2.1 Developing and documenting your skills

While technical ability can be acquired through training courses, formal work experience or part-time jobs, soft skills can be developed through voluntary work, extracurricular activities, and personal projects. Be sure to document these, identifying detailed examples of when you have showcased each skill. If you can incorporate numeric information, like a budget you managed, or include statistics that illustrate the impact of your skills, this evidence will back up your claims.

In the video below, three contributors from iungo Solutions – Zainab (a recent graduate, now a technical content analyst), Ploy (an HR and recruitment executive); and Jessica (co-founder and chief executive) – talk about their experiences of looking for employment, skills development, the recruitment process, and the importance of being proactive.

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ZAINAB AL MUHARRAMI:

My name is Zainab. I'm a Technical Content Analyst at iungo Solutions. iungo is a training provider. And my role within the company is both technical and creative. So I help with social media posts and content strategy, as well as things like the website and developing some coding content.

I applied for a number of roles when I graduated university. At the beginning, I was actually looking for cybersecurity roles, because that's what I graduated from at university. But because it was during COVID, I found it very difficult to actually find jobs. I ended up taking a coding program by myself and learning how to code through that program. And then I applied for this current role using a graduate scheme.

PORNNARAI NILDUANG:

Hi, my name is Ploy. I'm from iungo Solutions, and I work as a HR and Recruitment Executive. I applied for my current role through the kickstart program. So it was more of a day where they came to the job centre to interview a load of applicants. And I happened to be one of them.

As a student coming out, you might not think there's a wide network for you. But I think reaching out, starting your LinkedIn profile, and as cheesy as it sounds really helps reaching out to your past alumnis, who, I mean, for me at least, it was great, especially if you're in an industry where you're not sure if you want to be in there, just to get the experience and they’re always there to help you.

Again, maybe doing courses to upskill yourself if you don't think that you have the necessary qualifications or experience, you can get courses for free or paid, online or in person. Those will definitely help as well.

JESSICA LEIGH JONES:

My name is Jessica Leigh Jones. I'm the Co-founder and Chief Executive of iungo Solutions and the former Chair of the Centre for Digital Public Services in Wales. And I'm the author of the white paper L&D’s Role in Enabling Social Mobility in the Workplace, written in collaboration with The Open University and TrainingZone.

From my own perspective, as an employer of a digitally native organisation, so a remote-working first organisation, I would say the key skills that you need to operate effectively in this environment and to be successful and be able to progress in this environment, would be proactive communication skills, as you'll spend a lot of time on your own working things out by yourself.

PORNNARAI NILDUANG:

In terms of how we recruit people, I think most companies recruit for a job role. But we recruit for them as a person. So even though we look up the role that they've applied for, if there are other roles that we think that they best fit, so we look at the individual themselves rather than based off their CV, and match it to that description. So whenever we bring someone new in, we always look at the personality.

We do interviews a little bit different than many corporate companies. So we have an interview panel that will be comprised with who they'll be working with on a daily basis. So for someone who is interviewing for one of the, possibly one of our tech roles, we'd get the tech team involved. We'd prep them for the interview, get them to see and sense the person that they'll be working with. If they have the necessary skills, that's great. If they don't, but they have the attitude and drive and ambition for that role, we'd have to consider if they'd be a good fit for our team. And if they do, then we'll put them on the necessary courses they need.

Obviously, we'd encourage to have a little bit of experience, depending on the role that they're applying for. But if they are lacking a little bit of experience, but they have that drive and passion, then we will strongly consider them as a candidate.

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Your CV should demonstrate how you take action to develop new knowledge and skills, whether that is during your studies or in your spare time. Activities such as maintaining a specialist blog, doing voluntary work, and developing job-relevant hobbies will help to demonstrate your lifelong learning mindset.

Nick van Dam is an advisor, author, speaker and researcher on corporate learning and leadership development, with a keen interest in how individuals learn and develop within organisations. In a lecture he gave in 2016, he discussed six essential elements of a lifelong-learning mindset:

1. Focus on growth

2. Become a serial master

3. Stretch

4. Build a personal brand

5. Own your development

6. Do what you love and discover your Ikigai [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] – your ‘reason for being’.

(The full lecture, ‘Learn or Lose’, is available on YouTube if you are interested in exploring this topic further.)

Over the decades, the skills required by employers have evolved, as client expectations, technology, and how people interact with their environments have also evolved. Many employers are looking for people who demonstrate lifelong-learning mindsets by moving from deep competency in one specialist area (sometimes described as a T-shaped skill set) to developing deep competency in several areas (sometimes described as an M-shaped skill set).

Your lifelong-learning mindset could be demonstrated by, for example, your engagement with social media accounts, small side-businesses, or part-time volunteering/charity work. You need to show how you meet employer requirements but also how you try to develop yourself.

Finally, don’t forget how things have changed in the hybrid workplace. In the video above, Jessica Leigh Jones gave advice about key skills for work-from-anywhere organisations. Mentioning key hybrid skills such as organisation, independent work, experience of working virtually, and key digital skills could all make a huge difference to your application.