Be prepared by identifying your strengths

Job skills are not just those skills you gain by education, developing a talent, or building experience at an occupation or activity. Many employers also desire various core skills. These types of skills have as much to do with attitudes toward work as with abilities to do work. Employers want new employees to have certain skills and traits before they hire them. These attitudes and abilities include:

• Basic reading and math skills.
• The ability to speak and to write clearly.
• Problem-solving skills.
• The ability to follow instructions.
• The capacity to receive training and apply it to tasks.
• Teamwork skills.
• A positive work ethic you prove by showing up for work regularly and on time.
• A willingness to learn.
• The capacity to concentrate on a task.
• Proper respect for supervisors and co-workers.
• Clean and sober personal habits and the ability to pass a drug test.
• Being cheerful and courteous when dealing with the public in customer-service jobs.

You might see job ads where the employer wants to hire someone with “good critical-thinking skills.” What does that mean? There are six skills involved in “critical thinking” that are useful in the workplace.  These cognitive skills can be enhanced with the Keytrain system and proven by a National Career Readiness Certificate. Employers judge your overall critical-thinking ability by how many of these six skills you have. These abilities are: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. Let’s use a simple workplace example, an automotive job as a tire mechanic, to look at each skill:

• Remembering: Can you recognize facts or information from previous instruction? Can you
• remember the names of tools or the steps in a process? Example: If, on Monday, you learn the
• steps to fix a hole that causes a flat tire, can you make the repair on your own on Tuesday? On
• Friday? If you have to re-learn a task every day, that would indicate poor memory skills.
• Understanding: Can you explain these ideas or concepts that you remember to someone else?
• Example: If the owner hires another tire mechanic the next week to work with you, could you
• teach that person the procedure to fix a flat tire?
• Applying: Can you take the information you are given and use it in a new or different way? Can you
• make use of that information in a different situation? Example: You learn to use a pneumatic
• wrench to remove wheel nuts and to use a torque wrench to replace them after fixing a flat. Can
• you see how to use those tools to remove or attach other car parts? Which tool would you
• choose to tighten the base plate of the shop’s advertising sign pole out in the parking lot?
• Analyzing: Can you break down an idea or process into its parts? Do you understand which part
• comes before the others in a sequence? Example: Would you agree that the major steps in
• fixing a flat tire are to 1) use a jack to raise the car, 2) remove the wheel, 3) fix the flat, 4) replace
• the wheel, and 5) use the jack again to lower the car? [Yes.] Would you completely tighten the
• wheel lug nuts before or after lowering the car back down? Why? [After. The wheel, sitting on
• the ground, won’t spin around when you tighten the nuts.]
• Evaluating: Can you rearrange an order of events, or steps in a process, into a new pattern? Can
• you reasonably explain why you chose to do it that way? Can you see ways to combine steps or
• to cut unnecessary ones? Example: You are installing a set of four tires, using a lift instead of a
• jack. Would you change the tires one at a time, or perform each step in the process on all four
• wheels?
• Creating: Can you create a new product, process, or service, based on your experience with
• remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, and evaluating? Example: You watch a
• NASCAR race pit-stop crew at work. You see a way to speed up your shop’s process for changing
• tires. Changing that process allows you to service more cars per hour, and the shop makes more
• money.

Showing examples of how you can be resourceful is part of your list of “accomplishments” that you include in a résumé or a cover letter.