As I consider what it means to be in a skills-based company that values our abilities over our job titles, I’ve come to appreciate thinking about my skills in a deeper way.
Let me explain.
When I came into SkyHive, at first, I was intimidated by the idea of thinking about my skillset. I wasn’t used to reflecting on what skills I possessed. It felt overwhelming.
I was left thinking: What were my skills? How many do I have? How do I know where to figure out what they are?
I quickly realized how much I was underselling myself.
I pondered what on earth I can do skillfully.
I was asked to complete my profile with at least 10 skills. I thought “there’s no way I can come up with 10 skills for my profile,” let alone the recommended 30-ish.
But the great thing about Skyhive is that the tool helped me—like it did with the people we talked to in Ghana—realize just how many skills I possessed. I didn’t have to do all the work on my own.
SkyHive was able to extract from my previous experiences, hobbies, education, and its labor-market knowledge all of the potential skills I likely had. When I typed client onboarding, out came numerous additional skills that SkyHive could detect matched my skill set.
And there I went, adding skill after skill. I saw the recommendations and thought “Oh yes! Of course! I’m creative, I have a SaaS background.” And so on and so forth.
I confidently watched my list of skills grow as I saw the recommendations. I got fired up thinking of all my abilities.
Skills come from your whole life experience.
They’re not just tied to your role. If you’re a parent, you probably have some freakishly good problem-solving skills; I can only imagine how many times you must think on the spot to answer your child’s unexpected question or mediate an unanticipated situation at the playground.
If you’ve traveled, you probably have adaptability skills. Traveling requires you to constantly be flexible with shifting gears; anything can happen in the skies.
If you’ve dabbled in the tech world, you probably have product skills. You’ve probably touched a CRM system like Salesforce. Or, maybe you’re a curious mind like me and have gone out of your way to self-educate on seemingly mystical concepts like coding Python.
All those skills count.
I love being in an environment where I’m always thinking about skills, and even more so, learning them. I now truly think about the skills I’m learning. Every time I’m picking up on a new capability, I get excited about adding it to my profile, and I’m very aware that I’m acquiring a new skill. I chase skills because the more I learn, the more I grow.
Since starting at SkyHive, I was asked to test, learn, and educate about new product releases. My job was to understand how a beta product works, call out any issues, and then regurgitate the information back in layperson’s terms for my clients in a document. At first, it was difficult. That’s because I was learning a new skill: product testing. I was excited to type it into my SkyHive profile page, proudly notating that I now have a good proficiency in product testing. What was once intimidating and difficult -- trying out a product and feeling unsure whether I didn’t understand it, or if my feedback was valuable -- became not just an ease but a pleasure.
You see, thinking about skills isn’t just a one-time thing that happens when you first go onto your SkyHive platform. It’s a way of life. It continues every day. Every day we are either learning something new or adding strength to an ability we already have. Thinking about skills is a forever long process, and a beautiful one. I’ve become a better learner through the process of thinking of skills, and more confident in my craft.
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