Skills Archives - The Voice of Job Seekers

Professional Skills Matter—Adapting is Essential

We’re experiencing a world where hundreds of people can have the same skills and years of experience. Yet, proving you can adapt to hostile and turbulent environments create a professional brand employer will hire to get. Not necessarily to keep unless you prove your skills extend beyond what’s needed today.

We see this with businesses, but it’s much clearer because of the pandemic. Before the pandemic, businesses with an online presence didn’t have to rely on in-store customers to profit. Amazon didn’t have to close stores or lay off employees because they were already where the attention remains. You must think the same way Amazon does, and be as vigilant and cognizant successful businesses are, and adapt preferably before the demand rushes in.

Have a profound sense of the skills required to work in your industry.

Recently, I talked to a healthcare worker who is a trauma nurse manager. She explained how drawing blood, titrating fluids, and emergency life-saving skills are the same everywhere. But if you cannot adapt to change quickly without minimizing distractions, it’s harder to find jobs and escalate your pay rate. A nurse who cannot perform at a high-level where anxiety flows through intravenously and unpredictably during a “code blue” is a liability as it’s vital to keep the patient alive.

Understand your profession.

In many cases, it doesn’t take long to show your inability to adapt. The pandemic and the sudden layoffs showed how people were ready to pivot and change immediately—those who take more time to acquire newer skills to an aggressively changing job marketplace.

Yes, this pandemic brought unpredictable changes but exposed job seekers who did not pivot with their urgency in needing work. That doesn’t invalidate their need for help or their need for a job. They need patience and help. But it does reveal the need to future-proof their careers in what will matter to employers.

Results in an ever-changing environment that “fast” used to be the word to sift candidates. Although speed matters, it doesn’t tell the whole story. The ability to forecast and adapt to change has to be proven. You can add more value if you can teach others how to do it if you’ve constantly done it. It’s proof. I’ve talked over the years about having a consultant mindset. The things you implement overtime get better because applied knowledge is tangible, and you know the secret.

No strategy, ability, or implementation are irrelevant if you cannot show methodology and consistency.

About Mark Anthony Dyson

My name is Mark Anthony Dyson, and I am the Founder of The Voice of Job Seekers. I am a career advice writer, but more importantly, I hack and re-imagine the job search process.. I've worked with hundreds of job seekers one-on-one helping them to construct a narrative and strategy that appeals to hiring managers and recruiters. I present at colleges and organizations, and facilitated many workshops including my volunteer effort through a Job Lab. I write and create useful job search content on this blog and write career and workplace advice for blogs such as Glassdoor, Payscale, Job-Hunt.org, Prezi and more. Media Feature highlights: Forbes, Business Insider, NBC News, Glassdoor, LinkedIn's #GetHired, and NPR Freelance writer and content contributor: Glassdoor, Payscale, job-hunt.org, The Financial Diet, RippleMatch.com and more. Contact me to contribute career, job search, or workplace advice for your site at markanthonydyson@gmail.com.

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Graduates, the Skills Gap is Real

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We have been hearing about the skills gap for a long time and studies in the past address the lack of what employers want. Payscale released a skill gap study detailing the disconnect between managers and recent graduates regarding their preparedness for employment after entering the workforce, and which skills managers are most likely to consider absent or deficient. Please go to Payscale’s website to view and download their report!

I discussed this two months ago with Rich Thompson, Adecco North America Chief Human Resource Officer. He also said one of the biggest challenges employers have is the skills gap. It is evident according to the study and organizations; graduates are not ready to present themselves as proficient in business oral and written communication. Lydia Frank from Payscale is with me to discuss their skills gap study specifically as it relates to college grads.

Have you been turned down for a position because you lacked skills? Talk to us. Here’s how you can participate in the discussion:

Call and leave a voicemail at 708-365-9822, or text your thoughts to the same number
Go to TheVoiceofJobSeekers.com, press the “Send Voicemail” button on the right side of your screen and leave a message
Send email feedback to mark@thevoiceofjobseekers.com

Lydia Frank was in episode 68 last year, and most recently on episode 111. I bought her back to discuss the latest study conducted byPayscale.com. Lydia is the Senior Director of Marketing for Payscale and salary negotiation columnist for Money.com. Her media contributions include TechCrunch, Havard Business Review, The Huffington Post, and CBS News.

The study focuses on the value of skills gap and identifies skills that affect pay in a positive way
Industry specific expertise will differ especially in the technical fields
The study focused even more of graduates
Writing proficiency and public skills are lacking–perhaps due to technology
Personal communication does not carry over to business communication
More proof and assessments. More frequently, the first two interactions with a company would be a telephone interview and a skills assessment
Great work by blogging is valid social proof and differentiate from the competition
We talk about how critical thinking affects the need to assess. Questions around critical thinking often evaluate how a job candidate thinks about solving a problem
Employers want to see the work and his or her process
Lydia discusses how a diversity of thinking and the background of the team is important–does he or she complement the team? Not just diversity of people
The study looks at the skills gap by U.S. region

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About Mark Anthony Dyson

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3 Skills to Showcase When a Resume Lacks Experience

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You may be surprised to hear your resume lacks experience, but changing it is not as difficult a task as you may have initially thought.

The truth of the matter is that you can do various things to, in a way, pad out a rather empty resume and how it may very well increase your chances of getting that all important job.

Add experience by volunteering
One of the first things that you can do is to volunteer at various places for a short period of time and include it your resume. The idea is to let them see that you have kept yourself busy even if it was not in paid employment and can see you can deal with people, respond positively to instruction, and work in a team environment. This can help boost your resume and make more attractive to potential employers.

Get quality references for everything
When you lack career experience give a potential employer the chance to talk to people worked for or volunteered. Talk to people that know you personally. These references can be extremely useful in helping you state your case for working there. When you lack experience potential employers will contact them. Make sure that the people that are listed will tell people how wonderful you are to help you get that job.

Write a gushing report about yourself and your strengths
Finally, it will always be a good idea to showcase your various strengths and make sure that you sell yourself on your resume. This could potentially overlook your lack of experience when they see how confident you can handle the job. If you are applying for various positions in different industries, then be clever and rewrite this part for each resume you forward. Make sure that different strengths are mentioned for the industry you hope to work. By doing this, you can make yourself appear to be more attractive to a potential employer.

Hopefully you will now see that getting around the lack of experience in your resume really is not as difficult as you may have initially feared and as long as you take the advice that has been given here seriously, then there will be no need for you to fear handing over your resume when going for that job.

All that is required from you is to play to your other strengths and let them see why they should hire you in the first place thanks to being a fantastic person and not because you have so much experience that they simply cannot ignore you.

What volunteer work can you add to your resume? Please share in the comments section below?

About author: Miles Wiseman is a writer and blogger from Brisbane who takes particular interest in finance, business and employment. He writes about all the interesting things related to job search, career progress, etc.

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Have a profound sense of the skills required to work in your industry.

Understand your profession.

About Mark Anthony Dyson

About Mark Anthony Dyson

About Mark Anthony Dyson