Having spent a few days last week scrolling through the internet researching skills audits I came across a really helpful template from The University of Surrey. One of the things that drew me to this particular audit as each skill had a key letter which at the end you could then identify what these types of skills represented. We all have a number of different skills but I liked the idea that this audit would give me a conclusion of the "type" of skills which I think personally can assist me in determining what kind of skills I have to work on and gain more experience in.
After under going the survey I learned that almost all of my skills are either data skills or people skills. However I only had 4 areas of ideas skill and no things skills at all. So from this experience it has taught me that I really have to up my ideas and things skills.
I was surprised at how little of the ideas skills I did obtain as if you had asked me prior to the audit this is one of the areas I am most interested in however having carried out the audit although I have interest in this area, it has highlighted the fact that I don't have much real experience in it.
No things experience however does not surprise me, technology and practical skills I know are my weaknesses however putting it down in black and white has reminded me that although this is an area I would usually try and avoid it is important to have a broad range of skills and sometimes it is important to step out of your comfort zone and learn something completely new.
I am currently a part time student at University of the West of Scotland undergoing a distance learning summer module called the Professional Development Experience 2 as part of my BA Business Degree and it is recommend to start a blog as a narrative
journal along the way.
As the module is based on professional development and I have previous experience in blogging I seen this as a good opportunity to portray this skill as part of my coursework.
Up until now I have been mostly reading up on work based learning in order to figure out the main basis of the module however now that I have researched a point where I have to start thinking about what knowledge, skills and abilities I already have I thought this would be a good time to start my narrative journal while I figure it out.
I have used blogging as an outlet in the past for setting personal goals as it is a good way to hold yourself accountable as well as allowing you to reflect back so I feel this will be a good way of setting my professional and academic goals for my module.
So where to start ...
From reading books on work based learning accreditation of prior experimental learning and analysing of significance of events seemed like a good place to start however from reading further into these I don't feel like these are the best way to go at this stage and have decided to carrying out a skills audit to begin with.
Identifying my own strengths isn't something I can do easily as I tend to be quite harsh on myself. However I feel a skills audit would perhaps be a good fit for me as internal auditing is one of my responsibilities at work so I'm hoping I can carry out the audit in a professional manner which might assist in not being so personally hard on myself in order to produce a factual non personally bias list of skills.
