How often do you assess your skills? If you don’t, then you might be missing out on opportunities to improve them.
In today’s competitive job market, employers look at multiple factors when hiring new employees. One of the most important is whether or not they believe the candidate has the necessary skills to succeed in their role.
A recent survey found that nearly half (46%) of employers said they would consider offering higher pay to candidates who self-assessed their skills as being above average.
This means that even if you aren’t sure where you stand in terms of your current skill level, you should take time to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses.
Self-assessment allows you to make smarter decisions by giving you a better picture of your strengths and weaknesses. It also helps you identify areas of development and areas for improvement.
Many people have an inaccurate idea about what they are good at and where they need improvement. By doing self-assessments regularly, you will learn more about yourself and get better insight into what you can add value to.
What kind of questions should you ask yourself? Here are some great questions:
• What makes me tick?
• Can I work well with others?
• What does my resume reflect?
• Do I know myself well enough?
A common mistake is failing to address specific issues of weakness that can help you understand the ways in which you may need to develop.
For example, if you struggle with one or two key soft skills such as public speaking or writing, there are strategies that can help you improve these weaknesses. While improving skills takes hard work and practice, it can be done through targeted training programs.
But first, you need to be able to assess your skills.
How Can I Assess My Skills?
In short, quizzes. They’re the best way to assess your skills and find out your weaknesses and strengths.
This personality and career test is excellent in assessing what kind of skills you have and your personality. It is magnificent at helping you to see the bigger picture.
Another great quiz is by Mind Skills. They take the skills you have, assess them, and go one step further in helping you figure out what careers might be great for you.
Finally, Education Planner provides a great universal quiz for people all over the world. This test is aimed at measuring your critical thinking and problem-solving ability and is a great assessment of your skills.
Once you’ve taken these quizzes, you’re more likely to understand what your skills are, and your strengths and weaknesses.
It’s important to know your strengths, but even more important to know your weaknesses. This is because you can then shore up your weaknesses.
You can do this by focusing on developing those specific abilities. The best approach is to focus on one weakness at a time until you become excellent in each individual area.
Try to juggle too many aspects of self-improvement at once, and you’re likely to make slow progress, or worse, overwhelm yourself.
You’ll want to create your own unique learning path based on how you’d like to grow in the future. Once you determine what you want to study,
you can set goals around the subjects and projects you’d like to gain expertise in. When you begin studying towards your goal, each subject builds upon itself to ultimately lead you to success.
How Can I Improve My Skills?
There are several approaches that you can try to become stronger in a particular area. The approach to take depends on how strongly you desire to pursue something in that area.
First, you could enroll in a course or workshop. Courses like Toastmasters International and First Aid courses teach us skills we want to hone. Most classes provide free registration. You can find many different classes in real life that teach different skills.
Alternatively, if you’re looking for something easier to attend that works around your schedule, you could always try online classes and workshops. There are even whole degrees you can take remotely.
These kinds of activities help immensely when it comes to improving your skills, with the added benefit of being surrounded by like-minded people and helpful instructors.
Lastly, for the more savvy people out there. You could always self-teach and self-improve. This is where you use the resources around you, like YouTube, TikTok, and other platforms with teachable content, and you teach yourself.
This can be effective because no one knows how you learn better than you do. However, you’re also limited by your own knowledge and teaching ability, so pick wisely.
Final Thoughts
Assessing your skills is a great way of figuring out where you can improve. But it’s an even better way of figuring out your strengths. And once you know what you’re good at, you can use it. Play to your strengths, and you’re sure to have a successful life.
