As you work through the different career planning approaches, the next step is to translate the results of your career planning into a desired skill set – a list of skills you will need to reach your career goals. Depending on the career planning approaches you utilize, you can have a variety of factors to work with including: personality traits, strengths, core-competencies, careers, and inner-motivations. Translating these factors to skills should be straightforward, though at times it might seem like you are going back and forth between defining careers and the skills related to them. Below is a table that depicts how this translation works.
There are advantages in working with skill sets as you plan your career. First, there is a need to be fluent with your career planning because of the rapid changes in technology and demographics. Developing a skill set with “soft skills” – skills transferable across disciplines –prepares you for changes in the careers you are targeting. Second, you can more accurately plan the learning and building of an expertise of a skill (as opposed to a career). Finally, you can develop your skill set in a logical progression throughout your career: planning, building, presenting, and validating (according to the skills based approach).
| Career Planning Approach | Career Approach Takeaway | How To Translate To Skills | Example |
| Self-Awareness | Personality Traits | Personality traits are broad in nature, so many skills can be identified for each trait and how well you perform each skill is more uncertain. | Judger (Carl Jung personality preference) –Business Management, Project Management, Virtual Collaboration, Design Mindset |
| Self-Awareness, Craftsman Mindset1, Product to Market |
Strengths, Core-Competencies(top ranked strengths) | Sometimes strengths will be defined in the same level of detail as a skill, otherwise, identify skills that correlate with the strength. | Learner (a strength from Gallup) – Research and Analysis, Sense-Making, Computational Thinking |
| Self-Awareness, Passion Theory, Product to Market |
Careers | Research what skills are needed for the career. Check descriptions of the career on job boards. Check websites of organizations that represent the profession. Get advice from a career counselor or someone who has the career. | Website Designer –Web Development, Database Design, Graphic Design, Programming |
| Self-Awareness, Passion Theory |
Inner-Motivations | Identify the skills needed to succeed with an inner-motivation or passion. | “Motivated to get funding for non-profits” –Grant Writing, Accounting, Research and Analysis |
1) “So Good They Can’t Ignore You”, Cal Newport 2012
