Knowing

your skills &

attributes

Careers Great Southern

Phone:(08) 9892 8749 Fax: (08) 9892 8898
Email: lesley.brand@gstafe.w a.edu.au

Careers South West

Phone:(08) 9780 7210 or 9780 7070
Email: careers_sw @swrc.wa.edu.au

Wha t do we mean by skills and a ttributes?

skill is the ability to perform a particular mental or physical activity which may be developed by

training or practice. (From the National Centre for Vocational Education Research glossary at
http://www.ncver.edu.au/research/core/cp9812.pdf)

An

attribute is a personal characteristic or attitude, like reliability or adaptability.

Why do you need to know yours?

Knowing your skills and attributes is important in planning your career path, but also crucial to getting a
job. Throughout the recruitment process in networking, developing your resume, application and
interviews you will need to know your skills and strengths and how to communicate them effectively to
potential employers.

Think of your skills in

two ca te gories:

Wha t skills to Employers

want?

1. Technical skills (or industry-specific

Its not enough to have just the technical skills for

skills), usually acquired through formal

a job. Employers will also judge your suitability

on- or off-the-job training and can be

and capacity for a job through your employability

used in a limited number of jobs.

skills and personal attributes.

These skills and attributes were identified by

2.

Employability skills (also called

employers in a major Government-funded survey

transferable or generic skills). These

in 2002. To see the report go to http://

skills apply in almost all jobs they are

www.acci.asn.au/text_files/issues_papers/

transferable from one role to another and

Employ_Educ/ee21.pdf.

you can continue to build on them

throughout your life.

To see our summary of these skills and attributes

see overleaf.

Read on to find out how to identify

your skills and a ttributes

Knowing your skills & attributes

Identifying and communica ting

your skills & a ttributes
Start to list them
To get started, see the Job Search Guides Recognise your Skills and Abilities at http://
www.det.wa.edu.au/training/sub-sites/jobsearch/recognise.htm

Swinburne University of Technologys Skills and Attributes http://www.swinburne.edu.au/corporate/

careers/Skills%20and%20Attributes.pdf sheet has heaps of great info and examples on how to
identify and describe your skills

Use words from our summary of Personal Attributes and Skills from the Employablity Skills report
(below & page3/4)

Continue to build your list of skills and attributes

.and examples of how youve used them.

As you build skills, add them to your resume so its always current and READY TO GO!

You can keep a diary or list of examples of how youve used your skills especially the transferable
ones - and attitudes. Youll almost always get asked questions about these in applications and
interviews, and they can sometimes be hard to remember on-the-spot, so have a few ready to go
with! (If you havent done much paid work, use other examples from other situations such as

Use the employablity skills list

Use our summary of Personal Attributes and Skills from the Employablity Skills report (below) as
a checklist to see where your strengths are and what you need to work on.

Personal ATTRIBUTES
Commitment

Personal presentation
Commonsense

Balanced attitude to work

and home life

Honesty and integrity

Positive self-esteem

Ability to deal with pressure

Enthusiasm

Sense of humour

Motivation

Reliability

Adaptability

Loyalty

Knowing your skills & attributes

Employability SKILLS
The Skill

The Elements (facets of the skill that employers identified as important,

noting that the mix and priority of these facets would vary from job to
job)

Communication

Listening and understanding

that contributes to

Speaking clearly and directly

productive and har-

Writing to the needs of the audience

monious relations
between employees
and customers

Negotiating responsively
Reading independently
Empathising
Using numeracy effectively understanding the needs of internal and external
customers
Persuading effectively
Establishing and using networks
Being assertive
Sharing information
Speaking and writing in languages other than English

Teamwork that contributes to productive

working relationships
and outcomes

Working with people of different ages, gender, race, religion or political persuasion
Working as an individual and as a member of a team
Applying teamwork skills to a range of situations, eg. Futures planning, crisis
problem solving
Identifying the strengths of team members
Coaching, mentoring and giving feedback

Problem solving

Developing creative, innovative solutions

that contributes to

Developing practical solutions

productive outcomes

Showing independence and initiative in identifying problems and solving

them
Solving problems in teams
Applying problem-solving strategies across a range of areas
Testing assumptions taking the context of data and circumstances into account
Resolving customer concerns in relation to complex project issues

Initiative and enter-

Adapting to new situations

prise that contrib-

Developing a strategic, creative, long-term vision

utes to innovative

Being creative

outcomes

Identifying opportunities not obvious to others

Translating ideas into action
Generating a range of options
Initiating innovative solutions

Knowing your skills & attributes

The Skill (contd)

Planning and organising that contribute to long-term

and short-term strategic planning

The Elements (facets of the skill that employers identified as important,

noting that the mix and priority of these facets would vary from job to
job)
Managing time and priorities setting timelines, coordinating tasks for self
and with others
Being resourceful
Taking initiative and making decisions
Adapting resource allocations to cope with contingencies
Establishing clear project goals and deliverables
Allocating people and other resources to tasks
Planning the use of resources including time management
Participating in continuous improvement and planning processes
Developing a vision and a proactive plan to accompany it
Predicting weighing up risk, evaluating alternatives and applying evaluation
criteria
Collecting, analysing and organising information
Understanding basic business systems and their relationships

Learning that con-

Managing own learning

tributes to ongoing

Contributing to the learning community at the workplace

improvement and

Using a range of mediums to learn mentoring, peer support, networking,

information technology (IT), courses

expansion in employee and company

Applying learning to technical issues (eg. Learning about products) and

people issues (eg. Interpersonal and cultural aspects of work)

operations and out-

Having enthusiasm for ongoing learning

comes

Being willing to learn in any setting on and off the job

Being open to new ideas and techniques
Being prepared to invest time and effort in learning new skills
Acknowledging the need to learn in order to accommodate change

Technology that

Having a range of basic IT skills

contributes to effec-

Applying IT as a management tool

tive execution of

Using IT to organise data

tasks

Being willing to learn new IT skills

Having the occupational health and safety knowledge to apply technology
Having the appropriate physical capacity

From Employability Skills for the Future (DEST 2002).

This report was generated after extensive consultation with employers across Australia.