In your reading, videos, and assessments from week 1, you will learn about the importance of self-reflection and skills analysis when planning your career. In a competitive job market you receive pay in exchange for the value of your knowledge, skills, and abilities combined.

Here is the reading of self-reflection and skills analysis

Skills and Self-Assessment

In addition to an assessment of your values and career interests, a thorough skills analysis is a critical component of the Career planning process. Skills are the currency used by job seekers. In the job market you receive pay in exchange for the value of your knowledge and skills combined.

Skills may be divided into three types:

1. Content or Knowledge specific to a field

2. Functional skills that may be applied in various fields

3. Self-management or behavioral traits Employers value content skills, but they tend to favor candidates with strong functional and self-management skills. Employers report thatwhen hiring someone, 30% of the decision is based on an applicant's content knowledge and 70% of the decision is based on an applicant'sfunctional and self-management skills.

What you KNOW, CAN DEMONSTRATE, and CAN TEACH OTHERS. You usually acquire them through education and work experience.

Examples of content skills include:

- Creating and updating a spreadsheet.
- Writing a technical report in a particular subject.
- Designing a Web pageor software program.
- Delivering a presentation on a topic.
- Performing a budget analysis.

Functional Skills---are skills that expedite tasks in any job situation. Examples of functional skills include:

- Communicating to develop a team.
- Teaching a class.
- Analyzinginformation.
- Sorting and/or collating documents
- Repairing electronic devicesand/or troubleshooting software

Self-management Skills or behavioral traits ---are command words that describe your strongest personality traits and characteristics. Examplesof self-management skills are:
-Being organized in your work process
-Patience with team members, when under time pressure
-Thinking analytically, problem solving
-Customer-focused prioritization
-Sense of humor

Every year, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) surveys large numbers of hiring managers from across the country on what skills they plan to prioritize when recruiting new college graduates. In 2015, NACE listed 10 skills (ranked in order of importance) that employers said they would be looking for when hiring. Consider which of these skills youhave and how you might work these skills into your resume.

1. Ability to work in a team structure.

2. Ability to make decisions, Ability to solve problems (tie).

3. Ability to communicate verbally with people inside and outside an organization.

4. Ability to plan, organize and prioritize work.

5. Ability to obtain and processinformation.

6. Ability to analyze quantitative data.

7. Technical knowledge related to the job.

8. Proficiency with computer software programs.

9. Ability to create and/or edit written reports

10. Ability to sell and influence others.

In a minimum of 300 words, answer the following questions:

1. Compare the results from your self-assessments. What did you agree with? What did you disagree with? Why? (Do not cut and paste, summarize in your own words) Will upload my two self-assessment for you to compare. Will send it to your email.

2. Compare how your assessment results align with the skills and "self discovery" videos from CareerQuest. Explain how you might use your assessment results and educational/job skills to help you set goal setting and market yourself (interviews, resume, demonstrations, etc) to your "ideal employer." Here is the link below for the videos from the Career quest: Go to the link and click starting new job in the categories section on the left top side and on the right top side says videos, under the video click on who am I, watch the video and after watching the video, under the who am I video, there are videos, click on career center benefits and watch the video as well. Use both self-assessments that I will upload and both videos to answer question 2.
http://www.careerspots.com/newplayer/default.aspx?key=JhNG0pScN0GTBnnt5atkEw2&

3. What are your "top five" skills and what kinds of skills are they (refer to the reading)? Explain to your classmates how you would "prove" that you have these skills. Talk about how you know they are valuable to employers - what have you accomplished using these skills. The best way to do this is to tell a brief story about something that you did (e.g. a project or event) at work or in school that you are really proud of.