10 Tips for Developing your Skillset on a Budget
If you’re like most people, you hope to have a rewarding, fulfilling career that includes, of course, a promotion, raise, or other forms of recognition for your efforts. While there are many factors that contribute to overall success in your career trajectory, one of the most important in our opinion, is effectively building and upgrading your skillset.
This is true not only because you’ll need specific skills in order to perform optimally, but also because continuously developing your skills adds value over time - something that all employers love! This is the exact reason why there are so many skill upgrade programs that can be taken part-time - allowing you to simultaneously learn and contribute your skills on the job.
With the importance of building and upgrading your skill set in mind, we thought it would be helpful to share our top 10 tips that you can use to help develop and upgrade your skills, without breaking the bank; as well as specific examples of what skills to include (and not to include) on your resume.
At Resume Ninjas, not only do we help our clients develop highly-competitive resumes, but we also work closely with them to help plan cost-effective paths to success in their chosen career - which often involves carefully matching employer needs to existing skillsets and offering recommendations for upgrades.
What is Skillset?
By definition, a skill set is a group of skills or abilities that can be applied to your career, volunteer, or creative endeavours to help you perform optimally. You can develop your skillset through training, education, personal development, or a bit of all three! The benefits of increasing your skillset not only include better performance on the job. When you get to the level of an expert at a particular skill - it will most certainly earn you top dollar!
Before we jump into our discussion on the top 10 tips for developing your skillset, it’s important that you first understand the difference between the two main types of skill sets - soft and hard skills - along with how they influence your job application process and ultimately, your success.
Types of Skill Sets
Soft Skills are skills that refer to you how you interact with others at work, and often include personality traits and other interpersonal skills. They help paint a picture in your potential employers head - telling them a bit more about how you as an individual, will benefit your new team.
Some examples of popular soft skills include:
Team-player
Time Management
Leadership
Attention to Detail
Stress-Management
Organizational
Communication
While some of these items should be obvious to potential employers, they often aren’t. For example, if you’re a computer programmer that’s being hired to do mostly autonomous work, it would be helpful for your employer to know they have someone who also has excellent leadership skills to jump in as an Interim Project Manager if the team is falling behind. It’s always easier to hire from within!
Hard Skills
An easy way to think about hard skills is to refer to them as technical skills. These are the skills that you will need to develop via a course, self-research, or further education, and include things like:
Computer skills
Presentation skills
Microsoft office skills
Project management skills
Trade specific skills
Language skills
Design skills
Writing skills
Certifications
As you can see, these types of skills will have varying levels of proficiency, so it’s helpful if you include your level of understanding when listing hard skills on your resume (beginner, intermediate, or advanced).
Now that you have a better understanding of what skill sets are, and the main types of skill sets, let’s discuss in detail our 10 tips for developing both your soft and hard skills on a budget - in order to get (and retain) the job of your dreams!
10 Tips for Developing your Skillset on a Budget
#1 - Find a Mentor
Many seasoned professionals in a variety of industries have mentorship programs where they help coach and guide others. If you don’t know of any in your particular industry, a great way to find them is to Google “find a mentor for ____” and insert your industry, or by connecting with people on LinkedIn.
For example, our friend Andy Dhillon runs a mentorship program for students who are looking to become CPA’s. Through his mentorship program, he contributes his diverse accounting skill set to encourage financial literacy, foster well-being, and help the students obtain their career goals. Working with a mentor like Andy is a great way for you to develop both your soft & hard skills, to make your application as competitive as possible.
#2 - YouTube
You’ll be amazed at how many hard skills you can learn & perfect just from watching videos online. From woodworking to computer software, to real estate, if you can dream it, you can learn how to do it online.
We suggest that you do a bit of background research on the person you’ll be learning from, prior to starting, to ensure that they’re a trusted source in whatever skill set you’re trying to develop or perfect.
#3 - Blogs & Books
This is a great example of how to learn something on a budget - especially because you’re doing it right now! There are a plethora of online blogs that are written by professionals in almost every industry where you can upgrade both your soft & hard skills. If you’re the old-fashioned type, visit your local bookstore! One of our favourite types of books that will help you learn a new skill set is the “Dummies” series.
#4 - Online Courses & Webinars
Because of the recent shift to working and learning from home, online courses and webinars are in abundance - and many of them are free! One of our absolute favourites for upgrading your skillset in a variety of topics is Coursera - where you can take courses for free from world-class Universities and companies. They charge a small fee if you require a certificate or diploma, but other than that, there’s no cost to you.
#5 - Participate in Job Shadowing
Do you have a friend or relative who works in an industry that you’d like to get more experience in? Job shadowing is an excellent way to learn both what their day to day looks like while simultaneously developing your skillset! As we mentioned in #4, because times have changed and the majority of us now work from home, the likelihood of someone being able to shadow you has significantly increased - so it’s best to use this to your benefit.
#6 - Intern or Volunteer
Most of us have had to intern at one time or another, so it probably doesn’t come as a surprise to you that this method made our top 10 list. Most intern positions are paid, although at a much lower rate than you’ll receive once you’re gainfully employed in your new profession.
On the other hand, volunteering means that you won’t get paid, but you will often be given a lot of autonomy and a wide variety of tasks to do.
Hot tip - include volunteer experience on your resume under the title ‘professional experience’ with the rest of your work experience, rather than separating the two. Experience is experience, regardless of if you’re paid or not!
#7 - Join a Professional Association
This is a method of building or upgrading your skillset that often gets overlooked. By joining a professional association, not only will you be able to attend talks, and read articles written by thought leaders in your industry, but you’ll also have the chance to network with them and find out what skill sets they recommend you build in order to be successful. It’s truly a win-win in our eyes!
#8 - Employer Training Grants
Many companies are eligible for grants of up to $300,000 to help train and retain skilled workers in a variety of fields. Because the grants that are available will depend on your geographic location, it’s best to check with your local employment office to find the most up-to-date and relevant information.
#9 - Growth Mindset
This is one of our favourite items on our top 10 list, because it’s more of an attitude than a skill - but will result in so many benefits for anyone that embodies it. A growth mindset simply means subscribing to the idea that your talents (aka skill sets) can be developed by hard work, good strategies, and input from others.
If you glance back at the items on our top 10 list so far, you’ll find that all of them fit into one or more of these categories! Being optimistic and believing that you can develop a robust skillset without having to pay for an expensive education will take you a lot further than you know - so it’s best to keep that in mind along your journey.
#10 - Set an Immediate Implementation & Feedback Plan
The last item on our list should be practiced along with the other nine items in order to guarantee your success. Each and every time you develop new skills, you should immediately implement them and ask for feedback from a supervisor, mentor, colleague, or friend. Feedback is an invaluable tool that will allow you to understand where you still need more training, as well as uncover your strengths. That way, when you go back to further develop your skills, you know where to focus and where you can shift some energy from.
Which Skills to Include on your Resume
Now that you understand what a skill set is, the different types of skill sets, as well as some tangible ideas of how to develop your skillset on a budget, it’s important to discuss which skills you should (and shouldn’t) include on your resume.
Thankfully, the answer to this question is pretty easy, as long as you’ve read the job description thoroughly. Typically, an employer will list both the hard and soft skills that they’re looking for in potential applicants. If you’re running out of room and need to choose between technical skills or soft skills, a good rule of thumb is to always include the technical skills that the employer is asking for first, as they tell your future employer that you’re skilled and able to do the job that they’re hiring for.
You should also make a habit of including any skills which you know will set you apart from the other applicants. For example, if you speak multiple languages be sure to list them as most companies see multilingualism as a very strong asset, even if they don’t explicitly mention that in the job description.
To further your understanding of the implementation of skill sets, we thought it would be helpful to include a few examples:
Examples of Skillsets on Resumes
Truck Driver
10 years of Truck Driving Experience
Certified Class * License
Attention to Detail
Reliable and Responsible
Engineer
BA in Engineering
Analytical, problem-solver
Excellent time-management & planning skills
Project Management Skills
Electrician
Electrician Qualified
Excellent Manual Dexterity & Vision
Strong Team-player
Strong electrical installation and safety knowledge
Wrapping it Up
We hope you now have a better understanding of what skill sets are, the different types of skill sets, some tips on how to develop your skillset on a budget, and some tangible ideas of what to include and not include on your resume. We also hope you’ve found some inspiration and are ready to get started on the path to building your future career!
At Resume Ninjas, we know the power of a good resume. Beyond that, we know that you need more than a good resume to get ahead. From assisting with your application to helping you build your skill set, to interview prep and salary negotiation, and beyond - we’re here to help you move forward. Contact us today to start one of the most fulfilling journeys of your life! Regardless of where you are in your journey, we can’t wait to hear from you.