Hey, guys.
It's Chelsea from The Financial Diet.
And this week's video is brought to you by lingoda.
And I am coming to you from a place that is probably not
very familiar to you if you watch this channel,
and that is because I am not in my apartment.
I'm not even in New York.
Hell, I'm not even in America.
I'm in France.
Ha, ha, ha.
As many of you guys have been probably following along,
my husband has had some immigration issues this year.
And we were separated for a while.
But now we're together, and I'm here.
But don't worry.
I'll be back stateside soon enough.
And today, whether you are on one side or the other
of the Atlantic, I wanted to talk to you
about some underrated job skills you probably already have.
When you're hunting for a job which for many of us
is the case this year, it can be easy to feel intimidated
by all of the various terms and requirements
that employers are often listing.
Things like engaging, innovating, data driven,
five-plus years experience can all
feel like blockades between you and the job that you want.
But before you fall into the black hole of intimidation,
remember that the vast majority of skills you probably need
are ones you either already have or could very much acquire.
You may have never used a P&L management tool for example
before.
But that is by no means a reason to say you couldn't do it.
And for example, if in the context of an interview
you are asked if you know a specific piece of software
that you may not personally know,
it's always an option to say that you have not familiarized
yourself with this particular piece of software
but that you are familiar with xy and z things that
are inherent to that software, the skills that it implies.
For example, you may not know Photoshop.
But you could have used other image-editing tools
and are familiar with creating imagery for digital use.
For many potential employers, it's not so much
a specific tool.
It's more the underlying skills beneath that tool
and what it implies about your work.
And being someone who is curious, eager, and quick
to learn is an invaluable skill in every job.
Because at the end of the day, even the perfect candidate
isn't going to be proficient at everything.
So much of the job hunt is about playing up
the skills that you already have and that
are often underrated even by the job seeker applying.
So when you're heading into your next interview or application,
here are a few under-the-radar skills
you are going to want to hype up.
Number one is thinking ahead.
If you're the type of person who often thinks in terms of,
well, this is good now but where will it be in a month,
a year, et cetera, or who looks at a particular choice
or solution and thinks about it in terms
of its long-term sustainability, that is a huge asset.
Many people are easily distracted
by short-term wins and things that provide easy answers
to immediate problems.
But when you're able to think about something in terms
of how it scales or how it can be sustainable long term,
you are already demonstrating a higher level
of thinking that many people tend not to click into.
This is especially useful thinking
for moving up any kind of corporate ladder
because the longer-term thinkers tend
to be rewarded by longer-term, bigger-scope projects.
Number two is your curiosity.
One of the most valuable skills anyone
can have is being a creative, curious, dynamic thinker.
Being someone who is constantly looking
beyond the scope of what their specific domain is
who looks to see what the implications of one action
might be on a completely different discipline or sector
and who wants to understand things beyond just
their rote day to day is someone who's
going to be a very valuable person in any structure.
It's so easy for people to get narrow laser focused
on just the tasks they're given and recreating
those tasks every day even if their formula
doesn't necessarily make sense for the problem at hand.
Being a nimble, curious thinker who
can get beyond just the immediate day-to-day tasks
means being much more adapted to solving unexpected problems.
Number three is being empathetic.
Ultimately, in nearly every job you're going to do,
how you communicate is going to be
an enormous part of your success or failure at that job.
And especially as you move up the ladder
and potentially manage more people
or are being hired into a position of management,
being an empathetic communicator is the absolute key
to getting the best out of people.
If someone is constantly missing deadlines or not
working to their normal level of quality for example,
it could be easy for an unempathetic person
to simply just write that person off as incompetent or lazy.
But someone with more skill and empathy
could easily start to get to the bottom of what
the real issue is and hopefully find a much more
solution-oriented next move.
Communicating in a way that feels authentic rather
than opportunistic is also a massive key
to creating networks, to managing teams,
to creating relationships around your industry,
to sales, and basically every human-oriented element
of the job.
Someone who makes a person feel at ease,
feel understood, and feel listened
to is going to have an enormous advantage.
You don't have to be BFFs with everyone at your office
to be the kind of person who understands them and tries
genuinely to put yourself in their position.
Number four is expressing yourself clearly.
Now everyone is going to have a different level of skill
when it comes to pure communication.
And it's not fair to ask that everyone's
going to be like a Winston Churchill-level orator.
But one of the things you can actively work on
is making sure that everything you say
has a purpose and a value and communicates
your intent clearly.
Often people will get flustered in professional situations
and simply talk too much.
They fill up the space.
They use a lot of filler words and often
aren't even really necessarily conveying a point.
Forcing yourself to constantly trim back
what you're saying and making sure that everything you say
is very action oriented is a great way
to become quickly known as a thoughtful communicator who
always has something valuable to say.
Number five is being polite.
This one should be obvious, but it is shocking
how rare of a skill politeness is when it comes
to the professional world.
Being the sort of person who remembers dates,
who sends thank-you cards, who speaks
in a polite, considerate, courteous way, who
holds the door for people, who opens the elevator for people,
being someone who genuinely carries themself
with a level of manners and respect
is frankly quite a rare thing.
And people, including hiring managers,
tend to remember the people who were polite,
who were conscientious, who were courteous
and who made them feel at ease because ultimately
good manners isn't about showing off or being fake.
It's about making the people around
you feel their most comfortable.
Even something as simple as asking how someone's doing
and actually listening to their response
can make a world of difference in how they perceive you.
Number six is knowing when to push back.
Now I'll be honest that I've never particularly
had the personality type of a pushover.
If anything, I'm a little bit too pushy myself.
But I know that for many people, being a pushover
or in its more generous terminology being
overly accommodating can be a real hurdle
Not feeling like you're entitled to push back
on something even when you know it's wrong can be a huge issue.
And beyond just potentially saddling you
with more work or an unfair responsibility
or violating your boundaries, it can also cause
other people in your team to lose respect for you
or to not see you as the professional you are.
Learning what battles are the right ones
to pick but having a firm, thoughtful,
and polite way of pushing back on something that
is inappropriate is a key tool to earning the respect that you
deserve and making sure that you're not constantly
being saddled with things that are outside of your scope.
For example, if you have a co-worker who is frequently
emailing you late at night or on weekends,
it is more than appropriate to write them a very polite email
saying, I don't check my work email
between this time and this time.
So I worry that if you continue to send them at these times
that I simply may not see them.
And I don't want to miss them.
If you wouldn't mind keeping your emails
between this time and this time, I
will be much more likely to always catch them.
Of course, what you're really saying is,
hey, asshole, stop emailing me at 11:30 at night.
But you're doing it in a way that reads as professional.
And of course, if you have to call out
behavior that was just beyond the pale
inappropriate or unfair, make sure that any time you
are going to potentially surface an issue that you
are arming yourself with data, with evidence,
and with examples.
You never want to be going out on a limb on something
you can't back up.
Number seven is citing your sources.
I'm sure for many of us, the scourge
that was "cite your sources" all through school
still looms large in our lives.
And it's also probably likely that we never
thought that that sort of skill would come in handy.
But in the professional world, being the kind of person
who always backs up their suggestions, ideas,
and opinions with something tangible and verifiable
is going to be the kind of person who
gets their will enacted much more often.
If you're proposing a budget for example
or proposing a strategic change in a particular project,
you're going to want to come armed with some evidence
to support that suggestion.
You never want to be caught having to defend something
with a simple, "Um, I just think it's a good idea."
Being the kind of person who comes prepared with evidence
adds a serious level of credibility
even before you share said evidence.
Number eight is not letting it show when you're in panic mode.
There are going to be times when things feel really
overwhelming, or you fear that you
may have made a grave mistake, or that you may not
be able to deliver on something at work.
I mean, in 2020, most of us have probably
had at least several times where we were in full-on panic mode.
But being the person who keeps their cool who
can be relied upon it to be clear
headed and solution oriented in their thinking
makes you the kind of person that people
want to gather around, that people want to trust,
that people want to follow.
Yes, there are going to be times when you are screaming inside
because you're so panicked about getting something out on time.
But as long as your outside demeanor
is cool, calm, and collected, you're not just
doing your team a favor.
You're doing yourself a favor by not
letting that panic overwhelm you and start
to bleed into the work itself.
Ultimately, mistakes are going to happen.
Deadlines are going to be missed.
And things are going to go wrong.
But rather than wasting a single moment
on panicking about it, especially in front of someone
like management or coworkers, you
want to be very clear about what is the reality of the situation
we're dealing with and if something
needs to be fixed or compensated for exactly how do we
go about that.
Arrive with solutions.
Make no excuses.
And take ownership of what if anything is going wrong
sans the panic.
Number nine is knowing how to present information.
Someone who is able to communicate a complicated idea
clearly or to illustrate a nuanced idea
with an easy-to-understand metaphor
is someone with a huge advantage.
Practicing at home the various ways of pitching an idea
or explaining your rationale or following up a suggestion
is a great way to start making sure
that when you are explaining something,
you are always giving your best case.
This is the perfect kind of thing
to practice with a friend for example before a big pitch.
Being the kind of person who can clearly and thoughtfully
coalesce an idea into a simple-to-understand soundbite
means being much more likely to sell through your ideas.
Lastly, number 10 is knowing when to let it go.
It can be so easy sometimes in the professional sphere
to feel like every hill is a hill worth dying on.
Sometimes, your co-worker messes something up.
And maybe you feel like they didn't get
sufficiently called out for it.
Or maybe you feel like you ended up
taking on some of the heat for it unfairly.
And yeah, that sucks and can sometimes
feel really unsatisfying.
But in the longer term, learning to not sweat the small stuff
and to be OK with just focusing on yourself
and not being too worried about what other people are doing
or how they're being perceived is a very valuable thing.
You never want to be seen as the sort of person
who holds grudges or who picks every battle
or who is a tattletale to management.
You want to be so focused on doing a good job yourself
that the work speaks for itself.
And you don't have to feel in competition
with people you work with.
Yes, sometimes, as mentioned before, it is fair and right
and the professional thing to do to speak up and push back.
But oftentimes, the more professional thing
is simply to let it go.
And if the person is messing up, let that work eventually
speak for itself too.
Ultimately, you probably have an enormous amount
of skills at your disposal that you haven't learned
to properly sell yet or even haven't
been valuing enough yourself.
When you go into your next job search
or continue the current one, make
sure to be presenting yourself for all
the valuable underrated skills you
have rather than just sticking to the four most
common ones that you tend to see on job listings.
And if you've been looking to add one more valuable skill
to your arsenal, I highly recommend checking out lingoda.
If you've been wanting to learn a new language,
you should check out the online language
Sprint offered by lingoda.
Lingoda is offering up to 100% cash
back on their Super Sprint program.
If you attend 30 classes a month for three months
and follow their guidelines, 100% of your tuition
will be refunded to you.
You can also go for the Sprint program
and attend 15 classes a month for three months
and get up to 50% cashback.
You can choose from Spanish, French, German, English and
business English.
And classes are available at every level.
After three months of intensive learning,
you'll learn how to express yourself and your personality
in your new language.
The lingoda method is shown to boost fluency
more effectively than any other online language learning
system.
The sign-up period for their Sprint program is now reopened.
And you can join through September 18.
The Sprint will start on September 23.
So click the link in our description to get started.
And use our voucher code School108
to get $11 off your first month's tuition.
So as always, guys, thank you for watching.
And don't forget to hit the Subscribe button
and to come back every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday
for new and awesome videos.
Au revoir.