{"id":953,"date":"2022-04-12T18:58:25","date_gmt":"2022-04-12T18:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-oswego-businesscommunicationmgrs2\/?post_type=chapter&p=953"},"modified":"2023-04-28T17:02:27","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T17:02:27","slug":"12-1-professional-skill-building","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-oswego-businesscommunicationmgrs2\/chapter\/12-1-professional-skill-building\/","title":{"raw":"12.1 Professional Skill Building","rendered":"12.1 Professional Skill Building"},"content":{"raw":"

What you\u2019ll learn to do:\u00a0Discuss how to gain skills necessary for professional life<\/h2>\r\nThere is no doubt that a huge percent of life is spent at work. If you were to work forty hours a week and live to seventy years old, thirty-five percent of total waking hours of your life would be spent at work.[1]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Considering how much time is spent in a work environment, you want to be sure you have the right skills and mindset to make the difference between \u201cgoing to work\u201d and \u201chaving a career.\u201d This module discusses ways to develop and demonstrate skills for an enjoyable career. To start the discussion, the module examines career skills, transferable skills, and new skills to be acquired.\r\n
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LEarning outcomes<\/h3>\r\n
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  1. List specific skills that will be necessary for your career path<\/li>\r\n \t
  2. List transferable skills that will be valuable for any career path<\/li>\r\n \t
  3. Explain how to acquire the necessary skills, both in and out of class, for your career goals<\/li>\r\n \t
  4. Describe the stages of career development<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    Skills for a Career<\/h2>\r\nIf you lived and worked in colonial times in the United States, what skills would you need to be gainfully employed? What kind of person would your employer want you to be? And how different would your skills and aptitudes be then compared with today?\r\n
    \"Black<\/div>\r\nMany industries that developed during\u00a0the 1600s\u20131700s, such as health care, publishing, manufacturing, construction, finance, and farming, are still with us\u00a0today. And the professional abilities, aptitudes, and values required\u00a0in those industries are many of the same ones employers seek today.\r\n\r\nFor example, in the health care field then, just like today, employers looked for professionals with scientific acumen, active listening skills, a service orientation, oral comprehension abilities, and teamwork skills. And in the financial field then, just like today, employers looked for economics and accounting skills, mathematical reasoning skills, clerical and administrative skills, and deductive reasoning.\r\n\r\nWhy is it that with the passage of time and all the changes in the work world, some skills remain unchanged (or little changed)?\r\n\r\nThe answer might lie in the fact there are are two main types of skills that employers look for: hard skills and soft skills.\r\n
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    • Hard skills<\/strong>\u00a0are concrete or objective abilities that you learn and perhaps\u00a0have mastered. They are skills you can objectively claim, like using a computer, speaking a foreign language, or\u00a0operating a machine. You might earn a certificate, a college degree, or other credentials that attest to your hard-skill competencies. Obviously, because of changes in technology, the hard skills required by industries today are vastly different from those required\u00a0centuries ago.<\/li>\r\n \t
    • Soft skills<\/strong>, on the other hand, are subjective skills that have changed very little over time. Such skills might pertain to the way you relate to people, or the way you think, or the ways in which you behave\u2014for example, listening attentively, working well in groups, and speaking clearly. Soft skills are sometimes also called \u201ctransferable skills\u201d because you can easily transfer them from job to job or profession to profession without much training. Indeed, if you had a time machine, you could likely transfer your soft skills from one time period to another! Though it is important to remember that while soft skills are broadly consistent even from centuries ago, the specific execution of them requires continuous learning and recalibrating\u2014especially as the workplace diversifies.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n

      What Employers Want in an Employee<\/h3>\r\nEmployers want individuals who have the necessary hard and soft skills to do\u00a0the job well and adapt to changes in the workplace. Soft skills may be especially in demand today because employers are generally equipped to train new employees in a hard skill\u2014by training them to use new computer software, for instance\u2014but it\u2019s much more difficult to teach\u00a0an employee a\u00a0soft skill such as\u00a0developing rapport with coworkers or\u00a0knowing how to manage conflict. An employer might rather hire an inexperienced worker who can pay close attention to details than an experienced worker who might cause problems on a work team.\r\n\r\nIn this section,\u00a0we look at ways of identifying and building\u00a0particular\u00a0hard and soft skills that will be necessary for your career path. We also explain how to use your time and resources wisely to acquire critical skills for your career goals.\r\n
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      PRACTICE QUESTION<\/h3>\r\n