Your skills
When applying for any opportunity, such as placements, jobs or further study, it's important to understand and explain the skills you have throughout the application and interview process.
This guide will outline the types of skill, which skills are valued by employers, and how to assess and develop your own skill set, in order to help you in the next stage of your professional development.
Types of skill
You may have come across the terms ‘hard skills’ and ‘soft skills’ before. Hard skills may also be referred to as ‘technical skills’. These are specific skills and abilities needed for a particular job, such as a specific qualification, an aptitude for a software or programming language, or the ability to speak an additional language.
Broadly speaking, soft skills, which are also commonly referred to as transferable skills, are those that are developed through your studies and work experience that you can ‘take with you’ and apply to many different roles.
Skills valued by employers
Graduate employers are increasingly looking for candidates who can demonstrate a wide variety of transferable skills. It’s crucial to be able to develop and maintain relationships with your colleagues in order to succeed as part of the team and organisation as a whole. Transferable skills are also valued by employers as they can show your capability to perform in a role, and potential to learn and develop, even if you don’t match everything on the job description.
Common skills required by recruiters
- Teamwork/collaboration
- Verbal and written communication
- Problem-solving
- Critical and analytical thinking
- Commercial awareness
- Adaptability
- Customer service
- Organisation and time management
Identifying your skills
A good way to identify your skills is to use our Skills Audit (PDF). It has a list of the top ten skills valued by recruiters and encourages you to rate yourself against these, and provide evidence for how you have demonstrated these in your studies, work experience or extracurricular activities. It gives you a handy reference to see examples of your skills in action, as well as giving you the space to think about any skills you might need to develop.
For help identifying the skills that you have developed during your degree, the ‘What can I do with my degree’ articles on Prospects have sections on the range of skills that you will likely have obtained throughout your studies.
Take a look at the examples below to give you some inspiration for how to get started with your skills audit:
| Skill | Evidence |
| Communication |
|
| Teamwork |
|
| Problem-solving |
|
| Analytical Thinking |
|
Top tip
It's useful to keep an ongoing record of your skills and evidence. This makes it easy to make changes, update records and select evidence to suit specific applications.
Matching your skills to job roles
Different roles will require you to have specific qualifications, skills, experience and knowledge. Use the job profiles on Prospects to research roles; each profile has a ‘Skills’ section which provides a useful overview of the types of skills needed for that specific job. This can also be a useful exercise to identify any shortages in your current skill set that you may need to develop. Similarly, you could also research existing job adverts to try and find out what kind of skills are required by employers for roles that you may be interested in. Try searching on MyCareer using the ‘Graduate’ filter and ticking an occupational area that interests you to see current job opportunities.
If you're applying for a specific role, put yourself in the shoes of the recruiter. Analyse the objectives, roles and tasks and identify the criteria for a successful candidate. List all the skills, qualifications and experience required and compare it with your current portfolio of skills.
Skills, values and interests
Identifying your skills is an important step in the career planning process, however, career choice is not just dependent on your skillset. See our career planning page to find out how to discover careers that align with your interests and values, so that you will ultimately have an enjoyable and fulfilling career.
Visit our career planning page
Personal qualities
As well as specific skills or competencies, other qualities are important for success in your future endeavours. Personal qualities that recruiters generally look for include:
- Motivation
- Persistence to complete tasks
- Use of initiative
- Dealing with criticism
- Overcoming weaknesses
- Perseverance
Developing your skills
If after identifying your skills, you recognise that there are some you need to develop, there are a number of different ways you could do this, for example:
It goes without saying that any work experience that you gain throughout your studies will be invaluable in terms of building up your employability skills. Work experience could include internships, placements, volunteering, part time jobs or work shadowing. Read our work experience pages for more information on the different types of experience available and how you might go about sourcing suitable opportunities.
Don’t underestimate the value of your extracurricular activities, hobbies and interests in helping you to build up your skill set. Think about roles within university committees, or you could also consider joining a university society. Even taking up a new hobby, or keeping up with an old interest during university, can demonstrate different skills, qualities and attributes.
Online courses can be an excellent way to brush up on existing skills or develop new ones. They are also a great addition to your CV, as it can show employers that you are genuinely interested in a particular area of knowledge, willing to keep on diversifying your skillset, and can learn independently.
Please see below and read our online learning page for more information on the different types of courses that might be available, and for how this approach might benefit you.
LinkedIn Learning
To enhance your employability or learn new skills, the University has teamed up with LinkedIn Learning, an online course website. As a student, you get free access to the whole library, and you'll keep this access for five months after you graduate. Use LinkedIn Learning to improve your skills, learn a new skill or just get some tips about a new hobby. Log in using your University login details.
