Interests, Skills & Achievements

8/12/2019 Interests, Skills & Achievements

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Copyright 2010, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Interests, Skills, and Achievements


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Interests, Skil ls, and Achievements


What Will I Learn?

In this lesson, you will learn how to:

Identify personal interests

Identify personal skills

Identify personal and academic achievements

Analyze and understand IT career options and

education requirements based on aptitude and interest

surveys


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Why Learn It?

How many times have you wondered what you really want to

do when you enter the working world? How do you know what

you would be good at or really would like to do? One of the

first places to start planning your future is to assess yourinterests and skills in various areas.

Do you like to work outdoors?

Do you like to work with children? Do you picture yourself in front of a computer or

interacting with people?

Do you have a knack for working with technology?

Employers usually hire candidates based on their skills.

Identifying what you have accomplished with your skills

and interests your achievements will set you apart

from other candidates when you conduct your jobsearch.


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Interests

An interest is a natural curiosity or concern about something.

Discovering Your Interests

How do you spend your free time?

What would you choose to do on a completely free

day?

What projects are most rewarding to you?

What kinds of topics do you enjoy reading about?


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Skills

Skills are proficiencies, talents, or competencies acquired or

developed through training or experience.

Current Skil ls

What are you good at? These are your current skills.

You can enhance your current skills via practice andtraining.

Building New Skil ls Education, practice and/or training can help you build

new skills.

You can also gain new skills through less formal andapplied experiences such as volunteering.


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Skill Statements

One way to assess your skills is to write skill statements.

There are two parts to a skill statement:

An action word a verb that indicates a skill.

The object of the skill how and with whom or with what

you use the skill.

Below are some examples of actions and objects.

The Action (Verb) The Object of the Action (Noun)

Writing Research reports

Developing Software programs

Organizing Student events

Running Meetings

Testing Website applications


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Action Words

Examine this list of verbs to help you generate a list of your

skills.

Administering Coaching Decorating Eliminating Influencing

Advising Communicating Defending Experimenting Initiating

Analyzing Completing Delivering Exploring Inspiring

Arranging Composing Demonstrating Expressing Installing

Assembling Connecting Designing Facilitating Instructing

Assessing Constructing Detecting Helping Integrating

Balancing Consulting Developing Hosting Interpreting

Budgeting Coordinating Diagnosing Identifying Interviewing

Building Counseling Discovering Illustrating Inventing

Calculating Creating Drawing Implementing Investigating

Classifying Deciding Driving Improving Judging


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Action Words (continued)

Launching Modifying Performing Reading Serving

Leading Monitoring Persuading Reasoning Setting up

Learning Motivating Planning Recommending Shaping

Lecturing Navigating Playing Recording Solving

Listening Negotiating Presenting Repairing Studying

Logging Observing Predicting Reporting Summarizing

Maintaining Obtaining Preparing Representing Supervising

Managing Operating Programming Resolving Surveying

Mastering Ordering Promoting Retrieving Teaching

Memorizing Organizing Purchasing Reviewing TradingMentoring Originating Questioning Reducing Translating

Mediating Overseeing Quoting Scheduling Uniting

Modeling Perceiving Raising Selling Writing


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Skills With Tangibles

Tangible objects are physical and material things. Do you have

any skills working with tangible objects such as the items listed

below?

Animals Food Musical instruments

Antiques Furniture Office equipmentAutomobiles Jewelry Plants

Chemicals Machinery Plastics

Clothing Metals Sports gear

Computers MP3 player Wireless devices

Electronics Mobile phone Wood

I t t Skil l d A hi t


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Skil ls With Intangibles

Intangible objects have no mass or energy such as a piece of

software, a persons mind, or a song. Do you have any skills

working with intangible objects such as the items listed below?

Drawings/designs Movie making Social networkingwebsites

Facts Music (or songs) Statistics

Internet Questionnaires Strategies

Instant

Messenger/SMS

Records (as in

data)

Training sessions

Meetings Research reports Video games

I t t Skil l d A hi t


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Skills With People

People skills involve working with individuals or groups of

people. Do you have any skills working with groups of people?

Children School administrators Teams

Doctors Student groups Senior citizens

Politicians Teachers

Interests Skil ls and Achievements


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Computer and Technical Literacy Skills

Computer and technical skills include all skills involving

computer hardware and software. Do you have skills working

with computer hardware and/or software?

Office Productivity

Software

Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft

PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel

Relational Database

Skills

ER Diagramming, DDL, DML, SQL, Oracle

Database Management, data analysis, report writing

Website

Development

Adobe Dreamweaver, Microsoft FrontPage, Aptana

Studio

Graphic Design Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Flash

Programming XML, Java, Javascript, CSS 2.1



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Asking Others to Assess Your Skills

You may not be the best observer when it comes to identifying

your own skills. For this reason, it is helpful to ask others to

help assess your skills. Teachers

Friends

Siblings Co-workers

Team members

Group members



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Tell Me/Show Me

Aptitude and Interest Surveys

An aptitude and interest survey is a questionnaire or test that

helps you investigate and assess your skills and interests, and

see how they match up with different occupations. This type ofsurvey:

Helps you learn what activities and subjects interest you Helps you learn what occupations and environments

you may be best suited for

Can be found on the Internet or in the career center at

your school

Should be used in conjunction with other assessments

and research



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Tell Me/Show Me

Achievements

An achievement is something you accomplish successfully,

especially by means of special effort, skill, practice, or

perseverance. Achievements can be academic or personal.Academic Achievement

Achieved at school

Includes projects, labwork, tests and standardized tests

Personal Achievement

Earned in an extracurricular activity or outside of school Can be an accomplishment, award or recognition



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Examples of Academic Achievements

High School Transcript listing courses completed/to be

completed, advanced placement courses, college

courses, Oracle Academy participation Achievement Test Results - state/local learning

assessment scores

College or military assessment test scores (in the US:SAT, ACT, PSAT, GED, GRE, GMAT, ASFAB)

Final projects, papers, etc. that demonstrate mastery of

knowledge



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Tell Me/Show Me

Examples of Personal Achievements

Certificates / Awards - industry recognized certifications,

citizen of the month, athletic awards, community

recognition, outstanding student, perfect attendance,citizenship awards

Leadership - class officer, club officer, team captain,

tutoring experiences, camp counselor experiences

Personal achievements can be:

Volunteer-related like earned the Presidential Service

award by volunteering 150 hours during my senior year.

Work-related like developed a filing system for arestaurant .

Related to your personal interests like earned first chair,

violin in the All-State orchestra. A result from a personal quest, like running a marathon.



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Tell Me/Show Me

Characteristics of Achievements

Achievements set you apart from others. Achievements should

have the following characteristics:

Be distinctive an achievement is usually a specificevent that occurs within a short period

Be objective an achievement must objectively and

accurately portray what you achieved (others who knowabout the achievement would agree on its significance)

Demonstrate skills it must demonstrate skills you used

or developed

Demonstrate a result what you accomplished must be

obvious

Be quantifiable the significance of the achievement

must be easily grasped



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Tell Me/Show Me

Additional Resources

The ideas and activities in this lesson were derived from and

inspired by different books and websites about searching for

jobs and planning for your future. These resources include: Campbell, David P. If You Dont Know Where Youre

Going, Youll Probably End Up Somewhere Else :

Finding a Career and Getting a Life. Notre Dame,

Indiana: Sorin Books, 2007.

Farr, Michael. Seven-Step Job Search. Indianapolis,

Indiana: Jist Publishing, 2007.

Wellenstein, Carl J. 12 Steps to a New Career. FranklinLakes, New Jersey: Career Press, 2009.



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Summary

In this lesson, you have learned how to:

Identify personal interests

Identify personal skills

Identify personal and academicachievements

Analyze and understanding IT career

options and education requirementsbased on aptitude and interest surveys



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21Copyright 2010, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Try It/Solve It

This practice covers the following topics:

Identifying personal interests

Identifying personal skills

Identifying personal and academicachievements

Analyzing and understand IT career

options and education requirementsbased on aptitude and interest surveys

Documents

Interests, Skills & Achievements