12 Efficient Steps to Skill Development
By: Syed Tariq Muneeer Jafry
Tags: Content Writing, Marketing, Students, Freelancers, Blog

Introduction: The general perception regarding education is that it is the source of getting a respectable job, and position in the society. In contrast, education is the source of knowledge by learning different things, which broadens one mindset and develops awareness about how to interact in a civilized society, in an efficient manner.

To obtain a bachelor or master degrees, is not an easy task at all, it requires a lot of hard work and commitment. After getting these accreditations, comes the next stage is to obtain a job or become self-sufficient, but for the beginners it becomes hard to find a reasonable job, because of low economic growth and job saturated market. Over and above the job market demands the experience and exposure. Unfortunately for the beginners it is lacking.

How to get the experience and exposure while studying sound problematic? But actually this is not the case, actual concern is once inability to develop the required skill sets, during the course of their studies, to support their upcoming career.

The strong perceptions which prevails among the student that we will get the experience when we find the job, is absolutely true, but every beginning has a humble start. If somebody has some skill or skillset he or she doesn’t worry because their additional skill would support them.

Skill is the ability to do something skillfully whereas skillset is combination of more than one skill. Skills are divided into two types, ‘Soft Skill,’ and ‘Hard Skill’.

Interpersonal skills are termed as Soft Skills such as communication skills, creativity, problem solving ability, and mindfulness, character, empathy and mannerism are some of the examples. Soft skills are not measurable, it could be evaluated over a certain period of time.

Whereas, Hard Skills are the expertise ones obtain by using education, knowledge, and continuous execution of certain tasks. These are quantifiable skills and easily measurable, such as management skills leadership skills, analytical skills, and computer skills etc.

Your Mind Inclination: It is not a hard target to achieve a skill or skill set. Since childhood, you have come to know about your strengths and weaknesses. A compliment by somebody followed by another one, makes you realize your strengths; weaknesses when your elder’s ones punish you or forbid you from doing something wrong, give you a sense of realization of your shortcomings.

2. Follow Your Pasion: As stated above, your strength reflects your mind inclination, and if you continue doing something, tirelessly, it shows that you have the passion for doing that thing. For instance painting, teaching, drawing, reading books, writing stories, watching movies, doing any skillful work, preparing foods, grooming activities, socializing, event organization, home decoration, clay work, and so on so forth, are the things that could be explored further and transformed into your skillset.

3. Start from the basics: Develop your talent by increasing your knowledge and information. You also get assistance from your friends, who are already working in the like fields or getting the extra knowledge with the help of the internet, Google search, and your knowledge base will be upgraded to a greater extent.

4. Find out the Training Institute or Teacher: Whatever type of skill do you have, try to get the proper training classes, or hire a teacher, if the skill is of a unique type, you could take the advice and guidance of your peers and friends regarding how to progress, in that respective field. In this way, you will flourish your competencies.

5. Free online courses: There are a lot of forums and platforms which are offering free online courses, you just need an internet connection and a laptop, even if don’t afford these resources, no problem only a smartphone will serve the purpose, you could have the access with your mobile. Just take a copy and pencil and start.

Virtual University in Pakistan, under digiskills program; offering different programs, Google the biggest search engine, offering many free online courses, the Khan Academy, Udemy offers online free courses. However, the paid courses from any forum and platform are of worth importance and having a wide scope, but for beginners, these are not the bad platforms to learn effectively and efficiently. The courses offered from these platforms are of a high standard, and your conceptual knowledge will be enhanced and increased your aptitude level.

6. Overcome Your Weakness: Your rigid behavior, procrastination, self-pity, fear factor, and negative feelings are some of the elements which slow down your growth level. By controlling these you could develop your strong areas, and be able to nurture your skillset.

7. Getting Feedbacks: It is necessary to gauge your skillset activities and keep tracking it on regular basis. By doing this you will be able to monitor your pace of growth. If you found that your pace is slow you could expedite it accordingly.

8. Set Your Objectives: Nobody is without potential, everybody has some strong areas and one knows it very well. Laid down your objectives, in your notebook or diary, set milestones, deadlines, and follow them strictly. You have to be very focused on achieving your goals. Here your fair commitment and dedication are required to make your targets achievable.

9. Review Job Description: By reviewing the job description, you will come to know about the basic feature and additional features of a certain skill, in this way you come to know about the core competencies, enabling you to set out your direction clearly. Again, if the skill you are striving for is of a unique nature, you could read the autobiographies of who were experts in that particular skill or research through the relevant books, or asking the persons who know about it.

10. Take assistance from the experts: It sounds difficult, but you could find the persons who have some edge in the relative skill, otherwise, you could watch the tutorials, reviewing books, guide books, and watching tutorials on YouTube.

11. Positive Approach: It is the very feature, which keeps things going on, if you make half-hearted efforts, you would not succeed, and your targets remained unfulfilled. Keep reminding yourself that come what may, one day I will achieve this particular skill.

12. Avoid Procrastination: Do not put off your work for tomorrow; what you can do today. I will do it, on Monday Tuesday or Thursday. This type of delaying tactics, will not fetch positive results. Procrastination is a killer instinct, if you are addicted to it, you would not be able to achieve your target. As it is observed, that most of the average students, fall to be a victim to this dilemma. You have to be committed, determined, today is the day to start, no matter for only 10 minutes, once you get started, you will be on right track, which leads you to success.

It is the mindset, which tells you where to go, means which type of skillset you should choose, to mitigate your upcoming future risk factors; as the future is full of surprises to cope with such type of unexpected happenings and occurrences, one must be equipped with some skill or skill sets.

It is said that always work with commitment and dedication for Plan — ‘A’ not to think about Plan ‘B’. Yes, it is rightly said, but while having some type of skill it doesn’t undermine Plan- ‘A’, but it rather keep up the survival level, just like the scholarships for the deserving students, or approval to work for some hours for the foreign student, to facilitate them to bear up their tuition fees.

Conclusion: The crux of the matter, is to develop a skill or skill set firstly it should relate to your profession because that very skillset supplements you in a variety of ways, in getting jobs, or having other opportunities, as mentioned above. But if you have any other skill or skill set, which does not correlate with your education, no problem, it will help you in your bad days, but it should not overpass your accredited education, which has a lot of potential and worth, in the future.