person standing in front of a whiteboard

Employers in all job industries seek candidates with a well-balanced set of relevant skills. There are foundational skills that can be used in any industry, and skills that are in demand for any role you may be seeking. 

Internships and part-time jobs are great ways to build skills, but aren’t the only way. The skills you’ll need can be built through any experience where you focus on a task to get something done. This means that you’re building skills right now through your classes or other activities you do in your free time.

Skills for Success is a self-paced program that helps you

  • Identify the skills you have now.
  • Learn about the skills you’ll need to develop.
  • Find ways to build these skills through activities at CU Boulder.
  • Learn how to highlight your skills effectively at every stage of your job search.

 Download the Skills for Success Guidebook and let’s get started!

How to get started with Skills for Success

1
Identify
the skills you already have

2
Explore
in-demand skills

3
Find opportunities
to build skills

4
Learn
how to highlight your skills

Identify the skills you already have

The first step to knowing what skills you need is to take inventory of the skills you currently have. Your experiences through years of school and various activities have all contributed to your current skill set. 

Get started by completing the Skills Inventory in your Skills for Success Guidebook. This activity helps you reflect on your experiences and the foundational skills you’ve started to develop. 

As you identify the skills you already have, consider how well you’ve developed those skills. There may be some opportunity to sharpen these skills in your academic journey. For example, let’s say you identify leadership as a skill you have from your experience as captain of your high school soccer team. You could join the CU GOLD program to learn more about leadership or take on a leadership role in your student organization to further develop this skill.

Explore the skills you might need

No matter what your professional goals are, it takes a variety of skills to get a job done. Strong job candidates often have a combination of foundational skills and technical skills. 

To explore what skills you might need to build, use the Foundational Skills List and Gap Analysis sheet in your Guidebook. This activity will help you learn about certain behaviors associated with each skill and determine if it’s a skill you may need to work on.

If you know what occupation you want after graduation, you can also request a skills report to learn about the skills most sought by employers hiring for those roles, as well as other key information that will be helpful in your future job search. 

As you complete the Skills Gap Analysis activity and review skills reports, start making a list of the skills you’d like to work on. Aim for a balance of foundational and technical skills to stay well-rounded.

Find opportunities to build skills

Once you have your list of skills you’d like to build, start exploring opportunities that would allow you to work on those skills. Fortunately, there are many ways to build skills outside of the classroom.

For example, let’s say you want to work on your communication skills. Communication includes a variety of sub-skills: presenting in public, active listening, managing conflict, recognizing emotions in others, etc. Consider different activities or programs on campus that allow you to practice these specific skills. You could check out the Journey Leader program, where you’d be guiding groups of new students in their transition to CU Boulder. Maybe you’d like to be a teaching assistant, or run for a role in your student organization where you’d be responsible for facilitating meetings. These opportunities often allow you to build more than one skill at a time—in these examples, you could work on both communication and leadership skills. And these activities and programs are not only great ways to build and apply skills, but they can also give you experience for your resume.

Participating in extracurricular activities, internships, volunteer roles, research experience and part-time jobs are all ways you can gain experience and build skills. Review this list for more ideas about how you can buff up your skills. Use the Personal Skills Plan in your Skills for Success Guidebook to stay organized and chart your course for how you’ll develop specific skills.

Learn how to highlight your skills

Whether it will be a while before your first job or you’re in the job search now, it’s important to be able to talk about your skills with potential employers. Documenting the skills you’re building now and examples of how you’re using those skills will help as you prepare for job and internship searches. 

As you gain more experience and work on building specific skills, use the Skills Progress Tracker sheet in your Guidebook to reference later. Here are some other ways you can practice highlighting your skills:

  • Write or update your resume with bullet points about your skills.
  • Practice writing cover letters.
  • Update your Handshake and LinkedIn profiles. Use VMock’s Aspire tool to review and optimize your LinkedIn profile.
  • Consider making a personal website that shares more about your skills and experiences.
  • Look for networking events to practice verbally talking about your skills with others.
  • Ask a friend or family member to practice answering interview questions or use Interview Prep to complete a mock interview.
  • Set up an appointment with Career Services in BuffPortal Advising.

The more you practice now, the easier it can be when it’s time to meet with potential employers. Remember, building skills can take time and you don’t need to do it all at once—focus on one step at a time to continually make progress.

Questions? If you have questions or want to bounce some ideas off someone who is here to help, come to a Skills for Success express appointment at Career Services or a workshop to get more insight.