Unlocking Doors: The importance of Essential Skills - FROM SKILLS BUILDER PARTNERSHIP

We hear from the team at Skills Builder Partnership about why strong skills are vital for effective communication and can help you guide your next career move.

Unlocking Doors: The importance of Essential Skills
 
In today's ever-shifting job market, strong skills are essential. They allow you to communicate effectively, adapt to change and build resilience. From technical expertise to essential skills like problem solving and teamwork, an awareness of your skill set is crucial for deciding your next step. 
 
Why are essential skills so important?
 
Students are constantly being asked to gain new knowledge, develop teamwork skills and think critically; it would be easy to question why you need to spend more time thinking about skills. But, a lot of the skills that you practise go unnoticed or are even forgotten. This is especially true when thinking about:
 
●The growing demand for essential skills 
​When combining data about the world of work with Skills Builder’s Careers Explorer data, we see that there is more demand for essential skills in the last 10 years. 
●There are essential skill gaps in the labour market 
Data from the Career Explorer Tool highlights the gaps in people’s creativity, leadership and aiming high skills.
 
With this growing demand, gaps are increasing. We need to make sure everyone gets the time and chance to develop essential skills because of their transferability and relevance across different industries and roles. I would encourage you to consider: do you know what your strengths and weaknesses are? How would you explain this to someone? What examples do you have? 
 
When we use inconsistent language to describe skills it can be difficult to feel confident about your own skill development. Yet, knowing where you are at with these essential skills will help you make more informed decisions about your career path. 
 
Understanding your skill strengths allows you to explore diverse career options, and helps you to talk more specifically about how you have developed these skills.

​How to understand your skill set
 
Do you know what you need to develop to get you to where you want to go? How can you get a better understanding of your essential skills? 
 
One way is through reflecting on your skills using Skills Builder Benchmark. An online self-reflection tool designed to help you assess your essential skills. 
 
Here’s how:

• Reflect on your strengths and areas for development in essential skills like listening, problem solving, and teamwork.
• Each essential skill is broken down into stages and smaller steps making reflection more manageable.     
  
• You get a report showing your reflections, providing your skill scores and areas for development. You can use the report to think about how to exemplify your strengths and find opportunities to develop a particular skill too.

 
Benchmark assessment will provide valuable insights into your current skill levels and offer a roadmap for targeted development, this information can be used to decide what your short and long-term actions are.
 
How do you develop your skill set?
 
Making plans to develop your skills is the key to improving. One way to do this is by using Skills Builder Launchpad to complete essential skills-based modules. Launchpad allows you to independently build skills using interactive modules. You can:

• Read or watch content to understand key concepts.
• Complete interactive online or offline activities to practise the skills.
• Reflect and record how you have applied the skills in work or life.

 
Launchpad will give you the opportunity to practise and improve your essential skills.
 
Essential skills are the key to unlocking doors in today's job market. By understanding your strengths and weaknesses through self-reflection tools like Skills Builder Benchmark, you can target skill development using engaging resources like Launchpad. Invest in building your essential skills to help bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be.

Skills Builder Partnership is a global movement of employers, educators, and impact organisations working together to ensure that one day, everyone builds the essential skills to succeed.
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Their not-for-profit social enterprise began in 2009 with two employers and a single classroom. Today, the Skills Builder Partnership is international in its reach and supported more than 2.6 million individuals to build their essential skills in the last year alone.