Skills We Have a Variety
This blog is a continuation of a series of blogs that will be outlining what I have learned from the interviews and readings regarding careers and career development.
The most important attribute would be understanding yourself and using this as a starting point. There are some key categories that a person should review as a starting point. The points would be health, mental health or outlook on life, relationships (family and friends), work skills, the view on work and money. I will talk about each of these in more detail in individual blogs coming up.
This week is our skillset and work.
Too often we hide behind our credentials such as our diplomas, degrees, or certificates. Not saying that these are not important but what I am suggesting is to focus more on the skills we have and how we can utilize them in the job market, advancing our education, or as an entrepreneur. By doing so may enable us to have more opportunities than we have had before or have been led to believe. Also, by looking at our skills and keeping an open mind we can end up in occupations that are more suited for us. Furthermore, if we focus on our specific skills as opposed to the credentials that we received from our education we then eliminate that generalization deemed by categorization that H.R departments love to implement. In essence, look at our education and past jobs that we have had. From that look at the things that we like to do more, also, things we are better at, and see how we can use those skills to advance our careers as opposed to being cataloged within a certain discipline. In this blog, I will demonstrate this by highlighting interviews that I have done and what these people have done and learned.
In my interview with Lou Rosenfeld https://www.thecareerguy.ca/episodes/engineering-for-ski-performance, he points out that his career as a mechanical engineer expanded over many areas and various industries where he applied his mechanical engineering skills. It was his passion for skiing that led him to do his master’s degree in the Human Performance Lab (H.P.L) at the University of Calgary. As a mechanical engineer, he understood how things work and with that, the human body is a mechanical machine that has a lot of moving parts. So, when Lou pursued his master’s degree in the H.P.L doing his research on foot orthotics, it was a natural transition, it was just another mechanical device, and his experience in other areas helped with this research in foot orthotics. Without giving away too much of the interview he did open a ski shop specializing in custom ski boots.
The H.P.L is a good example of this in that it is a multi-disciplinary research area within the faculty of Kinesiology at the University of Calgary. This research area is predominantly occupied by mechanical engineers as opposed to graduates from Kinesiology. This is because the human body is a mechanical machine and with that, it is engineers that serve the research more so with their skills. In addition, as I said it is a multi-disciplinary area that also supports data scientists, computer scientists, physicists, and the list can go on. So, this area is a good example of what people are doing with their specific skills and how they are applying to the development of sports equipment and gear.
Math skills can be applied to a variety of fields from sciences, business, and engineering. My interview with Alistair Bentley https://www.thecareerguy.ca/episodes/what-a-person-can-do-with-a-math-degree is a good example of this. His career in math has expanded from being an economist in banking, working on complex science and engineering problems for the military and now he is working as a data scientist in the corporate world. Chef Paul Rogalski not only understands the culinary industry and what it takes to own and operate a restaurant he also knows a lot about sustainable farming something he gives a lot of presentations on. https://the-career-guy.simplecast.com/episodes/a-chef-that-is-continually-re-inventing-himself. Both of these interviews showcase how individuals have taken their skills from their professions and have moved them into other areas. In essence, they have moved their careers in a lateral direction expanding over many fields which have advantages as well. One is that a person understands more than one thing which enables a person to be more marketable.
From my experience working at the University of Calgary in the Department of Geosciences, I worked with a lot of students that were working towards degrees in geology or geophysics. Employment as a geoscientist is influenced by commodity prices such as oil, gas, and precious minerals. When prices are high opportunities are abundant, prices are low not so much. This of course leads to a lot of anxiety for graduates. I would always emphasize to these students they are graduating with a Bachelor’s Degree in Science. They have science skills. Pick out the skills that you desire more so and are good at. Then research and see where else you may be able to use them. Environmental science was up there for some of them.
The idea here is to look at what skills we have acquired from both education and work and by doing so we may open more doors for ourselves. And another point that is worth considering is with our vast advances in technology in conjunction with our ever-changing economic climate doing a complete career change can be challenging. Not to mention it is more difficult for post-secondary institutions to be able to predict the future and in doing so accommodate all the possible avenues a person will need into their curricula. To overcome this obstacle and keep up with the times it may be to our advantage to put our effort into developing skills that we so desire as opposed to focusing on a collective of courses that represent an accreditation of some sort. I hope this blog helped.