2.2 Video: Introduction to Professional Skills
Watch the above video to learn more about professional skills and why students need to develop them for further education or for their careers.
The title of this YouTube video is “Top Soft Skills to have in 2020” – but “soft” makes it sound easy to develop these personal, interpersonal, thinking and communication abilities. In fact, developing these skills can be difficult. So, we cannot overstate the importance of developing them.
This video provides some examples of “professional skills”. Please note that the six skills in the video seem to differ from the 10 Professional Skills we use in CamSTAR. In fact, the table below shows how the video skills align with the CamSTAR skills.
Please note that the skills in CamSTAR skills are based on Canadian research. While the skills described in the video are not an exact match with those in CamSTAR, Table 2.2.1 shows how they are equivalent or similar.
| Six Professional Skills Listed in Video | How they relate to the 10 Professional Skills listed in CamSTAR |
|---|---|
| 1. Attitude | Your attitude shines in through your behaviours. Do you look for what needs to be done and do it (initiative)? Or do you wait for someone else to do it? Do you offer to help others once you’ve completed a task (teamwork, leadership, responsibility) or do you relax and check out your social media accounts? |
| 2. Creativity | Being creative and adaptable requires taking initiative, problem solving and critical thinking. |
| 3. Teamwork | Same |
| 4. Communication | Same |
| 5. Persuasion | Persuasion requires Oral and Written communication skills, problem solving, critical thinking and demonstrates leadership. |
| 6. Emotional Intelligence | Daniel Goleman is a psychologist who popularized Emotional Intelligence (EI). The five key elements are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. Completing the activities in CamSTAR will enhance your self-awareness through a process called “metacognition”. EI requires problem solving, critical thinking and leadership. |