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Identifying your skills

As you gain skills and experience throughout your time at university, it’s important that you know how you’re building them and how to make a plan to progress your development, to prepare yourself for future employment and success. 

Here are five steps to follow to help you identify and develop the skills you have, grow new skills, and reflect on your skills journey.

1. Identify the skills you need now and in the future

Knowing which skills you want to develop, need to develop and are currently developing is personal to you.

To be a successful and confident student, you will need to apply particular academic skills to specific tasks during your course. You need to identify the skills you need and want to develop and have a plan to ensure that you can improve them.

You are probably already developing a range of skills in lots of different areas:

Academic skills

  • Reflection: awareness and understanding of yourself and improvements you can make.
  • Presentation: communicating on a pre-prepared topic, considering the needs of the audience.
  • Academic writing and using academic language: communicating effectively in a written format to articulate an argument, supported by relevant evidence and adhering to academic conventions such as citation, structure and tone.
  • Time management: planning time, prioritising tasks, and organising commitments effectively.
  • Information gathering: searching for and evaluating appropriate and relevant information to strengthen the quality of academic work and research.
  • Academic integrity: commitment to good study practices and shared values, whilst ensuring your work is a true expression of your own understanding and ideas, giving credit to others when their work contributes to yours.

Work-ready skills

  • Collaboration: building constructive, supportive and cooperative relationships with others to achieve shared goals.
  • Communication: conveying and receiving information clearly, accurately and appropriately (written and verbal) and tailoring your message for different audiences.
  • Decision making: considering and evaluating options and applying judgement to find solutions within given time constraints.
  • Creativity: generating ideas, demonstrating originality and imaginative thinking, and thinking beyond expected or accepted ideas.
  • Leadership: showing initiative and setting clear direction to motivate and guide others towards achieving a common goal.
  • Negotiation and influencing: setting out your own needs clearly whilst understanding the needs of others to reach a mutually satisfactory agreement.
  • Research: accessing and investigating a variety of sources of information to provide answers, find solutions, and expand knowledge.
  • Working under pressure: working to deadlines and tolerating the demands of pressure.
  • Cultural awareness: awareness of similarities and differences across international cultures or different groups of people, showing appreciation and respect for the value of diversity, with a commitment to equity and inclusion.
  • Time management, planning and organising: using your own tools and strategies to manage time efficiently and productively and to prioritise tasks, using support when appropriate.

Digital skills

  • Digital productivity: selecting, using, troubleshooting and adapting digital devices, networks, applications, services and assistive technology to achieve specific goals.
  • Digital communication: communicating and collaborating constructively and professionally with peers through a variety of digital tools and networks to share ideas, produce research and resources, and engage in online dialogue and debate.
  • Managing a digital identity and digital wellbeing: being in control of your identity (or identities) across a range of platforms and media, and looking after your personal health, safety, relationships and work-life balance in digital settings.
  • Digital creation and innovation: using digital technology and techniques to create accessible digital items (eg images, documents, maps) and a willingness to engage with new practices and perspectives to solve problems, make decisions and answer questions.
  • Data and media literacy: finding, evaluating, organising and sharing information across a variety of formats and media, ensuring the reliability and integrity of the sources you use and the ideas they help you to generate.
  • Digital learning and development: exploring different ways of learning in digital spaces and with digital media, and developing both an awareness of what works for you and a willingness to look for help online when you need it.

Sustainability skills

  • Future thinking: understanding and evaluating different potential outcomes.
  • Ethical decision making: identifying ethical questions, considering what is morally right or fair, and understanding how decisions affect those around you, to make good choices.
  • Integrated problem solving: applying different problem-solving frameworks to complex sustainable development problems to explore innovative, inclusive and creative solutions.
  • Critical thinking: gathering information from a range of sources and analysing and interpreting data to aid understanding and anticipate problems. Using reasoning and judgement to identify needs, solve problems, and exemplify evidence-based decision making.
  • Inclusive relationship building: respecting views and experiences of others and collaborating equitably across disability, gender, ethnicity and other groups.

Enterprise skills

  • Commercial awareness: understanding how a business or organisation operates, what makes it successful, its customers, and the wider environment in which it operates.
  • Innovation: developing and acting on creative and purposeful ideas.
  • Self-confidence and initiative: believing in your own ability, independently initiating activity, and overcoming obstacles.
  • Identifying opportunities: using insight and identifying and assessing opportunities to create economic and/or social value.
  • Planning: accessing, prioritising, organising and managing the resources and support you need.
  • Working with others: valuing ideas, co-ordinating effort and supporting others.
  • Developing vision and purpose: progressing your own or others’ aspirations and identifying ways to achieve them.

2. Notice when and where you’re developing these skills

You are developing skills in everyday situations all the time. If you know which skills you want to focus on improving, you can start to notice when and where those skills come into play. 

It’s also important to notice which skills you might not be developing through the things you do, so you can make a plan to fill the gaps. Some places you may already be developing your skills are:

  • a part-time job
  • within your studies
  • volunteering for a local charity
  • at home, when negotiating or influencing those around you
  • responsibilities within a club, society or committee

3. Find opportunities to grow your skills

Whether it’s a skill you’re already growing, or a new one you want to gain, be proactive and find different ways to develop in each area.

Find opportunities to develop your skills

4. Reflect on your achievement and plan your next steps

Continue to check in on your progress to map your skills journey. Do you feel like your skills have improved? Do you want to challenge yourself to try something new?

Reflect on your progress by:

5. Articulate your skills

Graduate employers are increasingly hiring based on the skills you have. You need to be able to talk about specific skills, evidence how you’ve used them, and explain how you were successful in applying these skills.

When you answer questions in interviews, on job applications, or in cover letters, make sure you use the STAR method and structure your answers to include four elements: the situation, the task, your action and the result.

Watch the 'Tips on evidencing skills with the STAR method' video to learn what it is and how to apply it.

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