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Hard Skills Dan La Noue, Communications Assistant
Continuing Education, BMCC
February 24, 2010
As you move from job to job over the course of your career, there are some skills that you
can take with you and apply to a wide range of roles and workplaces. These are called
portable skills, which are skills you can apply across the job spectrum—your current job,
the job you’re looking for next, and perhaps even the one after that, too. With so many of
us having to change professions in this tough economy, it is important to acquire and build
on skills that can help you adapt to new surroundings.
Portable skills can be broken down to two categories: hard and soft. Your Hard Skills are
skills that are easy to observe, quantify and measure—your concrete areas of knowledge
and ability. Soft Skills, by contrast, are your more personal attributes and strengths—the
ways you think and behave as a professional.
The following are six examples of HARD portable skills than can be applied in a variety of job settings. {For a
thorough discussion
and
examples
of
SOFT
Portable
Skills, check the Article Library for our article on SOFT SKILLS}.
1. Office Software (Word/Excel/Access/Powerpoint 2007) Modern offices are becoming increasingly reliant on software, digital, and internet‐
based services to run their businesses. The more technological mastery you have, the
better…but even if you aren’t a computer whiz, you can still make yourself viable for a
wide variety of jobs by mastering the basics of office software. There’s no limit to the
number of jobs today where knowing how to use a word‐processor, organize a digital
spreadsheet, and/or deliver a computer‐based presentation is a valuable, if not
essential skill, so having a strong comfort level with Microsoft and other popular
software should be considered a “must‐have” in your skill‐set. Furthermore, becoming
certified in Microsoft Office can provide a major boost to your career potential:
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“A recent study of 14,000 Office Specialists and 1,200 of their supervisors clearly demonstrated that Office
Specialists are viewed by their supervisors as more competent, more productive, and more credible as a result of
their certification status. Whether you are new to your career or a highly trained administrative professional with a
top-level staff position, you will find that adding "Microsoft Office Specialist" to your resume is beneficial.”
Source: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA012111011033.aspx
2. A Second Language America is becoming an increasingly multilingual society, where being able to
communicate effectively with one another often involves crossing linguistic and cultural
boundaries. Moreover, being bilingual or multilingual also raises your stock as a job
candidate in any company or work environment. The most obvious example is if you’re
looking to do work that involves business trips abroad or working for extended periods
of time in a foreign country. Yet even if your job isn’t so exotic, knowing a secondlanguage can still be a very valuable asset. Consider these examples:
Nurses who speak a second language can effectively communicate and
provide care to non‐English speaking patients.
Customer Service Representatives who speak a second language can
understand and address the questions and concerns of non‐English speaking
customers.
Certain fields, such as construction, cargo- shipping or landscaping tend to
attract diverse workforces, in which native English speakers often work
closely with recent immigrants who are learning English as a second
language. In workplace settings like these, being able to communicate with
your co‐workers in their native language(s)—as well as in English—can help
to ensure effective teamwork, group cohesion and successful work relations.
3. Web Design From colleges to contractors, medical centers to law firms, today’s companies have a
vested interest in creating a captivating online presence to attract curious internet
surfers. With search engines like Google and Bing now the most powerful organizers of
information in our world, job‐seekers and prospective clientele are increasingly using
the internet to find what they’re looking for. The web designer becomes a key player in
this “Information Age” by helping his or her company stand out in cyberspace and
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distinguish itself from competitors. Check out the top 10 Web Designer Job Skills to get
a better sense of what you would be doing on the job.
4. Project Management As a project manager, you provide organizations with the knowledge, skills, tools and
techniques to plan and execute projects on time and on budget
(www.pmi.org/pmief/learningzone/flyer.pdf ). With their combination of leadership,
business savvy and organizational skills, project managers are in high demand across a
broad spectrum of industries, and have opportunities for both lateral and vertical
mobility over the course of their careers. For example: a project manager working in
Urban Development can apply their core skills to very different fields, such as Education
and Training or even Aerospace and Defense. Click here for a more in depth
introduction to Project Management.
5. Business Communication/Writing Having a solid foundation in grammar and punctuation is essential to our professional
and personal lives, no matter what we do. However, if you want to make yourself a
marketable job candidate, you need to take it a step further by familiarizing yourself
with various writing styles and formats commonly used in the workplace. Effective
written communication boils down to two main elements: One, knowing who
your
audience is, and two, knowing the crucial information your audience needs to understand .Even if you do not have much experience or confidence in your writing, you can still
master the do’s and don’ts of professional prose: how to properly address different
parties in a memo, what kind of language/vocabulary is appropriate to use in an official
letter, and so on. For the more advanced writer, being able to write a standard‐form
grant, abstract, or prospectus can provide your resume a lot of mileage as you look to
make use of your skills in a new job or career field.
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