Taking Stock of Your Essential Skills: Specific Skills & General/Transferable Skills
Taking Stock of Your Essential Skills
What essential attributes do employers, graduate schools, and society want from you as a college graduate and productive citizen? The essential attributes fall into two skill categories:
I. Specific Skills: Evidence of Expertise in Your College Major
• Develop a portfolio of your academic major coursework and internships
• Show examples of your expertise development in your academic major
• Feature examples of your academic major coursework and how substitutes for professional experience
II. General Skills: Range of Skills from your College Experience
• Technology Skills (e.g., digital literacy, Web 1.0, Web 2.0, etc.)
• Quantitative skills (e.g.,accounting, statistics, economics)
• Communication skills (e.g., written and oral)
• Marketing/selling skills (e.g., sales, publicity, fund raising)
• Scientific skills (e.g., lab skills, scientific research)
• Foreign language skills (e.g., Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, or Russian)
• Decision Making skills (e.g., problem solving individually and in group)
• Leadership skills (e.g., supervisory, extracurricular leadership roles, teamwork/team leader).
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Resources for identifying your Essential Skills:
Quintessential Career: Transferable Skills:
Job Skills And Values
Cover Letter with Transferable Skills
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Transferable Skills Survey from University of Minnesota, Duluth
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Transferable Skills Checklist from Rogue Communication College
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Kennesaw State University Career Guide: Essential and Transferable Skills Information referred to in sections “What Qualities to Employers Seek” and “Writing a Resume”.
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Transferable Skills Wordle created by Dr. Joan E. Leichter Dominick 2/6/2013
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