Professional skills in a resume: examples of skills and knowledge. Examples of professional skills and abilities in a resume

You can interest an employer if you immediately write in your resume about what you can do. This will help him determine how quickly you can adapt and understand the nuances of the work. To understand how to write about your skills correctly, you can look at an example of professional skills in a resume. Just be sure to make allowances for your personal experience, employer requirements and specifics of the future position.

Possible professional skills

It is worth understanding that in this section of the resume you need to indicate your main skills. If you do not yet have work experience, you can enter the results of your pre-graduation internship. Almost all resumes can include the following skills:

working with a PC;
knowledge of foreign languages (indicating your level) - this can be fluency, the ability to perceive written information and translate it with a dictionary;
ability to analyze documents;
planning work and organizing the labor process;
ability to make quick decisions.

But they should be used in cases where you do not have practical experience and any achievements.

Skills for Communication Careers

When sending your resume to an emerging vacancy as a sales consultant, you must describe your experience and indicate what you can do. The seller's professional skills may include the following:

experience in communication and direct sales;
ability to adapt and find an approach to the client;
opportunity to work in stressful situations, under pressure;
willingness to communicate politely, without imposing one’s own position;
the ability to step back, but at the same time fulfill your responsibilities;
ability to solve problems without involving administration.

You need to convince the employer that you can communicate with people and sell products.

But for a psychologist there will be different requirements. You can tell him what he has worked with and what he can do best. He may have the following professional skills:

diagnostics of personality and relationships;
solving problems in the team and family;
conducting tests and interpreting their results;
conducting trainings;
solutions to personal growth problems;
listening, empathy, reassurance;
finding approaches to each client;
implementation of psychological rehabilitation measures;
working with phobias, shocks, stress.

Skills of specialized specialists

The selection of candidates begins with resume assessment. If you want to get an interview, then indicate your main skills, without hoping that a couple of general phrases will be enough. You can look at an example of professional knowledge for a system administrator resume to understand what to include. The following skills can be distinguished:

practical experience in installing and diagnosing networks;
providing technical support and working with clients;
diagnostics of failures and problems;
experience working with servers, installing them and configuring them for specific tasks;
monitoring the operation of systems;
risk planning and development of IT structure restoration schemes;
ability to work with Windows programs;
knowledge of technical English;
installation of equipment, adjustment of its operation;
control of the appropriate level of information security;
working with technical documents.

Don't overdo the listing! Too many declared programs may raise doubts about your level of proficiency in each of them. After all, real competence is not acquired even in one month.

But professional skills in an accountant’s resume may look like this:

maintaining tax and accounting records;
knowledge of relevant legislation;
ability to work with accounting entries;
inventory skills;
ability to manage primary documents;
knowledge of the principles of calculating sick leave and payroll;
reporting preparation and submission skills;
knowledge of the Client-Bank system and specialized accounting programs;
ability to carry out mutual settlements, reconciliation acts.

You shouldn't write about skills you don't possess. After all, this can be revealed at an interview or on the first day of work.

To be an employee or head of a legal department, you must be able to work with documents and search for the necessary information.

As a lawyer, the following professional skills are generally expected:

ability to draw up and analyze submitted contracts;
Negotiation;
representation in courts;
carrying out claim activities;
drafting legal documents;
support of the company's activities;
legal support for the organization’s work;
representing the company in government bodies and various authorities;
ability to work with legal documents and legislative bases presented in electronic form.

Having indicated such skills, be prepared to confirm them at the interview. The employer may ask for specific examples or give you a practical problem that will require these skills to solve.

A good resume should have a focused, presentable and concise summary of skills, knowledge and abilities. This block has at least one important purpose.

Why write about professional skills on your resume?

Your skills are a distillation of your experience. You may have several jobs, serious work experience and a description of the experience may take more than one A4 page. This is a large amount of information and the HR manager will have to study it for a long time to understand whether you fit the requirements of the vacancy or not.

Help the HR manager, do this analytical work for him. This will increase your chances of getting an interview.

The main purpose of a skills list is to show that you are a perfect fit for the job requirements. This is exactly the principle I adhere to when I create a “selling” resume.

What professional skills should you include on your resume?

How to show that you are suitable for a vacancy? There are three rules for describing professional skills and knowledge in a resume:

Compliance with job requirements.
Presentability.
Conciseness.

Compliance with job requirements

Exactly this important rule, which must be followed when writing a resume.

Firstly, position yourself at the “executive-manager” level. Looking at your resume and skills, it should be immediately clear who you are.

In the course of my work, I often have to remove or reformulate many “executive” phrases from the resumes of managers and directors. Correct positioning is an important task.

Secondly, analyze the requirements and responsibilities of vacancies, see the style of phrases and expressions and other nuances. This will help you write professional skills and abilities correctly in your resume. To conduct such an analysis, you just need to find 5-7 interesting vacancies and study them carefully. You can easily copy good wording from job descriptions into your resume.

Presentability

Your skills should sound beautiful and strong. They must sell you, and clear and simple words, facts, figures, professional vocabulary or even jargon.

Here are some examples of professional skills on a resume.

Essentially, you just need to flesh out some skills. Facts are more credible, vocabulary shows your expertise, clarifications describe you better.

Conciseness

If you write few of your skills, you will get the feeling that you are not an expert.
If you write a lot, it will be difficult to read the resume, and there is also a risk of falling under the “overqualified” filter.

Common Mistake

Very often I come across a completely wild and faceless list of qualities on a resume:

Productivity.
Determination.
Communication skills.
Stress resistance.
Learning ability.
Initiative.
And so on.

The sad thing is that almost everyone writes this. This set of qualities, unfortunately, does not guarantee an invitation to an interview and does not make you more valuable in the eyes of HR specialists.

There are two ways to present yourself better.:

Delete this entire list and leave only the core job skills.
Choose one (the strongest) of your skills and describe it in more detail. If you decide to choose learning ability, write what exactly you mastered quickly - learned Japanese in 6 months, mastered CRM Axapta over a weekend, completed a BMW car repair course in two weeks and passed the exam with 98%. Specifics and facts are important!

Examples of skill descriptions

Below I will give some examples of professional skills and abilities in a resume. I chose several positions at different levels for this.

accountant

Experience in accounting and management accounting - 6 years (areas - wholesale trade, logistics).
Experience in setting up accounting and tax accounting from scratch.
Successful experience in passing tax and audit audits.
Experience in obtaining loans for a company.
Knowledge of taxation, currency legislation, Tax and Civil Code, RAS, IFRS, INCOTERMS 2000.
PC knowledge (Office, 1C 7.7, 8.2, 8.3).

Example of description of professional skills sales consultant

Consulting and serving customers on the sales floor.
Registration and delivery of online store goods.
Checking the serviceability of goods.
Reception and display of goods.
Handling claims (returns, accepting goods for warranty repairs).
Reporting.

An example of a description of a driver's professional skills

Driving license category B, D.
Driving experience - 17 years.
Excellent knowledge of the city and suburbs of Moscow.
Experience in minor car repairs.
Experience of traveling to the European Union, knowledge of rules, laws, paperwork.
Without bad habits(I don’t smoke, I don’t drink).
Citizenship of the Russian Federation.

An example of a lawyer's professional skills description

Experience in legal support of the company (7 years in production).
Experience in resolving disputes and protecting company interests.
Experience in pre-trial dispute resolution.
Knowledge of legal documents (contracts, statements of claim, claims, powers of attorney...).
Ability to communicate with government agencies and authorities.
Ability to work with clients.
Knowledge of current legislation of the Russian Federation.
English is fluent.

Example of description of professional skills manager (director)

Higher economic education + EMBA.
14 years of experience in production management (wood processing and furniture production).
Personnel management skills (teams of up to 220 people).
Thorough knowledge of warehouse logistics and supply.
Skills in interaction with regulatory authorities (certification, licensing and other tasks).
Knowledge of laws, rules and regulations of safety, labor protection and environmental standards.
English language - Upper Intermediate.
Excellent PC knowledge (specific knowledge of SAP).

Professional skills for a resume are an integral part of the document, most often a separate block. Using them, the employer determines the applicant’s capabilities as an employee of the company. You need to choose them carefully in order to attract the recruiter with whom the further conversation will take place.

What is - Professional skills for resume

Professional qualities are a set of personal qualities and skills that a specialist acquired during. They help to improve in the future and benefit the organization.

Quite often, a resume contains qualities that are only conditionally professional. For example, a developed sense of humor. If a recruiter is looking for a person to fill a lawyer position, he will not rate this quality highly. But for a corporate event host, he can be considered professional.

Before delving into the definition of professional skills, we recommend that all job seekers, or those who are just about to find a new promising job, familiarize themselves with the online course: “New job: strategy, preparation, search.” In three days you will be taught how to present yourself in the best way possible.

What professional skills should I include on my resume?

Basic 3 rules for writing a resume

To describe professional knowledge and skills in a sales resume, simply follow three principles:

Conciseness. If you write little information, doubts will appear. If there are an excessive number of points, it will be difficult to read the resume. It is better to choose an average number of skills – 6-9;
Compliance with the requirements specific vacancy. It is necessary to position yourself at the “executive-manager” level, so that when viewing a resume, the recruiter immediately understands who he is dealing with;
Presentability. The information in your resume should sound strong and beautiful. You should write specifically. For example, sales experience (5 years in the wholesale department). If you have experience in personnel management, you need to indicate in the document how many people were in the team.

General skills

The employer will definitely appreciate your ability to establish contact with counterparties in writing and orally, achievements in the field of service, organization of work processes, public speaking experience and other abilities. But in any field, employees with high motivation for results, initiative, energy in solving issues, competent speech, speed in decision making, and responsibility are valued. This is what will help

Directions to career growth You will be advised by a consultation with Career Vector specialists. Experts will guide and support your actions to achieve new levels.

Applicants often indicate that the candidate must have:

Technical skills;
Leadership qualities;
Marketing skills;
Experience in organizing and managing processes.

The modern labor market requires new knowledge modern technologies. To get a sought-after internet profession, additional training is often required.

Special Skills

There are special skills that professionals have. The list is general and not suitable for every specialty.

Professional skills in a resume are as follows:

(specific language and level);
Knowledge of programming languages;
Business communication skills (written and oral);
Efficiency in searching for information;
Planning;
Procurement experience;
Sales analysis;
Negotiation experience;
Experience in handling objections;
Care in preparing reports;
Willingness to work in a team;
Independence in decision making;
Ability to use methods of persuasion;
Experience with programs (1C, Word, Excel);
Ability to operate office equipment;
Experience in telephone sales (“cold”, “hot” calls);
Collection and preparation of statistical data;
Direct sales experience;
Working with commercial proposals;
Merchandising experience;
Motivation and training of employees.

Each profession requires certain abilities. It is imperative to indicate them in the appropriate section of the resume. Among the listed skills, you can find those suitable for a specific specialty.

To determine your professional abilities, take the “Career Guidance” test

The optimal number of skills in a resume is 6-9

Examples of skill descriptions

It is important to understand that the list of professional skills in a resume must be consistent with the requirements for a specific position. For example, accuracy can hardly be called a mandatory professional quality of a top manager. But for the secretary it will be a tangible advantage. Therefore, when writing a resume, you should consider how relevant the skill is to your profession.

You can see standards and examples of the most successful resumes in the book by Vladimir Yakub. A certified specialist and MBA teacher, one of the best headhunters in Russia shares his experience and examples in his book “A winning resume. 1:0 in your favor!” Buy a book, sell yourself and have a successful career!

An example of a description of the professional skills of a sales consultant

The position of sales consultant attracts many. But not everyone stays in this role for long. The profession is not suitable for hot-tempered and conflict-ridden people. Sanguine and phlegmatic people usually achieve great results in it.

Key skills for a sales consultant resume:

Ability to interest buyers;
Ability to handle objections and prevent conflicts;
Knowledge about products in a particular store (clothing, equipment);
Individual approach to the buyer, determining his needs and assistance in making a choice.

An example of a description of an accountant's professional skills

Let's consider what qualities an accountant needs for a resume:

Punctuality;
Organization;
Performance;
Accuracy.

Skills that need to be indicated in the document:

Preparation of primary documents;
Working with large amounts of information;
Knowledge of the Civil Code, Labor Code and Tax Code of the Russian Federation;
Knowledge of rules and experience in accounting and tax accounting.

An example of a description of a driver's professional skills

Key skills for a resume could be:

Driving experience (15 years);
Knowledge of Moscow and the Moscow region;
Careful driving style;
Polite communication with clients;
License category C, driving experience without accidents – 7 years.

An example of a lawyer's professional skills description

Professional skills and abilities in a lawyer’s resume:

Knowledge of the Consultant Plus and 1C programs;
Knowledge of contract, labor and commercial law;
Experience in using the services “My Arbitrator”, “Card Index of Arbitration Cases”;
Competent preparation of procedural and legal documentation.

An example of a description of the professional skills of a manager (director)

Skills for a resume for a management position:

Creation from "0" effective activities commercial service (marketing, sales department)
Experience in personnel management of up to 1 thousand people (motivation, training, selection and dismissal);
Market research (analysis of the organization’s competitiveness and customer requests);
Forecast and implementation of sales plan.

An example of a description of the professional skills of a secretary

Basic skills for a secretary:

Proficiency in English (level);
Knowledge of the basics of office work;
Experience using MS Office programs;
Proficiency in office equipment.

Writing a resume online

There are dozens and hundreds of candidates vying for one position, so it’s important to stand out. At this stage, it is impossible to attract attention to yourself with personal charm. Therefore, in order to write your professional skills in a non-standard and correct way, you should use original services for writing a resume online:

Zerply. This social network has received high praise among developers and designers, as it will be possible to publish a portfolio there;
CVmaker. The service is suitable for creating a standard, but stylish resume. It provides six free templates designed in a classic style.
Each has its own skills, which must be taken into account. After compiling your resume, you should imagine yourself as a manager who needs an employee for your position. Changes should be made until you are satisfied with the result. You don't need to make a very long list, otherwise your resume will be put aside.

When you're looking for a job, it's important to understand what skills you have. It is also important to ensure that the employer has a correct understanding of your skills. Many people have problems with this. A huge number of job seekers, especially women, often underestimate or overestimate their capabilities. And this reduces their chances of finding a decent job. After all, they cannot present themselves correctly at an interview. Annette Richmond, founder and Chief Editor career-intelligence.com, has compiled a kind of cheat sheet on all the skills that you may need for successful employment.

What are the skills?

A skill is the ability to perform certain actions. There are 3 types of skills: innate, acquired and specialized.

Innate Skills- these are our character traits. We use them in all areas of our lives. If you ask your friends to tell you what you are like, the adjectives they will use will be your innate skills, such as punctual, honest, organized, friendly, and so on. Yes, you can force yourself to be punctual, but for people who turn off the annoying alarm clock several times in the morning, this will be much more difficult than for those for whom waking up early in the morning is no problem.

Many job seekers do not attach importance to such skills, although they are very important for the employer. Many people can't stay with one employer for long because they can't do their job. According to a study conducted Robert Half & Associates among HR directors: “The most common problems we encounter are lying and dishonesty (14%), absenteeism and tardiness (12%), arrogance and overconfidence (12%), lack of desire to work (6%) .

Acquired skills you gain over time by moving from one job to another. Skills such as effective methods Communication is easy for some people, more difficult for others. But usually the skills of this group are acquired and transformed over time. Here are some more: written and verbal communication, leadership skills, negotiation skills, problem solving skills, and the ability to complete work on time.

If you manage to discover the skills of this group, you should definitely tell your potential employer about them. After all, this will give you a number of advantages in terms of the following reasons: Each company has its own specifics of work, but each of them needs a person who knows how to motivate employees. Even if you change careers, you will always need communication skills.

Specialized Skills usually acquired for a specific position. Typically, when people are asked what skills they have, they answer the first thing that comes to mind: computer programming, flying an airplane, ability to use special computer applications, professional video shooting skills, ability to type a certain number of characters per minute.

This group of skills is very important and many people cannot get another position due to the lack of certain skills. For example, a secretary who wants to get a management position will emphasize her innate and acquired skills in the interview. And for the HR employee, the most important thing will be to know about her communication skills and ability to resolve problematic situations. The last thing the HR department will be interested in is how many characters per minute this secretary used to type.

It's important to determine what skill set you have before you begin your job search. This information will be very useful when writing your resume. Also, before the interview, you will need to determine what the three to five most important skills you would like to present to the employer. Be prepared to provide specific examples of how these skills can be used. For example, when talking about your ability to work in a team, talk about a specific joint project that you were able to complete.

Of course, many people are stressed when looking for work. It’s one thing when you just change jobs, but what if a person changes profession? Either way, having a thorough understanding of your skills will be your first step towards success!

Work on yourself

Well, are you ready to evaluate your skills? Take a piece of paper and list them all. After that, evaluate what skills you have in highest degree, and which ones would be useful to you in another job that you would like to get. Now look at the first ten skills on your list. These are the ones you will need to indicate on your resume. Choose 3-5 skills that you will focus on during the interview. Be prepared to give specific examples.

Below are examples of skills for each type: innate, acquired, and specialized. Some skills can be of more than one type. For example, the ability to be collected and organized can be considered both an innate and an acquired skill. It all depends on you.

Innate Skills

ability to accept criticism addressed to oneself	creativity	honesty
perseverance	easy character	determination
good faith	full of enthusiasm	patience
tact	helpfulness	ability to attract people
energy	loyalty	you rarely take time off
friendliness	organization, composure	responsibility
erudition	ability to easily solve problems	you can be trusted
openness to everything new	fast learner	well-developed sense of intuition
perseverance	stubbornness	understanding what they want from you
punctuality	versatile	self confidence
you can be relied upon	ambition	developed sense of mutual understanding
reliability	ability to adapt to new surroundings	rationality
competence	willingness to meet halfway	intelligence

Acquired skills

accept responsibility	you know how to think logically	analyze information well
creativity	you can be a link	you collect information well
develop goals	you can motivate others	customer service oriented
evaluate ideas	plan well	easily maintain relationships with people
know how to listen to others	run your meetings well	friendly
you can instruct other people	manage your budget well	complete the work on time
you negotiate well	know how to speak in front of an audience	good at sales
good speaker	you can provide psychological counseling	know how to delegate responsibilities correctly
good at editing written material	result oriented	do your interviews well
manage project implementation well	you teach others well	organize information well
do your research well	have excellent writing skills

Specialized Skills

Compile your list of specialized skills based on past work experience, making sure to include the skills you possess that are necessary to get the job you want. For example, you know how to use a graphic design program or know how to operate an X-ray machine.

Based on materialscareer- intelligence. com

Photo in the announcement:pixabay.com

For some reason, most people still think that success depends on the level of professionalism in the profession. It depends on how well you understand your immediate work, whether you are an engineer, programmer, marketer or seamstress. I have one very good friend who once said that good specialist- This is a public specialist. If you are a professional, but no one knows about it and no one works with you, what's the point? If you are an excellent specialist, but cannot convince others of this, declare yourself on the market, publicly convey your ideas to others, then why should others perceive you as successful? Often people who want to realize themselves in society lack not professionalism, but the ability to be an effective leader both in relation to others - to lead, and in relation to themselves - to behave and manage their effectiveness.

If you begin to study the topic of leadership in a little more detail, you will learn that instead of a high level of IQ, real leaders have a high level of EQ - emotional intelligence. These people may not be able to do the work of an executive, but they know how to delegate, take responsibility for the result and make decisions. Of course, you must be a professional in your field, but without the proper soft skills, this will often not lead to scaling your success.

In any case, each of us would always like to speak, speak, persuade, plan and earn so well that there would be no competitors for you. Unfortunately, during our studies at schools and universities, we did not acquire the skill of self-education at all, but did what we were told to do. Do you remember at least one class in which the teacher gathered expectations from a particular seminar from a group of students and really focused on your needs? In general, the education system is built in such a way that a person does not need to think much, but just needs to learn and not make mistakes - this is a fact that has long been known to everyone. By the way, this is the most dangerous thing: the existing educational system teaches you to be afraid to learn, afraid to make mistakes, afraid to do something wrong, different from others. Eventually, most of the population is afraid or does not know how to defend their position and rights, make clear and informed decisions, analyze the situation (before doing something), or the other extreme - do it, and not spend years thinking about what should be changed in their life. As a result, many people find that learning is a burden for them.

In reality, learning is an interesting and integral process in the life of every person who wants to make a career and become the best professional in their industry or market. In many Russian companies, unlike Western ones, managers still devote two-thirds of their working time to anything other than personnel development. Successful companies have long implemented a system of training and development, and mentoring most important function any leader. Without personal development there will be no career development.

This book will help you, as a leader, entrepreneur or employee, understand how to achieve results and your goals faster through continuous professional, personal and personal growth.

What makes it possible to accelerate your development?

By consciously choosing certain areas of development, you begin to pay more attention to situations and actions related to achieving your chosen development goals. You purposefully try to gain exactly the experience that is necessary in order to develop in the direction you need. Thus, you do not go with the flow of life, but move where you want, using both planned steps and new opportunities that arise in your professional activity.

What prevents people from developing:

Lack of knowledge of where, why and how to develop, vague and unrealistic plans;
Lack of willingness to change something in your current work and life in general; at the end of the training (webinar/master class/lecture), forget everything that happened an hour ago and get over it as soon as possible emotional condition rather than something constructive;
Doing only what you are good at and fear of taking on other new tasks and projects;
Lack of desire to search and find time to think about your actions and their results;
Lack of interest in feedback about the success of one’s actions.

I have a good friend, let’s call him “Ivan”. Ivan has been constantly coming to all my master classes, trainings and webinars for 4 years. Of course, he also attends classes in other projects. A kind of training vampire - a freeloader. He has been walking for four years - nothing has changed in his life in four years. Eternal student. A good example that reflects that simply going to educational events is pointless. If you have such acquaintances or you see yourself in one of the points, then don’t worry - this is normal: much of the above can be easily corrected and all you need to do is take a little more meaningful approach to personal development.

And why, in fact, is all of the above dangerous? You spend your time, energy, and effort on anything but improving your own effectiveness. I call this approach “Let’s sprinkle and pray” - people subject themselves to all the trainings in a row indiscriminately - “Maybe I’ll learn something.” Someone stands still for a long time and wastes this very time. Someone is simply afraid to believe in something more than he has now. Some people simply don’t believe that they will succeed. Some people waste their time making everyone other than themselves (such as a teacher, speaker, or mentor) responsible for their growth. In any case, every person has a huge number of different kinds of problems that prevent him from accelerating his growth (up the career ladder, in business, or wherever else). And as soon as a person realizes what is slowing him down, he begins to believe in himself, allows himself to desire more, takes responsibility for his movement in this life - he immediately begins to notice how he himself begins to jump, as he previously thought, above your head.

And when someone hears me say, “This is what’s stopping you from developing and growing further. If you implement such a tool, you can get what you want!” People are divided into two clans: “Forget it” and “What should I do with it or how to implement it?” As you understand in in this case correct and adequate reaction of a person with common sense asking the question “How can I implement this and what of this do I really need?” This old story about the fact that the world is ruled by those who ask themselves the question not “Why?”, but “How?”. How can I achieve more? How can I learn to get what I want? How can I speed up my growth? How can i do this?

Here is a very important idea, perhaps the most important in this book: learn the skill (or strengthen it) of asking yourself the question “How can I achieve the goal and solve the problem?” or “How can I increase the effect of what I am doing now?”

Let's see when development occurs:

Do you strive to develop and gain new experience, grow professionally;
You have an idea of your development goals and a specific development plan;
You are ready to leave your “comfort zone” and try not only what you are good at, but also something new, take risks;
You analyze your actions and their results, look for the reasons for success and failure in your actions, and not in external circumstances;
Are you trying to receive feedback about the success of your actions from colleagues, subordinates, managers or experts from the open market.

Thus, you need to understand one simple truth: if you really want to develop, you really know what and why you are going (and formulated it), you understand what skills you need to develop and what tools you will use for this, then the results will not force you wait.

Top most necessary Soft-Skills competencies

You already have a question: “So what should I develop in the end?” Let's move on to the fun part - an overview of the required portfolio of skills for a business person. In this application, I decided to present to you the most popular and well-known skills that are required to increase the level of personal effectiveness (corporate worker, manager, entrepreneur, official).

There are two types of skills: soft-skills and hard-skills. The first are socio-psychological skills that will be useful to you in most life situations: communication, leadership, team, public, “thinking” and others. The second is professional knowledge and skills: you will need them at work and in carrying out business processes. To develop skills, you need to choose the right tools (and not one, but two or three). Later in the book, I will describe in some detail how to use one or another development tool, be it training, reading literature, attending webinars, or communicating with a mentor.

There is also a third side to the issue - personality. In this case, I mean the totality of your personality traits and attitudes towards the world around you, people, success, defeats, goals, and so on. In this version of the book we will not touch on this issue in detail, but know that no skills will save you if you do not have a prepared personality. For example, if you don’t respect and love your employees, then you won’t be able to develop motivation skills until you change your relationship with your employees. You also can't learn to sell if you don't have respect for your clients, your people, and your product. What is primary is your attitude and attitudes towards things, and skills are secondary.

You can find many different classifications of skills, but here, for ease of understanding, I decided to divide competencies into four main areas:

Basic communication skills that help you develop relationships with people, maintain conversations, and deal effectively in critical situations when communicating with others. Everyone needs these skills.
Self-management skills: help to effectively control your condition, time, processes.
Effective thinking skills: managing processes in your head that help make life and work more systematic.
Management skills that people require at the stage when they become managers of any business processes and entrepreneurs.

Communication:

listening skills
persuasion and argumentation
networking: building and maintaining business relationships
Negotiation
producing a presentation
basic sales skills
self-presentation
public performance
teamwork
focus on results
business letter
customer focus

Self management:

emotion management
stress management
managing your own development
planning and goal setting
time management
Energy / Enthusiasm / Initiative / Perseverance
Reflection
Using Feedback

Thinking:

systems thinking
creative thinking
structural thinking
logical thinking
search and analysis of information
development and decision making
design thinking
tactical and strategic thinking (for managers)

Management skills:

execution management
planning
setting tasks for employees
motivation
monitoring the implementation of tasks
mentoring (employee development) - mentoring, coaching
situational management and leadership
conducting meetings
giving feedback
project management
change management
delegation

Entrepreneurial skills:

When compiling this list, the idea arose to add “Entrepreneurial Skills.” This can, of course, include skills such as business planning, financial modeling, understanding of marketing processes, business promotion and reputation management skills. But since we are talking mainly about soft-skills, I came to this decision: an entrepreneur possesses (ideally, of course) all of the above skills. You might think that in this case he only lacks x-ray vision and the ability to fly, and perhaps you would be right. In this model, the entrepreneur is the perfect example of a super-person, pumped up with the most necessary skills. Without them he will stumble different stages business development. If you teach an entrepreneur how to promote on the Internet, but do not teach how to sell and negotiate, everything will end in tears. He simply will not be able to establish communication with clients, and perhaps even with partners and colleagues. Most businesses fail not because the entrepreneur did not find an idea (ideas are worth absolutely nothing - most business ideas have already been invented a long time ago), but because he was unable to implement it due to a lack of personal competencies.

General development rules

Make your learning and development a continuous process: gain new experience, meet new professionals, take on more complex tasks, use new tools in life and, most importantly: do it constantly.
Learn to effectively plan and organize your development.
Approach your own development comprehensively: use different formats of development and training.
Be curious about the information around you: study the business processes around you, constantly learn about new trends, and be interested in achievements in your areas of interest. Curious and inquisitive people are interesting, successful, exciting, fascinating and open-minded!
Develop your skills gradually: choose those areas that will really help you achieve success in your work, study or business.
Make it a habit to read literature and information resources in your field every day, constantly increasing your level of expertise. Build it up not only in professional areas, but also in personal and personal effectiveness.
Develop your personal and professional skills while working, constantly taking on new tasks and projects;
Find people you want to learn from and look up to (both personally and professionally).
Learn to effectively use the feedback you receive (others' reactions to your actions or inactions) and determine its value.
Make the most of the opportunities of alternative education organizations in your city: attend all events that are useful and interesting to you: master classes, trainings, seminars. Determine their quality and level of speakers in advance.

Individual development plan

In general, people are quite chaotic in many ways. Often they take steps without organizing, without understanding the system as a whole, simply using individual elements and tools. For example, they go to different events, but cannot form a single picture. Or they try to follow the rules of a healthy lifestyle, but very partially: they eat healthy food, but do not use aerobic exercise; they are trying to learn something, but they don’t quite understand how to continue to live with it, and in general, what it was all for.

In order for training to be truly effective (as well as any other activity, project management, for example), you need to effectively set a goal and plan the process. I'll tell you briefly how to do this.

Most importantly: take responsibility for your own development. Do not shift responsibility to teachers at the university, trainers at the training center and speakers at business incubators.

Make your development plan for three months, six months, a year. Look at your development with a view to your future goals in life, business or career.
In your plan, identify the three most important subject:
- What will you develop in - goals (to do this, analyze all the barriers to your life or business goals, ask for feedback from authoritative and reference people);
- What will you develop - competencies/skills (select the skills necessary to achieve your goals);
- How will you develop - development tools (select suitable development tools);
Find a reference person who can give you constructive feedback on the IPR: they can confirm your skills and help you choose developmental actions.
Be clear about how you will evaluate the results for each tool and each goal. Plan your goal using the accessible and well-known SMART system. When you have formulated your goal, ask yourself the following questions, which you should definitely be able to answer: “Is my goal specific? Do I understand what it means?”, “How will I know if I have achieved my goal? How will I measure the result?”, “Is the goal adequate? Will I really be able to achieve it within the specified time frame?”, “Do I really need to achieve this particular goal?”, “When do I want to get the result? (year, month, day).
Be sure to plan various developmental activities (they will be described in detail later in the book): trainings and master classes, development in the workplace (or on projects), self-development and reading literature, mentoring: learning from others, and others.
Clearly understand what needs to be done and when: set precise boundaries for all tasks you will perform, all developmental events you will attend.
Select intermediate control points to regularly (at least once every 3-4 weeks) monitor the results and (if necessary) adjust your IPR.
Always keep your plan within easy reach so you can refer to it at least once a week.
Organize the process of learning new skills so that you have the opportunity to practice each of them. Do not move on to the next element until the previous one has been mastered sufficiently. You can learn only one element of a complex skill or behavior at a time.

Skill Development Methods

Moscow was not built in a day. As well as your results in the skills you want to acquire. Below I have described how to effectively use development methods. Trainings and seminars - mastering models of successful behavior in the process of various types of training events.

Self-study - self-study information about models of successful behavior. Here we can include reading literature, independent study of various materials (articles, blogs, training manuals), and listening to webinars.

Seeking Feedback- receiving feedback from colleagues, managers, mentors and experts from the open market about the success of your behavior in terms of a specific skill.

Learning from the experiences of others and mentoring- identifying models of successful behavior in the work of a person with a high level of development of this competence and working with a mentor.

Special tasks (background training)- independent exercises that develop certain competencies, cultivate selected personal qualities in you or, conversely, utilize bad habits.

Development during work- search and development of more effective models of behavior when solving problems included in your professional functionality.

Be sure to strike a balance: you need to develop professional knowledge and skills, but do not forget that a large part of success in the market depends on who you are, and not just on how well you know or are able to do something. professional field. There are people who are excellent professionals and masters of their craft, but either no one knows about it or no one wants to admit it.
Select specific skills (list of four categories above) that you need for development in the near future (one month - three months).
In order to do this effectively, be sure to assess your level of possession of a particular skill (just be honest with yourself) before you say exactly something from the series: “This is what I need!”
Strengthen a maximum of 2-3 skills and clearly understand what results you want to achieve.
For each skill, choose not one, but at least 2-3 development tools. Always combine ways to develop skills: collect feedback, take on new tasks and get out of your comfort zone, read books. Combining skills will allow you to achieve results faster and make them better.
If you notice that developmental actions are not having the desired effect, you analyze why this is happening and make the necessary changes either to the plan or to the way you carry it out.
You do not cancel developmental activities completely. If their implementation is impossible, you replace them with equivalent ones.
If you have no idea about a skill, but somehow realized that this is exactly what you need, then first find out in as much detail as possible (books, trainings and master classes, articles, blogs) about what exactly it is and is expressed. After that, start using other methods of its development.

Use this method:
- if you need basic knowledge and skills that you will further develop and use in life and work;
- if you understand the need to organize the knowledge that you already possess.
Trainers and experts do not always give new information, but often you can significantly increase the level of awareness of what and how you do, and, therefore, you can learn to predict the results of using a particular tool.
If you want to get new expert information on a skill you are interested in, be sure to check with the organizers and the trainer (expert) before the training whether it will tell you what you need to know and what level of participants the class is intended for. Very often a situation may arise when you come to a training for beginners (already having some kind of expertise on the topic) and in this case you do not get much benefit for yourself, and many try to show their dissatisfaction or extreme degree of indignation at what is happening. By the way, in such a situation, if you find yourself in it, I recommend spending time usefully and with pleasure: sharing your experience with other participants, gaining reference, trust and gaining new contacts.
In the case opposite to the previous point - when we got to an event with strong and already experienced participants - I recommend getting involved in the process as much as possible, not being shy, remembering that learning is necessary in order to make mistakes and learn new things. You must concentrate and turn on maximum curiosity and be interested in what you do not understand.
When attending trainings and master classes, set specific learning goals during and before the program. Be sure to answer the questions: “What do you want to start doing better after the training?”, “What do you want to learn and what do you want to practice?”
Don't expect that you will develop a skill during the training. You can learn something, organize something, or practice something and gain a skill. You will acquire the skill only when you put into practice what was discussed during the training.
Take an active position: the coach’s task is to help while mastering the skill, to correct what is not immediately possible, but not to form the skill for you.
Maintain a culture of learning: don’t shout to the whole audience that you are the smartest. At every training and master class there is an opportunity to learn new things, learn new things, structure old things, and update your knowledge portfolio. Find benefits for yourself.
Try new actions in different practical situations outside of training. Ask questions to the coach if something didn’t work out in your work practice. Once the training is over, it will be harder to ask.
When attending trainings, remember that the work takes place in artificial situations specially selected for training. Problems arising in real life, are much more complex and versatile. However, try to model your behavior from real life and work during the training.
All the techniques learned in the training are not worth a penny without further practice in real life.
Immediately after the training or master class, write down 2-3 points that you will apply in life from the moment you leave the room.

Mentoring and learning from others

Always find people from whom you can learn something new or learn about something new. You may be very knowledgeable about a subject, but remember that there is always more to learn. In Russia, people believe that education ends at the university and with age a person’s mind becomes more and more conservative and ossified if he does not leave his comfort zone and does not strive to learn new things.
Find yourself two types of mentors - mentors: those who know that they are your mentors and those who don’t even suspect it. Those who know: communicate with them periodically, ask difficult and interesting questions(you can check simpler ones with colleagues and friends who are experts in one direction or another). For those who don’t know that they are your mentors: watch them, adopt their behavior patterns, study their history, their ups and downs, their successes and mistakes, cases, improve your skills based on how they use theirs.
You can find mentors at professional events (among speakers and visitors to conferences, forums, round tables, trainings, master classes, workshops).
Be sure to study the success story of the chosen mentor: where he came from and where he came from.
Mentors can be different: it could be a 60-year-old businessman from the USA, or it could be a 28-year-old entrepreneur who has achieved certain success in the place where you are currently developing. Don't hesitate to learn from young experts.
Don't expect your mentor to do the work for you.
If you need something, ask for it. If you need feedback, ask for it. If you need coaching, ask for it. If you need advice or guidance, say so. Don't be offended if you did the work or exercise and didn't receive feedback. Your development is your responsibility.
When you observe an authority, try to observe what you like, what and how he does: how he speaks, at what speed, in what tone, how he thinks. Try to understand why it is this way and not another.
Quite a lot of what I've learned has come from watching someone and copying elements of their behavior. Believe me - it helps.
Interact and collaborate as often as possible with more competent colleagues and partners who have the qualities and skills that you strive to develop in yourself.
Consult with them as you progress through the chosen type of work, and ask for specific recommendations.
Contact them with specific requests that align with your development goals. Ask to tell: how they do specific work - with examples; what are their little practical secrets of success, know-how; where and how they learned to do it, what helped them learn.
Ask experts for advice on how to acquire the necessary skills.
Observe their work, the specific actions they take in typical and critical situations. Record valuable ideas and practical moves.
Identify, record and try out practical subtleties and techniques from your own experience - in particular, those that are most effective for you.
You will be surprised, but: understand what you are more or less good at, and find yourself a mentee. Most effective method learn something - start teaching others.

Parable of the Bird and the Wise Man

One day a sage bought a bird at the market. Anticipating a delicious lunch, he headed home. Suddenly the bird spoke.

“Don’t kill me,” she said. “In exchange for freedom, I will give you three valuable pieces of advice.” After thinking, the old man agreed.

First piece of advice: never believe what you think is nonsense. Second: soberly assess your strengths and never take on a task in which you have little chance of succeeding. And finally, the third piece of advice: never regret the good you have done.

After listening to the bird, the sage released it. But, fluttering up the tree, she shouted:

You are a fool! Yesterday I swallowed a diamond, and if not for your gullibility you would have got it and you would have gotten rich!

Angry, the old man climbed the tree, but, unable to resist, fell and fell. The bird flew up to him.

You listened to my advice and seemed to even understand them, but when it came down to it, you acted completely differently. Well, tell me, why should I swallow a diamond? And didn’t you understand that at such a respectable age you would not be able to climb a tree? And you forgot about generosity as soon as greed began to speak in you. With these words, she flew away, leaving the sage lying on the ground.

Conclusion: many people make this mistake every now and then. They consult trusted experts to make the right choices, but end up listening to overly optimistic and imaginative people. Unfounded optimism awakens greed, and this is too strong a feeling.

Self-development

Read literature on the chosen topic. Write down the most important ideas, especially those that relate to the development goal and the specifics of the work. Adjust your own development program based on them.
Try to master basic speed reading skills: this is a very useful tool that helps you read and comprehend more literature in a short period of time.
Analyze your own life and professional experience, relevant to the goal, highlighting trends and individual useful moves.
Consider similar and/or comparable situations that ended in success or, conversely, in failure, specifically highlighting the actions that led to success and the actions that prevented its achievement.
Avoid taking actions that lead to failure.
Apply new approaches, methods, ideas you learn about to non-work situations for training.
Exists a large number of different resources, which allow you to get almost free access to all current business literature, for example, the bookmate application. Knowledge as such is devalued; on almost every topic you can find an endless number of webinars, online courses and literature.
After reading every article or book that you think is useful, be sure to either create a mine map or record the main useful conclusions and thoughts that you can immediately put into practice.

Using feedback

Feedback (hereinafter referred to as FE) can be called a person’s reaction to your actions or inactions. IN Lately many expect and ask for feedback from others, while at the same time treating it with either the “Wow, we need to implement it right away!” format. or “What are you saying? Go ahead with your feedback, I myself know what’s best.” As you understand, neither the first nor the second option will help you effectively implement the information received or, conversely, refuse to implement it. The important rule is that whether you accept or reject feedback is your responsibility. You can listen, or you can simply tell the person “Thank you!” and put the information in the “bottom drawer”. Remember: any feedback is very subjective and the person giving it gives it through the prism of his experience and his picture of the world. It is clear that your pictures of the world may differ.

Get feedback regularly.
The most important thing: collect both positive and negative feedback (“development vector”). You become stronger by strengthening your strengths, not your weaknesses. If you only ask for negative feedback, but forget about what you are getting, then you are missing a huge opportunity to continue to do it consciously, and strengthen your capabilities and potential. Still, ask to mark areas that require further development.
Ask for feedback from people who do a particular job well or actually have the skill you are developing.
Make the most of feedback from your mentor, but don't forget to get it from other professionals as well.
Agree with the expert before starting the action/observation what exactly you want to receive feedback about, so that you can record elements of behavior as the work progresses. For example, ask a coach or colleague to observe how you work with the audience on stage before your performance, so that he can then give you feedback on this specific request.
Get feedback on actions from different sides and points of view (from people playing different roles: subordinates, colleagues, management, clients; from people different types: more and less critical, more and less similar to you, etc.).
Thank you for your feedback.
Don't argue with feedback. If you do not agree with her, simply say “Thank you, I heard and understood you.” Remember that feedback is subjective and there is no room for justifying yourself to the person giving the feedback.
If you don’t really understand what the person giving you the OS means, then ask him a few clarifying questions. For example, he says that you are acting too self-confident (or, conversely, insecure). Ask him to give an example of situations where you showed (or did not show) this quality. You can ask what exactly was what he was talking about. In general, try to get OS based on your actions, and not abstractly based on your personality.
Reflect on the feedback you receive, draw conclusions, and use them the next time you complete the task. For example, you can write down feedback in your own way public speaking and repeat it half an hour before the next speech.

Development in the process of performing new tasks

Work in the “zone of proximal development”: take part in projects that are inherently more difficult than the tasks for which you are competent.
Choose as developing short term projects(no more than a year, but preferably up to 3 months).
Look for projects where the very qualities you are trying to develop are critical to their success.
Reflect on developmental experiences in the application of knowledge and skills that are subject to further improvement.
Do not be afraid of unexpected, atypical situations: they are the source of the most valuable developmental experience.
Do not use this development method on projects that have high business significance. In these cases, the cost of error will be too high.
At the same time, the development project must be necessary and useful to the company, otherwise you will not have the motivation to spend time on it, seriously make efforts and overcome yourself.
Over time, and taking into account your capabilities, expand the range of tasks you solve.
Apply in the workplace methods and ideas that are new to you, acquired through training, self-study, feedback, learning from the experience of others and during participation in development projects. Do this regularly.
Try each new idea at least three times - this will prevent you from abandoning a useful idea ahead of time.
Choose the safest situations to practice new techniques.
Think about what works and why and what doesn’t quite work. Take your conclusions into account in your next attempts.
Try to find yourself a mentor within the company in the person of a manager or corporate coach - they will help systematize your work if necessary or provide solutions to problems that you would have received if you spent more time.

Background jobs

There is another great tool: background tasks. You take on some obligation to follow a specific rule for a day or two or three. For example, you want to create the image of a confident person: walk for two or three days with your chin high and your back straight. You get used to the role, so to speak. confident person. Or you found out that often during negotiations or ordinary communication with friends you start your conversation with the word “No”, and this prevents you from achieving goals in communication. Within two or three days, you begin your answer to any person’s question with the word “Yes,” even if you further express a position opposite to your interlocutor. And so on.

That is, your task: find something that you want to develop in yourself (or that you want to get rid of), and for several days concentrate exclusively on it.

And so important point: if you violated the rule, then pay the person an amount (10-50-100 rubles - it doesn’t matter). If you promised yourself not to say the words “No” all day, then for each violation, pay the person to whom you said “no” 50 rubles. If you promised yourself to walk all day only with a straight back, but broke your promise - 50 rubles. You promised yourself to formulate your thoughts in a maximum of one or two sentences, but as a result, you speak for half an hour - 50 rubles. And so on. I unlearned even the worst habits within 3-4 days of doing a background task. I felt pretty bad about wasting my money. Although it is better to think of it as an investment.

What is important if you decide to work with this tool:

Be honest with yourself. If you wake up in the morning and make a commitment, be sure to stick to it. There is no need to feel sorry for yourself or procrastinate and put it off until later.
Take on background tasks when you have the time and ability to complete them. If you have very important negotiations scheduled for today, then you can cancel the task for a while, but then resume it again.
You can come up with a background task yourself. How to do it? Take the quality that you want to get rid of or that you want to acquire. Next, you think that you can stop doing (or, on the contrary, start) from the next morning until you go to bed. How can you follow this rule, and what will you sacrifice when you break it?
When you realize that a task has become easy, make it more difficult. For example, if within a few days you can start an argument with a person with consent, and then stick to your line, then you will then learn to monitor your gestures and facial expressions: nod only positively, not negatively.
Find yourself a person who will help you follow the rules you set for yourself. This could be your friend, good acquaintance or colleague.

Every day we are faced with different tasks and problems that need to be solved. Every day, month, quarter, year. Sometimes we take help from people who either help us solve the problem with advice and recommendations, or people who help us solve the problem by simply asking surveys (they know how to do it) and you find the solutions yourself. The first are, rather, consultants. The second are coaches. Surely you have encountered a situation where you were communicating with a person, talking about your problems, and while you were narrating this entire flow of information was structured and you suddenly (maybe with a couple of questions from the interlocutor) found a solution to the problem and as a result a feeling of ease came: hurray, I came up with it and understood how to solve the problem. It was so?

You can be your own coach. The skill of self-coaching helps you competently ask yourself questions and solve problems yourself faster and more efficiently. This applies to difficulties in business, in career, and in everyday life. This also applies to everyday questions and problems that have plagued us for years. Sometimes 30 minutes of analysis is enough to solve the problem. Moreover, unlike consulting, where responsibility for the decision lies with the advisor, in coaching you take responsibility for the decision upon yourself. Therefore, further, if you are unable to solve the problem, you will be a little angry, because shifting responsibility to others, to me, to the family, to the boss, to the partner or competitor will not work.

And one more very interesting fact: You always already have the solution to any problem. If you know and remember this, then you just have to find this solution within yourself.

Here are a few questions to help you “turn on your head”:

What is the problem?
Why do I think this is a problem?
Why is this question important to me? What will I get by solving it?
How do I want it to be? How do I see my ideal result?
What will solving this task/problem give me in the future?
How do I see the result of my actions or goals?
What can I do to achieve my goal?
Who or what can help me achieve my goal?
What haven't I tried yet to achieve my goal?
How can I enhance my results?
What are the risks and what can I do about them? How can I get the most effective results?
What will I do tomorrow or today to achieve results?
Do I understand that the responsibility for implementing these steps is mine?

Ideally, of course, you need a coach to help you at first. Even coaches have their own coaches - this helps a lot. The coach motivates and helps to find a solution. Find yourself a coach, meet with him once a week or three times a month: he will help you answer questions, plan further work on yourself or a project, direct your thinking in the right direction, help you structure the existing information in your head, and will support and sincerely believe in your success!

Skill Examples

In this part of the book, I will give examples of ideally developed soft-skill competencies so that you can evaluate yourself and understand which of them you need to develop and what to focus on. I will present to you the competencies that we consider, study in detail and practice in the “Open soft-skills program for career & business” program and give them several examples of how exactly they manifest themselves. If you are asked to evaluate the skill of selling or setting tasks for an employee, then you will probably need time to think about what criteria you will use to evaluate the effectiveness and development of the skill. In the professional community, these manifestations of skill are called “behavioral indicators.” How can you use it? Familiarize yourself with the skills you are interested in and rate your proficiency in them on a five-point scale.

I can help a little: it is important not to overestimate or underestimate yourself. Try to answer yourself as honestly as possible - at what level you have this or that competency. You can then use this to most effectively draw up your individual development plan, which was discussed above.

Basic Communication

What is the meaning of the skill: you effectively ensure two-way exchange of information in your own interests and the interests of your interlocutor.

You always understand the goals of each communication (both yours and your interlocutor’s)
Be attentive and interested in your interlocutor
You structure the information provided from general to specific, from problem to solution
When communicating, rely on your interests and the interests of your interlocutor
You regulate your nonverbal expressions during communication, understand your interlocutor’s nonverbal feedback, and change your communication strategy depending on the information received
Adapt your communication style to the level of your interlocutor
During communication, maintain eye contact with the interlocutor
Interest your interlocutors and involve them in the discussion of the proposed topic
Build a conversation based on the principle of dialogue: ask questions, listen to your interlocutor, comment.
Use active listening techniques effectively
Formulate answers to your interlocutors’ questions clearly and to the point