Transferrable Skills and Aptitudes – A User Guide

Key Points

•  A skill is a learnt capacity to perform a task, we were not born being able to do all that we can do.
• There are several different categories of skills that are needed to a job effectivey  – I have grouped them into four basic categories

o  Technical – skills needed to do a specific job

o  Industry knowledge – skills and experience needed to understand how the industry in which you work functions

o  Business – general skills needed to function well in a business environment

o  Life Skills and Attitudes – what is needed to get through life reasonably successfully 

• Skills can be leaned in many ways both formal training and by doing the job, making mistakes and learning from them
•  There are obviously several different levels of skill held by a person, or a team of people. Folk tend to be pretty lousing at judging their skill levels (Dunning Kruger and Lake Wobegon effects) – effective skill evaluation with sensitive handling of the people involved can lead to better training programmes to enhance overall skill levels
•  Some people within your organisation or community will love helping to train, coach and develop others – it might be a good idea to make better use of these valuable individuals

What Skills do Employers say they Want

Employers are clamouring for skilled people. Not a day goes past (well it did before Corona – B.C. anyway) that a business leader talks loudly that their organisation, the country or the world in general lacks skills or cannot get the right people. Skills wanted by employers in Britain (and probably elsewhere) are listed as:

?      Communication                                   97.60%

?       Teamwork/Co-operation                    95.20%

?       Enthusiasm for Your Work                 95.20%

?       Work Ethic                                          94.00%

?       Responsibility                                     92.80%

?       Efficient Planning                               91.60%

?       Positive Attitude                                 91.60%

?       Ability to Adapt                                   90.40%

The above are mostly personal attributes and are claimed by virtually every candidate. You almost always see “hard working, organised, enthusiastic team player” on resumes. It might be amusing to see “lazy, disorganised, sullen and anti-social” on a CV, which may actually be more honest. My fellow volunteer at Springboard, Paul Slone, described these as motherhood and apple pie words. Something nobody is against and everyone claims and therefore a bit meaningless

Figure 1. An Apple Pie – nobody is against it, or against basic “bland skills”, which many people can take for granted

The Skills Matrix – a systematic way of looking at skills

The skills matrix is a way of looking at skills in a systemic way (OK I am an engineer). This brakes down the attributes and capabilities needed to do specific job into four basic categories

Figure 2. The Skills Matrix.

Specific Skills are essentially confined to a particular industry, while transferable skills can be used in any industry (although there is a need for adjustment). So-called hard skills are more measurable, for expel you can either fly a plane or you cannot, why so-called soft skills are much harder to quantify.

Technical Skills

The technical skills are very specific to the particular job. All jobs require some appropriate specialist knowledge. This knowledge can be learnt in University or college, from on the job training or via learning by doing. Some jobs require formal qualifications others, which can be equally skilled do not.

There is however a fair bit of variability in what skill levels can be required, from basic entry level to highly advanced specialist. There is also the factor of depth vs breadth (i.e. deep specialisation vs broad integration abilities).

A typical job description will have a list, often a very long list, of these technical requirements. Unfortunately for the candidate it is not always clear as to which of these demands is really important and what is nice to have. 

This list is often put together by a committee and everybody’s pet hobby horse gets included. No one wishes to remove any skill from the required list, lest somebody gets offended, so that in the end, Superman and Wonder Woman will have a struggle in meeting the job specification

Figure 3. The three elements within the technical skill area. Practical knowledge is about actually doing the task, for instance being able to press the right buttons in the workflow on a specific software suite. The theoretical knowledge and qualifications area is about knowing why the button needs to be pressed and what the results actually mean. The experience and context part is about the person having performed the task before and having learned from the experience and hopefully making different mistakes next time.

Industry Knowledge

This is the understanding that comes with working in a particular industry or sector. This includes knowledge of procedures, protocols, regulations and contexts. Also included is an understanding of allied disciplines and how they work together. For example, in oil and gas, a geophysicist (unless they are from the extreme pointy end of seismic processing or QI) will need to know what a drilling engineer does in order to plan oil wells together.

An unstated part of the industry knowledge requirement is the ability to fit in with existing people in the industry.  Many people like feeling comfortable and somebody who is intellectually and culturally like them, and a fellow insider will make most people feel comfortable.  

There is also the need to train an outsider in the peculiar ways of a particular industry. This may take some time (or may alternatively be very easy). An outsider may also ask useful questions, such as, why is this done in this way? which might lead to some positive change.

Being an outsider who has joined a new industry or sector can also feel like being an immigrant. Career changers can suffer from culture shock, similar to moving to a new country. They may need a fair bit of adjustment, particularly if their new field is significantly different to their previous world. This factor needs to be understood by all concerned and can be overcome.

Almost every industry thinks that they are unique and special, few actually are. 

Business Skills

These are the skills required to operate in a business context and are, in theory transferable between any industry or organisation. These skills will need to be adapted to work in different contexts and a specific role will have a defined level of expertise from basic knowledge to full mastery. Examples of business skills include:

Analysis

Problem Solving, Scenario Analysis, Risk and Uncertainty Management, Strategy Analysis. Non-specific IT skills.

People and Management

Leadership, Direct People Management, Project Management and Planning, Contractor and Supplier Management. Customer Management, Working Effectively with Internal and External Stakeholders, Change Management, Joint Venture Management and World Wide Working (being able to work effectively with people from other cultures) 

Finance and Procurement

Budgeting, Procurement & Tendering, Commercial and Economic Analysis

Communication and Marketing

Advocacy, presentation, sales, marketing, negotiation, government relations, training, coaching and mentoring, Report writing, visualisation and content production

HSSE

Safety, environmental, occupational health, security (including information security)

Obviously, everybody will not have all of these skills to a deep level. A well written job specification will however what competencies are actually needed

Life Skills

Life skills are the skills that we use to navigate through life. Some of these are qualities and attributes (that is what you are) rather than directly learnt behaviours. I can divide these into the exciting, Tigger skills and the so called staid but essential Eeyore skills

Figure 4. The Eeyore and Tigger skills. The left-hand column lists essential but non glamorous attitudes which enable people to function effectively. The right-hand column lists more exciting sounding skills. I believe that both are important. 

An example of the skills requirement of a petroleum geologist is shown below:

Figure 5. A skill matrix for a petroleum geologist

Personal Skills Audit

There are various levels of mastery in terms of people’s skill levels.

1.      At the entry level there is basic awareness – e.g. I am aware of the basic concepts an can talk about this topic with an expert without making a fool of myself

2.      I can do this task under supervision

3.      I can do this task on my own on a regular basis, but some advice comes in useful occasionally

4.      I have mastery of this task and can advise people on it (But I am still open to advice from others)

5.      I have mastery of this task and I can train other people in doing it (But I am still open to learning from others as well)

Obviously, people ranking their own skill levels does bring up some anomalies. People can be pretty lousy at estimating their own skill levels with some exaggerating their capabilities and others playing down their competence. The Dunning- Kruger effect, a cognitive bias, also plays a large part in this.

Figure 6. Dunning Kruger Effect (source Wikipedia)

The Dunning -Kruger effect is a cognitive bias where people who know a little overestimate their knowledge and capabilities. While people of mid-level ability underestimate their capabilities as they become aware of the full complexity of the task and take what they already know for granted. For a talk about this by David Dunning – please see here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOLmD_WVY-E

Groups may also overestimate their collective skills levels due to the Lake Wobegon Effect – from a fictional mid-west American town where all the pupils in the high school are above average

Learning Skills

We all learn in different ways; some teaching ways are more effective than others at different stages of user competence

·        Training course and formal education are great for introducing a concept – really good for developing a basic awareness of a skill, but will only take you so far. Generally, the more interactive a course is the better and teacher skill is highly important.

·        Learning by doing – in this way a person develops competence in a task, but this takes time and will require some supervision, and the learner needs to be allowed to make mistakes (which might be a bit of a problem in a safety critical environment such as a hospital operating theatre, nuclear power station, a drilling rig or an oil refinery). Using realistic simulated exercises can allow the learner to cock up without actually killing anybody.

·        Sitting with and shadowing an expert – the learner depends on the expert; their attitude, how busy they are and their teaching capability (not all experts are good at passing on knowledge)

·        Peer workshops – when professionals discuss a subject together in an open forum, an excellent chance to receive ideas and receive feedback – however this takes time to arrange and also needs effective facilitation

·        Learning by example – seeing how something is done well or badly and adjusting your own methods accordingly by copying the good and avoiding the bad. The key here is to see examples of other peoples work, both the good (which they proudly show off) and the bad (which takes real courage, particularly in some cultures, to publicise)

A key factor is developing a mindset that is open to learning and willing to make mistakes. This is easier in some cultures and environments than others and fostering such a mindset is a challenge for business leaders committed to getting the best from their people

A good way of looking at leaning skills was shown to me by Linda Denny, a fellow volunteer. This method divided a person’s skills into four categories:

a.      Easy to learn and easy to do – something a person just picks up naturally

b.      Easy to learn but hard to do – something which is not technically complex but requires a fair amount of mental or physical effort to accomplish

c.      Hard to learn but easy to do – it may have taken you a long time to learn how to do this but now that I have mastered it, it is simple for me

d.      Hard to learn and hard to do – where people struggle (but may feel satisfaction once they have accomplished the task 

Figure 7. Skills quadrant for a personal audit

Summary

·        Many employers ask for a myriad of skills from their potential recruits – often the list is very long and Superman and Wonder Woman may be challenged to meet these requirements

·        A skills matrix can enable employers to draft their requirements in a systematic way – focussing on what is important in being successful in the role

·        Candidates can also use the skills matrix to how what they are good at and to identify gaps, which can be filled through training, but beware of Dunning Kruger and Lake Wobegon.

·        People can also look at their personal learning styles, how do you learn best?

·         How do you effectively advertise your skills and demonstrate their usage in a new context?