Session 3: Identifying my skills, qualities and abilities

Read the examples and listen to the audio clips. Then try to answer the questions that follow.

Natalia: a change of career

When Natalia decided to come to Scotland she wanted to change her life and do something different. Here is a list of the steps she took to do this:

1. Thinking about what she would like to do.
2. Moving to Glasgow.
3. Following up the contacts she already had in Glasgow.
4. Applying for jobs in a field where she had experience – with humanitarian organisations in Glasgow.
5. Taking on short-term work in a number of roles that would help pay the bills.
6. Stopping to think about where she was and how she could get where she wanted to be.
7. Exploring postgraduate university courses in Glasgow.
8. Studying a second masters degree in a specialist field.
9. Having the support of her boyfriend during her postgraduate studies in Glasgow.
10. Completing a work placement in her specialist field.

Now listen to Natalia talking about this time in her life.

Download this audio clip.Audio player: natalia_audio4.mp3

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Transcript

I met a few people quite early on when I arrived here. The first was a friend from Oxfam who I worked with a little bit. My friend at Oxfam knew someone at Bridges and introduced me to them. I did a little bit of photography for them. That had been my hobby. I tried a few places to get a job but it just didn’t work out. It was really hard. 

I went back to university when I was 29. I looked at what was available, at what was quite similar to what I had done back home so that I could get to masters straightaway. At university in Poland, I had wanted to choose geotechnics, to do that as a specialisation but I never did that.

I did a little bit more useless, but more interesting, choices at the time – mineralogy, especially gemology, jewellery stones, that kind of stuff, which is quite difficult to get into, as you can imagine. It’s a very small field, especially with no experience at all.

So I went back to do an engineering specialisation and it was really good. It actually worked. It was a course called geotechnics in partnership with industry. It was very practical. When I was about to finish my course I kind of started looking for a job. It’s obviously hard times now and it wasn’t really working, but I was still writing my dissertation so the pressure wasn’t so great.

Then Bridges got in touch and said that they run a work shadowing programme. You would work for free two days a week, just to get to know people, to get a foot in the door. It was me and one other guy who went for the interview with Amey in Eurocentral. I got the chance to stay with them in the geotechnical department. I started straight away after graduating.

I think I got quite lucky with them. It was just the right time again because a couple of people left. That helped a lot as well. I got a chance to do a design myself straightway when I came to work with them, so that’s how I ended up with a contract. It went pretty smooth from the moment I decided to go back to university. I think that was the best decision.

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Eric: choosing a career

When Eric came to the UK he was in a completely different environment but he was able to use his existing skills and qualities, develop new ones and take steps to move on:

1. Arriving in the UK, unsure of what he would do.
2. Starting a college course in IT to help him find a job.
3. Finding out who could help him find a job and pursue his career goal.
4. Completing a pre-nursing college course.
5. Getting support to find a work placement related to his career goal.
6. Thinking about his options for study and career.
7. Starting an Open University course related to his work placement and goals.
8. Finding a job related to his studies and long-term career goal.

Now listen to Eric talk about this time in his life.

Download this audio clip.Audio player: reflection_toolkit_eric_aud002.mp3

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Transcript

I am a caring person and I believe this is one of the qualities required of a nurse. While I was working in the rehabilitation centre in the Congo, most of the young people were hopeless and uncertain about the future; many of them became so violent and aggressive, and as a counsellor in the refugee camp, I had to listen to them, to talk to them and try to show them that was not the end of their life.

I believe that I was able to be effective in this role because of the personal qualities that I possess, that I was able to empathise with them, and able to work with the young people to help them grow.

I was disappointed that I was not accepted for the nursing degree programme last year. Being on a work placement combined with my OU study has helped me to continue with my goal and I have applied again.

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Reflection and discussion

Consider the following questions:

• Have you had to deal with a similar situation to either Natalia or Eric?
• Were there problems that you had to overcome?
• Did you manage to find any solutions?

Make some notes in the activity sheet  provided or in your notebook.

OR

Go to Activity 3.1 of your Reflection Log. Once you have completed the activity, make sure you save the document again.

If you are working in a group, you might want to share your answers and discuss your notes with each other, or with your mentor if you have one.

What do you think about Natalia’s and/or Eric’s list of skills and qualities?

Have you thought about the personal qualities that you possess and how you might use these? For example, an expert in information technology (IT) would not necessarily be a good IT teacher if they could not relate well to young people. What other qualities do you feel might be useful – possibly patience, an ability to communicate technical information in an accessible way or an ability to motivate?

Pick an event or a point in your timeline when you had to take action to resolve something. It could be something to do with family, work or practical issues like housing and money.

We have provided a table  for you to make a list of what you did and then think about what skills you used, and the qualities that you have, that may have helped you. These may or may not be the same as Natalia’s or Eric’s.

OR

Go to Activity 3.2 of your Reflection Log. Once you have completed the activity, make sure you save the document again.

You can share your answers and discuss your roles with others in your group. If you want to do this online, you can type them up and post them to an online forum or via social media.

Reflection

Think about the following questions and make some notes in your Reflection Log or notebook:

• Did you find that you used some of the same skills as Natalia or Eric?
• Did you discover that you have other skills, maybe some that you were not aware of?
• Are you now aware of qualities that you have but hadn’t considered before?

Have a look at the list of key skills in the table provided, thinking about each one in turn.

OR

Go to Activity 3.3 of your Reflection Log. Once you have completed the activity, make sure you save the document again.

As you go down the list, put a tick or a cross in the appropriate box. For example, if you feel that a particular skill is one of your strengths, put a tick in the first column; if, however, you feel quite comfortable about this skill rather than seeing it as a strength, put a tick in the second column; or if you feel you need to develop this skill some more, put a tick in the third column. It may help you to look back at the timeline you made in Session 2 and think about how you responded to the different events in your life.

You wouldn’t expect to find you are strong in all skills, but this activity is useful in helping you to tease out the types of skills you have. When you have finished checking the list, go back to your timeline and add any more skills you have found.

Now choose two or three skills you have ticked and write a few sentences about them, giving examples of how you have used them. You can use the checklist to tell another person in your group what your skills are and how you have used them.

Here is an example of what one person said about their skills:

Download this audio clip.Audio player: reflection_toolkit_e-e_aud001.mp3

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Transcript

I know I am good at communicating because people like talking to me and I have worked in a call centre, which I quite enjoyed, so I do work well with other people. I am not so good at writing and probably need to improve if I want to get a better job. I also need to develop better IT skills although I can do the basics on a computer. I am quite good at problem solving and friends often discuss things with me.

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