What skills are required in your field?

[Monirul Islam]

When deciding what skills to focus on in your professional development, it's important to think about your future plans and goals. If you're happy in your current career and have no plans to make a change, you may want to focus primarily on developing industry-specific skills. On the other hand, if you're fairly certain that you don't want to remain in your current career, but don't have any specific career in mind yet; it can be useful to focus on transferable skills that will make it easier for you to transition into a wide range of jobs.

Transferable skills
Aside from the technical skills required in each industry, it's also important to develop somewhat less tangible attributes like interpersonal skills, flexibility or problem solving.

Mastering these skills can put you one step ahead, because while most of your colleagues or fellow applicants will have the same qualifications as you do, fewer of them will have taken the time to develop skills that aren't an absolute requirement.

"What we hear most often from employers is that they're looking for what are usually called 'soft skills,' says career advisor Beth Campbell Duke. "Employers are great at screening for the technical skills required, but they still tend to struggle with identifying soft skills like resilience, tenacity or effective communication skills."

In order to identify and further develop these all-important soft skills, she suggests focusing on the skills you already have. "Think about how you do things," she says.

"Do you show up on time? Do you stick to a task? Do you see the bigger picture so you can predict what tasks you could be doing next? Do you understand yourself well enough to be realistic about your strengths and weaknesses? Do you ask for help and input from others? The list is endless."

A Career Builder survey of over 2000 hiring managers found that 77 percent believe soft skills are just as important as the hard skills necessary to perform specific job functions, and 16 percent even said they considered such qualities more important than hard skills.

Some of the most important soft skills they said they look for when hiring included:

A strong work ethic
Dependability
A positive attitude
The ability to work well as a team
Organisation skills
The ability to work well under pressure
Communication skills
Flexibility
Confidence
Of course, it's not enough to simply list these skills on your resume or tell your boss that you're a team player and good organiser; you need to be able to give specific examples of when and how you demonstrated these skills in your work. In order to do this, you will need to put yourself in situations where you'll have a chance to practice these skills.

Start by working out if there are any important soft skills you don't have a chance to practice much in your current line of work, such as working on a team or performing under pressure, or whether there any areas you need to improve in, such as having a more positive attitude or showing confidence. Once you know where you need improvement, you can look for opportunities to strengthen these areas, whether that means volunteering in a different type of role or taking on more responsibility at work.

Industry-specific skills
In order to advance in your career you may need to develop, sharpen or update some of your industry-specific skills. "The idea of life-long learning is really being taken onboard by traditional educational institutions, the growing number of online institutions and even people like me who are now able to offer courses and coaching online," says Beth Campbell Duke.

"Depending on the industry you're in, it's usually relatively easy to find ongoing education – whether it's through your industry association or a local or online learning institution," she says.

"It some cases it may be possible to take some university and earn a certificate, then turn it into a diploma or Associate's Degree, and then earn a degree. Many places also offer post-graduate certificates to help you quickly add new skills. If anything we now have too many options. There's no end to ways to continually learn and upgrade."

To give you an idea of the sort of industry-specific skills you may want to focus on, here's a look at some of the top job sectors and a few of the skills and abilities that are important in each one, according to Job Outlook.

Education & Child Care
Oral Expression – The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
Learning strategies – The ability to select instructional methods that are appropriate for the situation when teaching new things.
Public safety and security – Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies.
Psychology – Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.
Social perceptiveness – An awareness of others actions and understanding why they react in a certain way.
Problem sensitivity – The ability to tell when something is wrong or likely to go wrong.
Negotiation – Bringing others together and trying to reconcile differences.

Business
Critical thinking – The ability to use logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions to problems.
Administration and management – Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, leadership techniques, production methods and coordination of people and resources.
Complex problem solving – The ability to identify complex problems and review related information to develop options and implement solutions.
Management of personnel resources – The ability to motivate, develop and direct people as they work, and identify the best people for the job.
Systems analysis – The ability to determine how a system should work and how changes in conditions and operations will affect outcomes.

Tourism and Hospitality
Active listening – The ability to give full attention to what others are saying, understand the points being made and asking questions when appropriate.
Customer service – Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services.
Speaking – The ability to talk to others and convey information effectively.
Persuasion – The ability to persuade others to change their minds or behaviour.
Judgment and decision making – The ability to consider the costs and benefits of potential actions and choose the most appropriate one
Foreign language – Knowledge of the structure and content of a foreign (non-English) language.
Sales and marketing – Knowledge of principles and methods for showing, promoting, and selling products or services.
Health Care
Social perceptiveness – An awareness of others actions and understanding why they react in a certain way.
Active listening – The ability to give full attention to what others are saying, understand the points being made and asking questions when appropriate.
Coordination – The ability to adjust actions in relation to others' actions.
Critical thinking – The ability to use logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions to problems.
Psychology – Knowledge of human behaviour and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioural and affective disorders.
Problem sensitivity – The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong.
Speaking – The ability to talk to others and convey information effectively.
Creative Arts and Design
Originality – The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation.
Visualisation – The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or its parts have been rearranged.
Design – Knowledge of design techniques, tools, and principles involved in production of precision technical plans, blueprints, drawings, and models.
Fluency of ideas – The ability to come up with a number of different ideas about a topic.
Active learning – The ability to understand implications of new information for current and future problem-solving and decision-making.

Source: https://www.opencolleges.edu.au/careers/professional-development