3. What are some important skills for you career path?

There are many strengths that I consider important in anyone's career path. I will list them. I will also give you some things things to think about from a guy who has written several books on the subject and has worked with older teens and early 20's kids for more than 30 years.

First my list of important skills to anyone's career path.

Communication: both in and out, both written and verbal. You need to be able to hear and understand what people are communicating to you. This is both verbal and nonverbal. Hear what isn't being said. See their actions (body language, and what they are doing), as well as hear and understand what they are saying because you know the meanings of the words and acronyms they use. Know how to ask questions when you don't understand. I have more trouble in this area recently because of slight hearing loss due to my age. Someone else I know has trouble understanding what others are trying to communicate because they are very quick to jump to conclusions. Be aware of the conclusions you arrive at (fast or slow) and check them out to verify you have the correct idea.

And you need to be able to think through and formulate the ideas you want to express to others, and be able to present them in a way that makes it easy for them to understand your meaning. Be aware of your audience and talk in their language and at their level. Learn how to speak clearly and concisely without all the filler words like umm and ahh, you know, like. (Toastmasters is a good organization to help you learn this. I learned a lot in my two years as a member). Also learn to write well. Distill your main idea and express it concisely.

Problem solving: Another very important skill to have is to have problem to solve and be able to figure out an effective solution and see the implementation of the solution through to completion. Get it done on time, on budget and in a way that pleases those that the problem affects. Most of the time, you will be handed a problem to solve, disguised as symptoms and you will use your problem solving skills to figure out what the real problem is, what the root cause is, and what possible solutions are. Early in your career, you will either be told what solution to use, or you will need to ask which solution is the best for the situation. Then you need to figure out how much it will cost (your time, other people's time, money for supplies, etc. ) and figure out when it will be done by. (early in your career, you will be given a deadline), and then you need to get it done by the deadline. The person who's problem it is will want to verify that you really have solved the problem.

now i will give you some information by Tim Elmore in his book, Artificial Maturity, Helping Kids Meet the Challenge of Becoming Authentic Adults. He has studied kids your age (Generation Y and Z) and has identified many strengths that are weak among many of your age group. On page 66, he lists these.

Patience - the ability to wait on a reward that comes slowly.

Connection - the ability to build common ground with those unlike you , (let me add, this includes adults from Gen X and baby boomers)

Responsibility - Morals and ethics. the ability to do what is right even when acting alone.

Endurance - the ability to stay committed and complete the work towards a goal.

Empathy - compassion and perspective - the ability to see and feel what others do (let me add, he talks a lot about emotional intelligence.

Memory - the ability to remember and relay important information.

The fact that you asked a question on Career Village show you are humble and strong enough to make improvements. I wish you the best of luck as you continue to grow in your skills with dealing with the real world.

Hi Omar,

From my experience, aside from the hard technical skills that you need to do the job you may get in the future, these are the top 3 soft skills you'll need to truly succeed in your role.

1. Learn how to communicate your findings to your peers and your superiors, especially to those that don't have a strong technical foundation. Being able to communicate your work is by far the MOST importantly skill you'll need in your career path.
2. Be as resourceful as you can. Especially when you're starting out in a new job. Sometimes people won't have time to stop what they're doing to teach you what you need to know. This is when you need to be resourceful and figure out how you can do your own research and find your own answers without asking at every step.
3. Don't be afraid to ask for help. You may find yourself be secluded and stressed if you take on all your work personally and not consult your teammates or superiors. Asking for help isn't something to be ashamed of, it's you reaching out to someone hoping to learn from them.

I'm sure you can find lists upon lists on the hard skills you'll need to do any job on the market, but these are the main 3 soft skills a lot of people look for in their employees, and in the peers.

Hi Omar,   I am in the IT field and specifically I see a trend towards Cyber security and Data Analytics.  These 2 fields seem to have the most job growth these days.   That said, some very important skills in Networking would be a good understanding of the OSI Layer Model and TCP-IP.  You should start early.   Read whatever you can get your hands on in regards to Ethernet, Fiber and IP networking.  Computer Science is a very broad major.   Build  good foundation of skills with Microsoft office products as well. 

I'll keep this short:

1. Be excellent at what you're supposed to do

2. Learn how to communicate and collaborate

3. Learn how negotiation works

It took me a long time to realize that 2) and 3) are super important. The sooner you learn about it, the better your career will be!

- Be excellent at what you do: if you are planning to become a developer, you want to have strong foundations in programing, system design and so on. You need to have strong work and personal ethics.

- Communication and collaboration: communicating well is equaly as important as your technical skills. It took me a while to realize that nothing is accomplished alone. And great things are always done with the support of multiple people. Don't worry if you think you struggle with communication: we all do, but the most critical thing is that we can all improve. We learn how to communicate well.

- negotiation: in our personal and professional lives we negotiate all the time. Learn how to negotiate. There are good online resources on this topic that are easy to read.