What Color Is Your Parachute 2018 by Richard N. Bolles copy

work-ethic,” “a positive attitude,” “acting as a team
player,” “flexibility,” “working well under pressure,” and “ability to learn from
criticism.”
Petal Three, Introduction
A CRASH COURSE ABOUT SKILLS, TALENTS, ABILITIES
“Skills” is one of the most misunderstood words in all the world of work.
It begins with high school job-hunters: “I haven’t really got any skills,”
they say. Wrong!
It continues with college students: “I’ve spent four years in college. I
haven’t had time to pick up any skills.” Wrong!
And it lasts through the middle years, especially when a person is
thinking of changing his or her career: “I’ll have to go back to college, and
get retrained, because otherwise I won’t have any skills in my new field.”
Or: “Well, if I claim any skills, I’ll have to start at a very entry kind of
level.” Wrong!
All of this confusion about the word “skills” stems from a total
misunderstanding of what the word means. A misunderstanding that is
shared, we might add, by altogether too many employers, and human
resources departments, and other so-called vocational experts.
By understanding the word, you will automatically put yourself way
ahead of most job-hunters. And, especially if you are weighing a change of
career, you can save yourself much waste of time on the adult folly called,
“I’ll have to go back to school.” I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:
maybe you need some further schooling, but very often it is possible to
make a dramatic career-change without any retraining. It all depends. And
you won’t really know whether or not you need further schooling, until
you have finished all the exercises in this self-inventory.
So, let’s begin again. Simple. Precise. Clear. What are skills? According
to “the father” of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, Sidney Fine, we
all have three kinds of skills—abilities, talents, or whatever you want to
call them.