Framing Your Skills To A Potential Employer

Episode Transcript

E1: Framing Your Skills To A Potential Employer

S: Got Skills? Of course, you do! But can you talk about the skills you have and how you use them? Whether it’s with your cousin, your potential new boss, or the mentor who has 20+ years in your dream role, skills talk is hard, but it doesn’t have to be.

M: As a spinoff to the Let’s Talk About Skills, Baby Podcast, each week on Got Skills the Skills Baby team is taking a deep dive into a key takeaway from an episode of the podcast, focused on actionable ways for professionals to Skill Up.

S: I’m your host, Sari Weinerman and with me is Michelle Smith. We’re here to help you breeze through the next family reunion, interview, or mentorship opportunity by better understanding the skills you have and how to talk about them!

M: This week, we’re diving into Season 2 Episode 4 of Let’s Talk About Skills Baby. On this episode host Kelly Ryan Bailey interviewed Cynthia Hansen who is the head of the Adecco Group Foundation. Cynthia’s done a lot over the course of her career to help entry-level job seekers identify and receive their first corporate job offer.

S: She even built a pilot program designed to help transitioning athletes and musicians talk about their skills with potential corporate employers. In this program, she worked with candidates to frame their skills in a way that would resonate with a hiring manager. Let’s listen for a bit on what she had to say.

Quote from Cynthia: “So whether you’re an elite athlete or an elite musician, you know how to be self-critical. You know how to listen to or watch your own performance and critique it. You know how to work in a group. You know how to motivate people around you. You know how to get and give feedback, and all these great things that you might think, well, I’ve never worked in an office. I don’t have the skills I need for an office. But you probably do. You just need to think about them differently, and then maybe translate them into slightly different language.”

M: Being able to frame the skills you have from past experiences to someone who has not worked with you before or is not familiar with your industry, is really important. It helps them understand what from your past experiences might apply to a future position.

S: Exactly. Cynthia is saying that what resonates with potential employers is the behaviors that got you to perform successfully, not the tasks you performed. Yes, even if it was in a different industry or field – in this case as a musician or athlete. She identifies some behaviors she typically sees in musicians and athletes.  like being self-critical, a capacity to motivate others, and an understanding of the importance of feedback. All of which very easily transfer to many other industries, jobs, and roles.

M: What makes your Skills Story exceptional to a potential employer is the synthesis of the tasks you performed with the behaviors you engaged in. For instance, sharing how you leveraged your abilities to be self-critical, motivate others, and get and receive feedback to reach your goals in addition to sharing the the software you learned, the procedures you followed, or the goals you reached, takes your skills story to the next level.

S: In order to craft your skills story, you have to take a critical look at all of the collective personal and professional experiences you’ve had and identify what skills and behaviors you used in each. That way, you can consider and highlight what skills best demonstrate your potential for success in the specific opportunity you are after, and arrange in them in an easy-to-follow narrative order. Let’s listen to how Cynthia helped a young man go through this process.

Cynthia Quote: So I had a talk with the son of a friend, and he had just graduated from high school, and he was trying to decide what he wanted to study at university. And he thought he might want to go into business. And he thought he wanted to do something with people. And so we started talking about what he liked, and what he didn’t like, and what his previous experiences were. And I said, well, have you had a job? And he said, yeah, I was just a ski instructor. And I said what did you learn as a ski instructor? Who did you work with? Ah, well, I learned that I needed to be on time. I learned that everybody processes information in a different way. I learned that teaching teenagers is different from teaching kids.

S: Cynthia goes on to say that the young man was surprised with what she uncovered because he hadn’t thought about the skills he’d learned as a ski instructor in that way before. He realized his part time job helped him learn time management and communication skills, as well as the importance of tailoring communication to different audiences. Saying THAT to a hiring manager paints a MUCH clearer picture than simply saying you taught people how to ski!

M: Yes! Every work experience you have, shapes your skills story in some way. From the part time job as a princess for children’s birthday parties and special events, to the entry level role doing field work for a non-profit, and the mid-level role in executive learning and development, each can shine a light on different skills you offer and how you use them. Yes, those are some of my previous roles and I have leveraged all of them on my professional resume and in interviews to help me land opportunities.

S: I love that! You’ve got to get creative with the way you describe previous work experiences because all of it counts and all of it matters. It helped shaped the person you are today! When it comes to the example of the ski instructor, he could see that once he looked passed the surface level description of the role, like all things in life, it was a learning experience, and could be leveraged to demonstrate his professional potential.

M: Right! Now let’s not forget, sharing your skills story doesn’t only occur in job interviews. The ability to talk about your skills also helps you write a much more effective resume and cover letter! When you have a strong narrative in place both on and off your resume, you are much more likely to resonate with an employer, network more effectively, AND figure out what potential career transitions or trajectories would be a great fit for you. That’s why you have to be able to talk about your skills and what we’ll continue to shed light on here on Got Skills.

S: Thanks for joining us on this episode of Got Skills. The podcast where we explore how to understand the skills you’ve got, and more importantly, how to talk about them. Got Skills is a Growth Network Podcasts production. “To learn more about the hosts of Got Skills head to skillsbaby.com/gotskills. Find out what we’re up to, the latest news in the skills world, and what events are coming up that you should keep an eye on! Last but not least, make sure to follow Growth Network Podcasts on LinkedIn for more awesome shows to add to your podcast feed.  We’ll see you next time on Got Skills.”