Career

Skill Portability Roundup

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(9/17/2016 – These posts have been expanded in a book, Skill Portability: A Guide To Moving Skills Between Jobs)

Looking at those huge amounts of skills you’ve gained over the years and wonder how they apply to a new job or a new career?  Here’s a quick and handy guide for you!

Exploring Skill Portability – Why you want to do it, and the DARE system.

Direct Skills – Those directly applicable.

Advantageous Skills – Those that give you advantages.

Representative Skills – Those that tell a story.

Enhancing Skills – Those that enhance other skills.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached

 

 

Why Sharing Career Lessions Needs Translation

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Recently I got laid off.  I could probably add “again,” but I’m living in Silicon Valley, where “laid off” is sort of the minor flu of careers.  We all catch it occasionally and it’s not that remarkable.

So beyond my job search, I’ve also been working on learning lessons to use into my suddenly-delayed book on job search.  I appreciate the irony, and wanted to make sure I not only applied what I learned to my search (which is working) but captured new lessons.

I’m used to doing this; sharing my experiences with others.  In fact, I encourage other people to share their own career experiences.  But I came to realize as I discussed my delayed project and lessons with people, I’ve missed a crucial fact: translation.

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Are You Interviewing For A Position Or As A Person?

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After seventeen years and counting in IT, I’ve done a lot of interviews and held a lot of jobs.  I try to share my experiences, of course, which is why you get a lot of my brain dumps here.

One of those experiences that has turned into the career fertilizer I’m about to import, is that when you interview, you have to determine if you’re interviewing for a Position or as a Person.

This may seem a bit confusing – you’re a Person interviewing for a Position, right?  Well that’s you.  What’s different is what’s going on in the minds of your interviewers, even if they don’t always know it.

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