Developing your generic skills

Skills? What skills?

When you look for employment, the knowledge you have gained in your degree will obviously be very important.

But just as importantly, you'll need to show you have skills in areas outside of your degree subjects. Skills that apply to your whole life, not just your studies or your career.

Employers are saying they want uni graduates that can communicate well, that can work effectively with a team, that are independent and motivated, a whole range of skills.

How do I develop these skills?

While you can get a lot of good experience at uni, through your lectures, tutes and labs, employers are looking for experience that comes from outside the classroom as well. Good marks will get you only so far — to really stand out to a potential employer, you'll need experience.

Get involved in extra-curricular activities, like sporting teams, clubs and societies, volunteering, casual work, bands, drama ... anything that develops you as a person is also good experience for your future career.

The skill groups

The different skills can be broken down into different groups:

• Research and inquiry: analysing information, thinking critically, solving problems, disseminating (communicating) what you have found out
• Communication and interpersonal: oral, written and non-verbal; teamwork, leadership and networking
• Information literacy: knowing when there is a need for information, being able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively use and cite the information; ability to use IT
• Personal and intellectual autonomy: self-management, learning independently and setting goals
• Ethical, social and professional understanding: knowing your role as a professional scientist, your personal identity and ethics

Building up your strength in each of these skill groups will make you a very employable sciences and technology graduate. Explore different ways to broaden your experience and develop these skills here.

Find out more about these skills here.