A diploma alone is no longer enough in the modern labor market. To get a good job or position, it is also important to have a certain set of skills. Think of communication skills, the ability to work in a team or specific soft skills for a certain function.
You usually do not acquire these skills during the course, but you develop them in daily work practice. The staff of Tampa Bay Roof (check out their website) has sufficient skills for the job as a result of their daily work practice. But how do you do that?
What are skills?
Before we elaborate on skills development and how you do this in practice, it is important to define what a skill exactly is.
A skill is a certain task or activity that someone is very good at. Skills are usually developed and perfected through practice and practical experience. Learning and mastering a skill, therefore, goes further than just gaining theoretical knowledge of facts and concepts.
Although the concepts of skills and competences are often used interchangeably, there is a clear difference between the two. The most important difference is that competence is broader and wider than a skill. A competence usually consists of knowledge, a number of skills and the necessary behavioral characteristics. In fact, skills are therefore practical parts of a broader competence.
Tip: You can read more about the difference between competences and skills in our blog article. Competences and skills: what is the difference?
Why continue to develop skills?
Keep developing yourself is not only a natural human need but also a smart and sensible intention from a practical point of view. There are therefore several reasons for continuing to develop and sharpen skills.
- Subject areas, professions, and technology are changing rapidly in our modern information society. Stagnation is therefore to decline. Continuing to learn increases your chances on the labor market and ensures that your qualifications and skills grow along with the changing requirements that are set.
- Your brain can be compared to muscles; frequent training keeps your brain in good condition and ensures that you develop (new) skills better and faster. By constantly acquiring new skills and knowledge, your brain strength increases.
- Developing a broad spectrum of skills makes you more flexible. The result: you can switch faster and respond better to unexpected situations, a quality that is certainly useful in our technologically complex society.
- Continued development of skills increases your chance of success. The famous physicist Albert Einstein (1879-1955), for example, did not consider himself a natural genius. He stated that his discoveries and scientific breakthroughs were mainly due to inquisitiveness: “I have no special talent. I’m just curious.