In this week's episode, Kitty distinguishes hard skills and soft skills and talks about what they are and how they are different. She also recommends that if you are undertaking a job search, start keeping an inventory of all your skills and distinguish between hard and soft skills for use in your resume. Hard skills are those things that you KNOW and can DO. Soft skills are the people skills that, frankly, many employers consider givens these days, but they are still essential and should not be forgotten.
Kitty also mentions that it's important to read job descriptions carefully to don't waste time applying for jobs you aren't qualified for. Don't skip over terms that you don't understand or think you could learn. Employers write those job descriptions because they look for people who have the skills and knowledge to do them. So do yourself a favor and don't waste time applying for jobs you aren't qualified for.
If you want to submit a question or suggestion for a future episode to Kitty, reach out to her at kittyboitnott@gmail.com.
And please rate and review this podcast to help other people find it.
In this week's episode, Kitty distinguishes hard skills and soft skills and talks about what they are and how they are different. She also recommends that if you are undertaking a job search, start keeping an inventory of all your skills and distinguish between hard and soft skills for use in your resume. Hard skills are those things that you KNOW and can DO. Soft skills are the people skills that, frankly, many employers consider givens these days, but they are still essential and should not be forgotten.
Kitty also mentions that it's important to read job descriptions carefully to don't waste time applying for jobs you aren't qualified for. Don't skip over terms that you don't understand or think you could learn. Employers write those job descriptions because they look for people who have the skills and knowledge to do them. So do yourself a favor and don't waste time applying for jobs you aren't qualified for.
If you want to submit a question or suggestion for a future episode to Kitty, reach out to her at kittyboitnott@gmail.com.
And please rate and review this podcast to help other people find it.
Are you a teacher who's feeling stressed out and overwhelmed. Do you worry that you're feeling symptoms of burnout or are you sure you've already gotten there? Have you started to dream of doing some other kind of job or perhaps pursuing a whole different career, but you don't know what else you're even qualified to do. You don't know how to start a job search. You just feel stuck. If that sounds like you, I promise you're not alone. My name is kitty boy. Not I'm a career transition and job search coach. And I specialize in helping burnout out teachers just like you deal, not only with the stress and overwhelm of your day to a job, but to consider what other careers might be out there waiting for you. Join me for teachers in transition. In some episodes, I'll be speaking to stress management techniques and how you can manage your stress on a day to day basis. In other episodes, I'll be talking about career. What tools do you need to be successful in a job search when you're moving from one career into a totally different track. These are questions that you need answers to and I can help you find those answers. My name is kitty boy, not welcome to teachers in transition.
Speaker 2:Welcome to episode 154 of teachers in transition the podcast and the YouTube channel. My name is kitty boy, not I am the owner of boy, not coaching. And the founder of teachers in transition. I am a heart centered career transition and job search coach to burn out teachers who are ready to make a change, but don't know how or where to start. And I'm also a certified stress management coach. If you've listened to this podcast or watched the YouTube channel in the past, you know that I alternate topics each week, one week talk about stress management. And on alternating weeks, I talk about career transition topics. And this week the topic is career. I would, I thought maybe it would be a good time for me to do a little deeper dive into the distinction between soft skills and hard skills, because unless you've been doing the job search process for a while, those terms may be a little unclear for you, a little vague. You're not quite sure what they mean, and you're not quite sure how to categorize the skills that you have into hard skills versus soft skills. The easiest way that I can think of to distinguish between hard skills and soft skills is this hard skills. Are those things that you can do? They are things like data analysis, uh, project management, um, day to day, accounting of activities, where you keep track and have some sort of mechanism that you can use to demonstrate that you've kept track for teachers. The hard and soft skills are so intertwined that it is a little bit difficult to distinguish and to pull out if you will, the hard skills from the soft skills, the soft skills, as opposed to the hard skills are the people skills and teachers have those in spades communication, both written and orally, uh, being able to get along well with others, being able to be flexible and be being empathetic with individuals, understanding that we're all working together and finding a way to make that happen. Those are soft skills and they're critically important, but, but they are often not the skills that are needed to be highlighted in your resume. The resume needs to highlight the hard skills that you have. So you want to make a list to anytime you're starting a job search. You wanna start with an inventory, an inventory of what your values are along with what your skills are. And you wanna go ahead and make a list because you'll be adding to the list as you go. Things will come up. That you'll go, oh yeah, I should have put that on the list. So start the list. Now actually write it down. It will become part of your marketing plan, take a skills inventory, consider all the things that you consider yourself to be competent at, whether it is communication, whether it is mathematical QIC, whether it is interpersonal skills, whether it is planning and organizing and consider making the list distinguished by things that you know, how to do knowledge, that you have specific knowledge. And in your case, it would have a lot to do with learning, learn lot knowledge about how individuals learn learning theory pedagogy, but tease out as much as you can and be specific thinking in terms of terms that you would use to describe that knowledge that you have go to ay, sous, if you have to, but think of different ways to convey what it is that you know how to do and what you have skill in competence in the soft skills, the people skills, they are important, but frankly, most employers are going to consider them as givens. So you do want to include them, probably at least reference them in your cover letter, make a, make a statement about your strong and effective communication skills in your resume. But don't expect that your soft skills will get you over the hump. If you are apply for a job that requires technical knowledge or skill. And if you are interested in a job that requires specific specialty knowledge or skill, you may need to fill the gap between where you are right now and where you want it to be with some kind of course or instruction, some way to build up your ver your, your verifiable ability to do something. Uh, I often recommend to my clients, you, to me.com you U D E M y.com as a terrific source to go to for inexpensive courses that are offered by very talented, very qualified instructors. And you can learn about any, just go there and enter a keyword and you will find more than you can ever use. And they're affordable. So let's say for example, that you are in a position to you, you, some of my clients are ready to retire. They're not looking for a, a career career they're looking for, for a job. And some of them think, you know, maybe office management would be a, a good thing for me to transition into. That's fine, personally, interpersonally, you've got definitely the skills to do that kind of work, but do you have the technical skills? Do you have an understanding of, of, uh, managing calendars, multiple calendars in some cases, depending on the size of the office and who you're working for, um, do you have strong keyboarding skills that you, you, you can type fast and efficiently and accurately. Can you manage email for your, your superior as well as for other people who may be the office, can you manage payroll? Sometimes office managers are responsible for payroll. So all of those things go into skills that you probably don't have as a teacher. You can work well with the people in the office, but the technical skills that you might need for that kind of job, you may need to take, take a course on office management, 1 0 1. I don't know that that's on you to me, but I'm guessing it probably is. And take the coursework that you need, that you can then put on your resume, that you have completed a certificate, or you have training in, fill in the blank so that you can prove that you have the skills and the knowledge that you need to do. Office management and substitute office management for any other job you might think of being interested in and do the same thing. Go find a course. If, if you, to me, doesn't offer it, find a course somewhere somehow that you might be able to get some training from and add it to your resume so that you can demonstrate that you have the hard skills, the knowledge, and the, the ability to do certain aspects of the job that you are applying for. And one other little caveat, if, if I might, and that is, I'm not convinced that people are reading job descriptions, like they should. I just have a, a sneaking suspicion that, and I don't think it's just teachers. I think it's every job seeker on the planet that people go looking at job listings on indeed and wherever, LinkedIn, wherever they're going to find their job postings. And they cherry pick, they hone in on the things that they know they can do. And then they ignore the very clear signals in the job description that might indicate that this is not a job for you. You're not, you don't have the skills. You don't have the knowledge. You don't have the prerequisite experience. You don't have what it, it, it takes for the candidate that we're looking for. And too often people ignore the things that they think, well, I can learn that, or, you know, I can do all the other stuff. So maybe that's not all that important. And it's possible that you don't have to be a hundred percent match for every job description before you get the job, but you need to be a pretty darn close match. And if you aren't, you're, you're just wasting your time and effort and energy applying for jobs that you're not really qualified for and uploading your applications into the portal, and then wonder why you're never here from anybody. And the reason you're not hearing is that you're not qualified for that job, or you fail to your qualifications. So my point is, please, please, please start reading those job descriptions more carefully and pay attention to what it says. It will tell you what qualifications you need to be a viable can candidate for a particular job. They're telling you in that job posting. So do yourself a favor and be more discrimin discriminating about the jobs that you apply for and only apply for the jobs that you're pretty sure you're a good fit for. Don't waste your time on the jobs. That sound, oh, that'd be great. And then you ignore a key piece of the description. That means you're not qualified. So be careful about that. Understand the difference between hard skills and soft skills and read those job descriptions more carefully. And that's my advice for this week, have a wonderful week stay. Well, if you have found this podcast to be useful, and you'd like to share a review so that other people can find it, please write and review this podcast on apple, uh, tunes, iTunes, or wherever you're listening. And thank you for listening. Thank you for being part of my community. And don't ever hesitate to email me. If you have a topic you'd like for me to cover, I can be reached@kittyboynightatgmail.com take care and have a wonderful rest of your day. And we,
Speaker 1:So there you have that an episode of teachers in transition. I hope you enjoyed the information and I hope you'll plan to come back. Please subscribe to teachers in transition so that you can be alerted of future episodes. And let me know if you have any questions or topics that you would like me to spec specifically cover in a future episode, I'm more than happy to help with individual questions as well. So email me at kitty boy, not boy, not coaching.com. If you are interested in finding a new career or just enjoying your life more, this is the place to start. I'm kitty boy not. And this is teachers in transition.