BUILDING YOUR PERSONAL BRAND
Building your Hard and Power Skills
We have previously written about how important a personal brand is at school, work, and in our community activities. Building a brand takes time, and it can change as we learn more about ourselves, reflect, and grow. The different skills that we all have help to define our brands. We may be aware of some skills we have because we demonstrate them and are recognized for them. However, there are other skills we may not be aware of, or others may not easily identify them. Finding out what those skills are and how we can use them will help shape our personal brand.
Let’s look at the two basic types of skills – Hard Skills and Power Skills.
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Hard Skills
Hard skills are usually defined as the technical abilities needed for a job. For example, a photographer must know how to operate cameras, understand lighting, and create a visually appealing composition. These skills will develop over a photographer’s career. Advances in camera and lighting technology will lead them to update their skills periodically, while evolving ideas about creating appealing compositions will influence how they think about photography. We improve our hard skills through continuous learning and practice.
Power Skills
Power skills are referred to by various names – they may be called soft skills, durable skills, or transferable skills. We define power skills as the skills needed to work effectively with others to get the most out of your hard skills. These skills include communication, teamwork, critical thinking, and others. Like hard skills, power skills can be improved throughout your career. They are also transferable from one job to another.
Improving Your Skills and Building Your Brand
The perception is that hard skills are more easily quantified than power skills, and power skills are more challenging to learn than hard skills. A recent article by ZipRecruiter notes that hard skill improvement can often be achieved with education, training, and certifications, while power skills are improved by feedback and practice.
When applying for a job or a promotion, be sure to highlight both types of skills on your resume and during interviews. Identifying both hard and power skills will give a more complete picture of who you are and how much you can contribute to an organization.
What’s On Our Mind…
As we head back to school, we acknowledge and value the work of teachers, counselors, coaches, administrators, and all school employees who help their students build social capital. We are pleased to share some tips for teachers to help their students build professional networks.
5 Ways Educators Can Help Students Build Social Capital This School Year
- Encourage students to ask questions and connect with guest speakers in the classroom.
- Encourage students to apply for volunteer opportunities, internships and paid employment as their schedule permits.
- Encourage students to join clubs or participate in extra curricular activities. Clubs and activities can open doors to building relationships with peers and caring adults.
- Integrate classroom work with social capital. Science, Math, History, English, and World languages are full of stories about people who were successful because of their access to social capital.
- Create lesson plans that include problem-based learning of real work issues. Have students work cooperatively to suggest solutions to these issues.
Do you have other ideas to share? Please email us at info@youthworkconnect.org – we’d love to hear about them!
LET’S STAY CONNECTED
We would appreciate your thoughts on our initiative and welcome opportunities to collaborate. You can reach us at info@youthworkconnect.org and we look forward to staying connected.
