Self-skills - who needs them?

We all do, especially young people.  The value self-skill education offers young people becomes clearer when school leaving time arrives and young people seek to enter the world of work.  

We all know that people make their decisions about others based on their own preconceived ideas about what is good, bad, right and wrong.  We all do this, it takes only moments and we call it “first impressions.”  These first impressions lead us to make “judgments” about others. 

When a young person meets a prospective employer, who it could be argued is even more attuned consciously and subconsciously toward the evaluation of others the true value of self-skill education starts to show itself. 

Young people applying for jobs will generally have certain qualifications to show prospective employers and they may have some evidence of success, such as captain of the football or netball team, however we know that employers seek to hire the people they believe will “fit” with their organisation.  What this means is that employers ask themselves “do I like this person, can I see them fitting in with the team, do they appear confident and do they have the right attitude”.  Of course in order to answer these questions an employer needs to meet each candidate.

Before inviting people to interview employers screen candidates CV’s in relation to presentation, language, education, qualification and experience.  They then only invite to interview those who appear to demonstrate the qualities they are looking for.  Once at interview they focus their initial attention on first impressions, if they like what they see and hear in the opening moments then a real interview commences, if they don’t like what they see and hear they decide right then and there that the person is not for them but out of courtesy they continue the interview. 

Therefore, having gained a level of self-skill awareness during their early educational life journey, young people would be far better equipped to realise what their skills are, understand what motivates them and build their self-belief and self-confidence.  They would then be better able to choose jobs that are more likely to use their skills feel more motivated toward that working environment and feel more confident about their ability to “fit” in and succeed.  The employer will consciously and subconsciously pick up these signals and begin to believe that the candidate could fit into their organisational culture and way of doing things, leading them to seriously consider the candidate for the job.