application
Select and use appropriate technology to accomplish
a given task, apply computing skills to problem
solving.
Leadership
Leverage the strengths of others to achieve common goals; use interpersonal skills
to coach and develop
others.
Creativity/Innovation
Demonstrate originality and inventiveness in work; communicate new
ideas to others; integrate knowledge
across different disciplines.
Lifelong Learning/Self Direction
Be able to continuously acquire new knowledge and skills;
monitor one’s own learning ne
eds; be able to
learn from one’s mistakes.
Professionalism/Work Ethic

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