5 Essential Skills you should Develop for any Job
There are some practical skills that turn out to be very useful in almost any career. I have picked these up over the years and they have turned out to be essential. The best thing is that they apply to almost any person at at whatever stage your career is in.
1. Touch Typing
Typing without looking at the keyboard (touch typing) is a low-key superpower to have. It's subtle and useful for both taking notes and typing reports, research and just messing around without drawing attention on long Teams calls.
I learnt to type on a real typewriter. This was in my first year of high school. We didn't know the value of the lessons until much later in life, but rather it was a break from ‘real learning’. The first thing we learnt was never to look at the keys but get used to the home keys where your left and right fingers rest, the left hand on ‘ASDF’ and the right on ‘JKL; ‘. The thumbs were for the space bar. As a class of 13 year old boys in our first year of high school, our feisty teacher made our lessons interesting by her strict enforcement of the ‘don't look at the keys’ rule as we clanged on the manual keys with actual metal hammers and ink on ribbons hitting the paper to indent the intended letter. It is one of the most satisfying things a writer experiences now that I reflect on it; but that's a story for another day.
There are many ways you can learn typing now. You don't have to get a real typewriter, your laptop or PC keyboard works just fine. There are online typing courses and programs, some free that will take you through the paces of learning. It is tough at first but well worth it.
If you're a purist who wants to learn typing the ‘real’ way, here's a link to some choices of old school typewriters on Amazon. Good luck with the ribbon and paper smudges. Remember there is no backspace, you learn to live with your mistakes in this world. This is where Tippex was used in drum loads by the way.
2. Clear Writing
To communicate clearly you have to write clearly. This is learnt through practice. I have written emails, reports, analyses, notes, presentations, opinions and instructions every working day of my career. It is putting thoughts and ideas to paper and writing sharpens both. Another low-key superpower. Writing amplifies creativity and solidifies ideas and opinions. It opens the way for your intended audience to know exactly what you're saying. They can go over it again and again without asking anyone so your intentions are known, for the most part. I say this because some people will confuse rather than convey a clear message, which goes to my next point. Write short sentences.
Writing short and clear sentences, with simple language, is underrated. Being long winded and using jargon out of context confuses people most of the time. You lose your intended purpose in communication if you cannot express yourself in simple language. There are platforms to be verbose and convoluted, where garnishing our soliloquies with flowery expressions, meandering broodings and spicy idioms is actively encouraged (see what I did there ). Don't do it in business if you can help it.
Part of my job as an engineer is ensuring people know the specifications, requirements and deliverables in any project. If I cannot write clearly, the purpose of any project will not be fulfilled and that translates profit in a business and to services not rendered to the customer. No one wins when you are not clear about your purpose and intention. Risk is increased multiple fold if you fail to write clearly.
The final point on this is learn to use slang, swear words and informal abbreviation in the right context. In most cases, don't use these at all in business communication. You might be the hip parent or the Gen Z new recruit, check your text messaging, or is it Snapchat, lingo at the metaphorical door.
Tools for Writing
You can use a plethora of tools to write and it depends on your device. Some write on their phones and tablets, some on laptops and others on desktop computers. The best tools are ones you can save and organize. Knowing how and where to save your writing plays a big part in how useful it will be in the future. Learning how to organize your computer or phone folders (using file managers) is something that must be perfected. Otherwise you will never find what you wrote in a mess of files on your desktop or my documents folder. These are the tools I find to be useful for writing
A Physical notepad or diary. Always carry one to jot down notes, reminders, thoughts and ideas. A short pencil is better than a long memory. When I take instructions from colleagues or learn something new, I make sure I take written notes as this re-enforces learning and you can always refer to the notes in the future as a simple reminder.
Google Docs is always useful as it saves automatically and has great availability across devices. It also allows for simple conversion to pdf and word if needed. Google Docs is also available on phones.
Notion is a super tool for note taking, but it does more than that, it allows you to organize, plan and manage projects. It takes some getting used to but proves to be extremely useful if you use it consistently. It doesn't hurt to have an app on any smart phone.
3. Sales
Even while having formal technical sales experience, I find that I sell myself and my company everyday. Sales is a skill people have to be aware of and one you have a sales mindset, it helps to navigate your job, whatever it might be.
We sell every day. We sell in every position we are in and as long as you are working, you are in sales. You sold your time for a paycheck and the interview was your sales pitch which the employer gracious accepted in their terms. From there you sold yourself to colleagues and customers and ultimately sold the product or service your company provides directly or indirectly.
One thing I learnt in selling directly to customers is to pay attention to your client's problem. Listen attentively and learn to have empathy so that you scratch their itch. Don't be a psychopath who thinks the world is there to scratch their itch, all the time. People want to be listened to, called by their names and have their concerns addressed and questions answered.
I have learnt to always tell the truth. Be clear and respectful but never lie or embellish the truth to get the sale. It always makes life easier for you in the long rung. Under-promise and overdeliver; don't give unrealistic timelines that you know you will never meet remembering that it almost always takes longer than you think.
In selling always learn to price yourself right, don't sell yourself or your product or service at a loss unless there is a strategic play to get a profit in the long run or it is genuine charity or community service. Be honest about how much you want and learn to negotiate to get it. There are many tools online that you should look at, including YouTube channels that specifically teach sales and marketing.
4. Graphics Design
I use graphic design both on personal projects and for my work. I’m self trained in Photoshop, CorelDraw and online tools. Other tools I use daily are Microsoft Paint, yes that simple tool on every computer since Windows 95 and Microsoft Visio along with Word, Powerpoint and Excel. These are incredibly powerful graphics design tools, especially Powerpoint.
This skill enables me to spice up my presentations, create logos for projects, create infographics and diagrams that represent what I want to convey. As an engineer sometimes the simplest way to explain how something works or how a process progresses is to make a colourful flowchart. An example is one I created just now to illustrate my point, it took me less than 10 mins in Visio to create but given more time and information, a person can create powerful graphics without the help of a professional graphics designer.
This graphic is not spectacular but it coveys a message in fewer words without boring anyone. I have found that you don’t have to be perfect to get your message across, sometimes it takes a simple graphic to make things more interesting whether you’re writing a report, preparing a presentation, giving a review or pitching a product or service.
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Other graphics tools I have learnt to use are a simple screenshot, for Windows users, using the snip and sketch tool enables you to take instant photos of the part of the screen you are working on and you can sketch or highlight it.
Some useful online tools for graphics design are:
Canva - This is a super site that has some very good templates and the free options are top notch as well
remove.bg - This is the tool you have been searching for, it removes the background of a picture almost perfectly every time using AI.
5. Microsoft Excel
This might be a personal bias as an engineer but Excel is amazing. There is not a single day in my working life that I did not open an Excel Spreadsheet at some point in the day. There may be exceptions when I was on site or in a presentation but for my day to desk duties it is an essential tool to utilise, but you have to be skilled and proficient in excel to use it effectively. From scientists to engineers, accountants, administrators, students, receptionists, economists, salespeople, estimators, medical doctors and many other professions, Excel has a special use case in any job situation.
I do not have Actuarial proficiency in Excel but these tools help me and should help anyone who wants to use Excel to improve their work:
Formulas
Starting from simple addition of cell contents to complex formulas that span over many worksheets, you have to experiment in excel to know what works for you. One thing I have realized is that there is always a step by step YouTube video of how to carry out the task that is confusing you in excel. Most of the time what takes you hours usually has a faster way of doing on Excel, be curious and ask the internet, you are likely to find a formula or code that will help for advanced users.
VLOOKUPs
Practices VLOOKUPs if you are a beginner as these will make data manipulation easier and save you a lot of manual searches in spreadsheets. You should always have a way to verify your results independent of any formula so always double check to ensure you are getting accurate values. When you have mastered VLOOKUPs, try XLOOKUPs and all the other brothers and sisters of that family of formulas.
Pivot Tables
When I discovered Pivot Tables in Excel, it was a revelation. I kicked myself looking back over the years where I did manual work for hours that could have been done in seconds. Pivot Tables help to make sense of large amount of data, helps to gain insights such as trends, counts, asymmetries and even some not so apparent parameters.
Slicers
A step higher than Pivot Tables is slicers. These, along with Pivot tables enable large amounts of data to be filtered and for you to create dashboards that enable you to monitor progress or changes in your data as the spreadsheet is updated with more information either manually or from a connected system. Slicers are simple to set up once you understand Pivot Tables and there are dozens of tutorials online to ensure you practice and start using these tools.
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