Assessing Your Professional Skills
The dynamics of the 21st century place an ever increasing demand and pressure on individuals across all levels and industries to continuously develop their professional skills. According to a American Management Association survey
executives say the typical knowledge and skills in the areas of reading, writing, and arithmetic (the three Rs) are no longer sufficient for managers. To ensure success in the workforce of the future, the three Rs need to be fused with four other skills (the four Cs): 1) critical thinking and problem-solving skills, 2) communication skills, 3) collaboration skills, and, 4) creativity and innovation skills.
This MEAPA assessment allows people to better understand the professional skills employers are looking for
today.
Action Steps - Step one: Using the list of professional skills listed below, write down up to five examples (or as many as possible)
of when you demonstrated each task during your career.
- Being flexible while managing multiple tasks
- Collaborating with others
- Communicating by listening, writing or speaking
- Completing assignments independently
- Connecting choices and actions to ethical decisions
- Demonstrating innovative or creative ideas
- Engaging with others at work and the community
- Getting along with others
- Learning about new technological developments
- Locating, organizing and evaluating information
- Managing and leading others
- Organizing and executing a plan of action
- Thinking critically and analytically to solve problems
- Understanding global issues and their implications
- Working with numbers and analyzing data
Step Two: Intersection - After writing down examples of each skill, identify which one or two illustrate very clearly the intersection of what you like to do and what others have said you are good at. For example, "I like to locate, organize and evaluate information and two managers on different occassions told me that they really liked my work." This will be important as you work on marketing your value better."
Step Three: Goals - Identify one or two skills you would like to work on during a given period of time and keep track of your progress. Use a calendar to write down when you are going to work on what skill and how you are going to do it.
For example: "on Monday night between 7:30-8:00 I am going to work on understanding global issues and their implications for the future by reading a New York Times editorial. To work on my written communication skills I will then write a 200 word response. My goal is to do this every Monday for the next four weeks."
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