A professional skills audit helps you to identify your strengths and weaknesses, developing your self-awareness and revealing where you can improve. In this article, learn more about how a professional skills audit can benefit you and how to perform one.
Although changing careers is now so common, that doesn’t mean it is always easy to do. Streamline the process by identifying your strengths and weaknesses as well as your transferable skills between your current position and the one you want. This way you are more likely to find the right role more quickly.
When to do a skills audit?
A skills audit can be helpful at any stage of your career. At the beginning, it can build confidence and help you decide which career path to take. When you have more experience and are working toward a promotion or would like to change fields, a skills audit can bring you clarity on your path forward. While in training or looking for a job, get a better idea of what you’d like to do and how to position yourself for the roles you apply to.
Grow deeper self-understanding
Performing a professional skills audit allows you to identify common themes in your career path and in other experiences in your life, so far. You’ll do this through tests and analysis. The audit will take into account your objectives, passions and personality.
It can reveal that you don’t need to start from scratch if you want to change jobs or progress in your current role. It can help you to illuminate your current skills to use in your job search materials. If your goal is a career change, your main focus will be to identify your transferable strengths and skills.
About transferable skills
Many similar skills are often found in completely different jobs. There are technical skills (how to use a particular computer program or write certain types of documents), but there are also transferable skills that are more about working habits, adaptability, and professional relationships.
See our infographic below to see how the same skills can show up in different jobs.
The truth is, anyone can benefit from doing a personal skills audit. With the self-awareness you gain from a skills audit, you can turn up the volume on your career. Once you pinpoint your areas for improvement, you can easily acquire new skills – soft or technical – using online learning platforms such as OpenClassrooms.
So, how do I do a professional skills audit?
You can do an audit on your own or with the help of career coach. As always, there are resources online. Do a Google search for a professional skills audit. You can find many outlets offering tests or quizzes for free or for a fee. See Careersmart (free) and Gallup Test (paid). If you require more support, it might be wise to seek the help of a career coach.
Once you’ve done your skills audit and have pinpointed your next career move, take a look at our online diploma programs to get the training necessary to make it happen.
