What are your skillz?

What do scrapbooking, keeping a planner and talking like there’s no tomorrow all have in common? Well, maybe nothing for you, but for me, they comprise the things that I am best at doing. In short, they are my skills; skills that I have used to create a major, develop an internship experience and begin a job search in my four years at MU. These "skills" might seem odd…what exactly does scrapbooking have to do with drafting a successful press release, you might ask? However, it’s important to realize that skill sets don’t always envelope only the talents that you learn in class.

Take my example. I have kept a scrapbook since I was about 10, when I first understood that combining pictures with stickers and wacky scissors was way more fun than playing legos with my dweebie brother. Sibling disputes aside, scrapbooking taught me to be creative, to take pride in a final project and to mind details. I started my first planner in 8^th grade, and while I mostly used it for writing down friend’s phone numbers and upcoming school dances, it instilled a discipline for keeping commitments and fostering organizational skills that I still use as a senior in college. Talking? Well, that might be the least impressionable of the three, but public speaking in front of my senior high school class on graduation led to a love for communication that has become more obvious since coming to college (meeting with clients, giving presentations and working in groups, for example).

In brief, these skills helped me decide what I wanted to be when I grew up. Want to figure out what your best skills are? Or better yet, how and where you can use them? Sometimes, your skills are more obvious than you think. The Career Services Center is offering their monthly On the Road series in November just for you! Join us as we build and identify individual skill sets with career counselors and a professional representative from Kohl’s Corporate. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention—the free lunch of the month is Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes (yum!). Perfect for chilly November weather, so we’ll see you there!

November's On the Road to Your Career
Powered by Kohl's
Date: Thursday, November 10
Time: 12:30  – 1:20pm
Location: AMU 157
Topic: Building/identifying skill sets
Menu: Swedish meatballs, salad, mashed potatoes, with coffee, hot tea, iced tea and water

“What are my skills?........I don’t even know where to start.”

As a Career Counselor I frequently as students to tell me about their skills and a common response is "I don't even know where to start." That is a very normal response simply because we don't usually go around talking about our skills to everyone we meet. Students gain skills through coursework and class projects, colunteer experiences, internships, part-time jobs, as well as through campus activities. Whether you have developed interpersonal skills, critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, or more specific career related skills, you will need to talk about them to employers in order to land a job where you can use them. Everyone has skills, it just takes practice to communicate them well.

The good news is that the Career Services Center offers individual appointments to help you learn to communicate the skills that you have worked so hard to acquire. Setting up an appointment is easy; just call the Career Services Center at 414-288-7423.

Jeremy Eudaly

Career Counselor

Résumé Reconstruction

Whether you’re seeking full-time employment or an internship, most employers require you to provide them with a résumé. While incorporating previous jobs and internships relative to the position you’re applying for seems effortless, what about those jobs that don’t as easily relate? For example if you’re applying for an accounting internship position at Harley Davidson and you currently work at Applebee’s as a waiter, the correlated skills aren’t so obvious. Well, there’s actually a pretty simple solution to this problem.

In the “Work Experience” section of your résumé, use different headers to divide your experiences into those in which are career related (Career Related Experience) and those which could be categorized as other experience (Other Work Experience). Doing this creates a more coherent Work Experience Section.

So, how do you list your responsibilities for that “unrelated job?” What if I said there was no possible way to get around that problem? I’d be fibbing!!

Every activity in which you partake provides you with a skill or skills that employers’ value; they’re called Transferable Skills. Reflect on your position at Applebee’s; it’s not simply what you did, but how you did it. Here’s a scenario, a group of five friends come in to eat, their orders are really specific, they continuously complain about the food, and to top it off, they leave you a lousy tip. By keeping your temperament and treating them with the same respect you exhibit to all the tables you’re serving that night, you’ve displayed tolerance in a stressful situation which is a personal transferable skill. Or, let’s say you’re the employee who gets along with everyone, most of the time, you’re displaying the ability to interact and work effectively with co-workers and superiors, which is a human relations and interpersonal transferable skill. Allow yourself some time to think on these and if you’re still having trouble, feel free to stop by the Career Services Center (Holthusen Hall, First Floor). We’re here to help J