5 SKILLS YOU SHOULD DEVELOP BEFORE LEAVING SCHOOL

Hello blog bestie, it is yet another weekend to enjoy, and most especially, it is the last post on career talk for now. I hope you have gained value from all the posts so far in May. I won’t move on without asking, how are you doing? And how is your walk with God?

For the month of May, we have been talking about careers and how we can grow and become well in our different fields in career and today, I would be sharing with you 5 skills that are useful to all students to help you excel when you leave school.

COMMUNICATION SKILL: You must be wondering why you need to learn that skill or be good at it when you are not a mass communication or communication art student or even a law student. Communication skill is very important, first what is communication? Communication is the way or mode by which we interact and pass information. In your workplace, you would be required to speak to your boss, to the client, to your colleague, or several other people you encounter as you work.

So it would be very important you know how to communicate with your boss or a client because the mode or way you would communicate information to your boss or colleague would not be the same way you pass that same information to a client. Do you now understand why communication skill is important? I believe this useful to all job roles, as an accountant you should know how to communicate and pass the right information to specific people even as a tech sis or bro or a doctor.

PRESENTATION SKILL: During my final year, the school brought up a rule that students must participate in class and the best way to do that was group and personal presentation. Bowen students reading this can relate. I am thankful to Bowen for this because it helped my stage fright to a good level and from what I can remember I did well in my presentations. Knowing how to communicate is great, but you also need to know how to present what you want to communicate. I do not want us to limit the presentation to only slides, let’s look at it like this, you are an entrepreneur and you have this wonderful solution to a world’s problem without any slides, you need to know how to present and convincingly communicate this solution to your investor to buy it.

It is not just about pitching an idea as an entrepreneur, you could be working in an organization and a problem is brought to your department, you may have a solution to it but your presentation would also matter for it to be considered. I was speaking with a friend of mine and she said whatever idea she brings, she needs to present how she came up with it and the whole process of how to achieve it.

 Finally, presentation skill also involves how you present yourself to others, your conduct, your speech, and every other thing. Apart from presenting an idea or solution, if you do not look presentable, it would be difficult to listen to you. I would be recommending a book called “The Confident Speaker” by Isioma Ojeme, this book will help you become bold in your speech, better ways to present your idea, and reveals the power and art of persuasive speaking.  This is the link to get one https://selar.co/ntrs.

MARKETING SKILL: Before I started writing today’s blog I had written out my points and sent them to a friend *😅 yeah I have a lot of friends* and she asked me, does everyone need marketing skill? I first laughed and then gave my response. Marketing is promoting a product or service to a target audience. Through developing your marketing skills, you know how to promote yourself to the people you want to know you. You must have heard of personal branding and let me tell you something, no one can market you more than yourself *you must have heard of this before 😅*. Having marketing skills help you know how to sell yourself, your skills, your worth, or your value for a great opportunity or even create one for yourself.

TIME MANAGEMENT SKILL: This is even essential while you are still in school, you need to know how to balance your personal, spiritual life and your career plus your family all together. Time management skill helps you take control over your day, your week, and also your month. To achieve developing the skill of time management, setting goals and systems to achieve them would be a great start because you can focus your mind on things that matter and you know how to prioritize things now.

Being more focused, your time would not pass by without being productive or doing self-care and you would have a better sleeping schedule. The most crucial time that time management helps is when you are faced with multitasking at the same and they all require your attention, when you have already developed that skill, multitasking would be easier. Let me share a little something with you, with your time management skills you can complete your task on time and report to your line manager or boss and this most times leads to applause.

LEADERSHIP SKILL: Leadership is not just based on holding a high-ranking position, it is basically about taking responsibility. When a task or project is given to you, you should take the responsibility to deliver what you are needed to do. Developing leadership skills gives you a sense of responsibility and like I earlier mentioned you do not need to hold a position before you take responsibility.

When people know you are responsible, you can be entrusted with tasks or projects. So developing leadership skills is not just for a particular field of study but for all individuals. I joined a program called Goal Getter under My Why Initiatives last year January and one of the topics we were mentored on was leadership the facilitator said “A leader is one who first takes responsibility and makes the situation better”.

Every skill mentioned above today is not just for students to develop but also for us who just left school and finding our way in this career world. You can also apply these skills to your personal and spiritual life, if you want me to write about it, let me know in the comment section.

If you have more skills that students or recent graduates should develop that would help in their career journey, please share them with us in the comment section.

Till I write again…

Your Blog Bestie,

Omoye.