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Taking Control of Your Life
Analyze how you spend your time. Consider this, if we use up all
our time on things that aren’t very important, we are
cheating our self, and we may not have the time to do the things
that are really important to us. This first step in taking
responsibility for your future is to list your activities
for a week: how long you spent at them, and then the benefit to you or
others.
Compare the 5 activities you spent the most time at, to the 5
activities you enjoyed the most. What does that tell you about
yourself?
What are Skills?
Identifying Your Adaptive and Transferable Skills
A skill is something you can do. Our philosophy Professor, Fr.
Reichmann would call them habits. We’re asked to make a list of
all the school, work and leisure skills we have. Which skills are
you best at using? Your best skills are the ones you do well and
enjoy using.
Are they transferable skills (like the ability to solve problems,
manage people), job-related skills (like computer, mechanical
skills) or adaptive skills/personality traits (like honesty,
enthusiasm)? When you can identify your best skills in each of these
groups, you can answer the most important question an employer will
ask: “Why should I hire you?”
At the end, your list should include what skills you have now, what ones you want to improve, and
which ones you want to use in your next job. What are the most
important to you and what do you most want to improve?
(The book includes a worksheet to help you through this process).
Creating a Skills Inventory
Planning on How to Best Use Your Skills
After canvassing your entire life; identify your top skills, the
skills you most enjoy using, skills you most want to improve, and
skills you want to you in your next job. With this is hand, you need
to find jobs that match your skills and interests. This is the
hardest part, it takes some research, but there are resources
available. The Occupational Outlook Handbook is the most official,
but other job search books can help break it into smaller chunks.
This is where personality tests can be very useful.
Go for the job
you’d like doing best. from
Identify Your Skills
for School, Work, and Life
By J. Michael Farr & Susan Christophersen
This book can be checked out from Albers
Placement Center
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