Job-Specific Skills

You may be saying, “Fine, I’m a manager with good organizational skills, but there’s a lot more to my job than that!” You’re right. You have very specific knowledge and expertise that you use in your particular vocation. Job-specific skills are those abilities that you need to succeed in your particular job in your particular company in your particular industry. These are the abilities that another person who has the same job title as yours would have to have to meet the job’s basic requirements.

Scan the lines below for some examples of job-specific skills for different occupations. You may not see your occupation listed, but you’ll get an idea of the difference between these skills and the general skills we talked about before. Your job specific skills are usually listed on your résumé, but remember the key to interviewing: It’s not enough just to possess a skill or even have it written on your résumé. You have to be able to verbally express it.

Please take a look at the following list of some job-specific skills areas in which proficiency is necessary in these selected occupations. I think you’ll see how they differ from general skills:

Occupation                       Selected Job-Specific Skills
Accountant : Accounts payable Accounts receivable Payroll
Marketing specialist : Press release writing Trade-show coordinating
Forecasting
Financial advisor : Series 7 license Knowledge of stocks, bonds, mutual
funds Knowledge of retirement planning and living trusts
Football player : Understanding football strategy Staying in shape off season Playing the position (quarterback, linebacker, tight end)
Environmental planner : Knowledge of geology and biology Knowledge of causes and treatments for pollutants Knowledge of the ecology of a given
geographic area                                                                                    Semiconductor assembler : Component parts of a wafer Clean-room and safety procedures Superior fine-motor control
Psychotherapist : Diagnosis of a client’s health Knowledge of nonverbal behavior Cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques
Publisher : Exceptional literacy The publishing process from “pitching” to marketing How to evaluate books for publication
Computer programmer : Computer languages Computer platforms C, SQL, Perl, Java, JavaScript
Surgeon : Knowledge of human anatomy and physiology How to make a diagnosis and prognosis Ability to perform surgery
Office manager : Order office supplies within a budget Microsoft Office, Lotus, Peachtree software Operation of multi-line phone system Now I’d like you to try your hand at identifying some of the job-specific skills you possess.

Taken from : Fearless Interviewing - How To Win The Job