The first step to lasting employment is career readiness. Before you start searching for a job, it’s important that you have the baseline skills needed for interviewing for, securing, and maining meaningful employment. These skills include a variety of practices, such as clear communication, time management, critical thinking, and more.
While some aspects of career readiness may seem obvious, others might catch you by surprise – especially if you’re looking for your first job or if you have been away from the workforce for a period of time. Keep reading to learn about important skills you will need for any job you choose!
What Is Career Readiness?
Simply put, career readiness is the important process of gaining the skills you need to find, interview for, maintain, and grow within a job. You can think of career readiness as the “soft skills” you need to be successful in a job. While the “hard skills” you need would include the specific skills required – such as understanding how cars work in order to be a mechanic or knowing algebra to be a math teacher – career readiness includes the skills that make you trustworthy, easy to work with, a problem solver, and more.
Whether it’s in life, school, or previous employment, you’ve probably met someone who is difficult to work with. Maybe they were unreliable, poor communicators, or just unpleasant to be around due to an unprofessional attitude. Either way, the goal of career readiness is to understand the soft skills that are expected at work so you can be successful in your career path!
Benefits of Career Readiness Programs
A career readiness program is an investment in your future. In order to be successful in a career, you need to know not only what to do at a job, but how to do it.
You may think the social and emotional skills needed to gain and maintain employment are obvious, but there is a world of professionalism that is often difficult to understand until you’re on the job. Nobody is perfect – and everyone is bound to make some mistakes! But you can prevent some of those by enrolling in a career readiness program, where you will be fully prepared to enter the workforce. Below are some of the skills that a career readiness program will teach you.
Improves Communication Skills
Having excellent verbal and written communication skills is extremely important when seeking employment. Your communication skills will leave a lasting impression after an interview, and will also determine how trustworthy and easy to work with you are on the job.
You may be thinking, “I know how to communicate!” However, the truth is that everyone has room to improve. Whether it’s learning to remain clear and on topic during a meeting, knowing how to write professionally in emails, or understanding non-verbal communication such as body language – improving your communication skills will always set you apart from others.
Teaches Time Management
Having excellent time management skills will make you a strong asset at any job where productivity and efficiency are valued. A career preparation course will help you learn the skills to stay organized, prioritize tasks, complete them in a timely manner, and more. If you’ve struggled to manage your time well in the past, it’s not too late to gain the tools to make it easier in your life. Enroll in a career readiness program today to sharpen your time management skills and stand out from other job candidates!
Cultivates Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is not just knowing what to think – but how to think. It includes analyzing, evaluating, and making a decision about a situation in front of you. This skill is a bit harder to teach, but with a career readiness course, you will catch on quickly!
The main goal behind critical thinking is to avoid taking everything at face value and thinking past the most obvious solutions. A career readiness course will teach you how to slow down, ask the right questions, research trustworthy sources, and more that translate to the critical thinking skills needed in workplaces.
Career Preparation With United Way of Summit & Medina
With the help of a United Way of Summit & Medina career preparation course, you will be ready to excel in any workplace! Our goal is to not just help you find a job, but to help you prepare for lasting, meaningful employment. Learn more by calling 2-1-1 or head to our website to find various employment programs.