Module 1: Career Strategy

Auditing Your Skills and Strengths

Before you write a CV or apply for any job, you need a clear, honest picture of what you have to offer. Many job seekers undersell themselves because they have never listed their skills properly, while others apply for roles that do not suit their strengths. A skills audit gives you the raw material for every later step: your career direction, your CV, your LinkedIn profile and your interview answers.

Three types of skills

It helps to sort your skills into three groups:

• Technical or job-specific skills: knowledge and abilities tied to a field, such as bookkeeping, using accounting software, coding in Python, operating machinery, nursing procedures or graphic design tools.
• Transferable skills: abilities useful in many roles, such as communication, problem solving, customer service, organisation, negotiation, teamwork and leadership.
• Personal qualities: traits such as reliability, initiative, attention to detail, patience and adaptability.

Transferable skills are especially important if you are changing careers or have limited formal experience. A shop assistant who handled cash, resolved complaints and trained new staff has skills relevant to many office roles.

How to run your audit

1. List every role and experience. Include jobs, internships, attachments, volunteering, family business work, church or community roles, side businesses and major school or university projects.
2. For each, list what you actually did. Use action verbs: managed, organised, sold, trained, analysed, designed, repaired.
3. Extract the skills behind each activity and sort them into the three groups.
4. Add evidence. For each important skill, note a specific example and any result. "Reduced stock discrepancies at the branch by introducing a weekly count" is evidence.
5. Rate your level for key skills: basic, competent or advanced.

Finding your strengths

Strengths are not just things you can do; they are things you do well and that give you energy. To identify them:

• Look for activities where you consistently get good results.
• Notice tasks that make time pass quickly or that you look forward to.
• Ask three to five people who know your work: "What do you think I do especially well?" Others often see strengths you take for granted.
• Review past feedback, appraisals and compliments.

Also be honest about weaknesses and skill gaps. These are not reasons to give up; they are areas to develop or roles to avoid.

A worked example

Mary has worked for four years as a receptionist at a private hospital in Nairobi and wants a better role but feels she has "only done reception". Her audit reveals much more:

Feedback from colleagues highlights her calmness with difficult patients and her accuracy. Her audit points toward roles such as patient services coordinator, medical billing officer or front office supervisor, which she had not previously considered.

Keep your audit updated

Treat your skills audit as a living document. Update it every few months with new projects, achievements and feedback. When you need to write a CV or prepare for an interview, you will have ready evidence instead of struggling to remember.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Listing duties instead of skills and results.
• Ignoring experience outside formal jobs, such as volunteering or family business.
• Underrating transferable skills.
• Overstating skills you cannot demonstrate, which will be exposed in interviews.
• Relying only on your own view without asking others.

A thorough skills audit shows you, often for the first time, the full value you bring to an employer.