What’s more important: Skills, attributes or attitude?

Steve Preston

What will determine whether you win your next job, promotion, career change or the contract you were hoping for?

Will it be because you have the right skills, attributes or your attitude? What factors will play a major part in your success?

I often ask this question at my seminars and workshops and get many different answers. However, the answers I like best are:

• They are all equally important, e.g. it is no good just having great skills if you don’t have the right personal attributes or attitude for the job.
• Skills can be learnt, so having great personal attributes and attitude can make the difference.

Skills are important – but they are only part of the picture

Skills are undeniably a vital ingredient for success in life, and the more specific or the more transferable, the better. For some specialist, technical and clinical jobs, having exactly the right skillset and proven ability to do the role could certainly be the determining factor. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be operated on by anything other than a highly qualified brain surgeon!

However, we all know situations where the supposed best person for the job, based on their skills and technical expertise, failed to secure the position. Why is this? Because skills can be learnt, which applies at almost any age in life. You can always go on courses, find a mentor, and of course pretty much learn how to do anything these days by watching a video on YouTube. Therefore, someone who shows great willingness to learn and has other strong attributes can add real value to most jobs and organisations.

For confirmation of this, you only have to watch some reality TV. It isn’t always the most talented person who wins the day – whether it be X Factor, The Apprentice or facing the Dragons Den, how many times have we seen an unlikely person win because of their positive attributes and great attitude?

How important are your attributes and attitude?

Positive, enthusiastic people radiate energy, which becomes infectious. Your personality, likability, determination, drive, energy, passion, hard work and commitment can win the day against more skilled candidates. I have seen this so many times with clients, who didn’t believe they had the right skills but won through at interviews because of their great attributes and attitude.

Establishing your ‘true marketability’

Marketable means that you are sought after and in demand. Your true marketability is the value you offer an employer or the marketplace in terms of your ‘complete package’. Establishing your ‘true marketability’ is about getting to know yourself, understanding who you are and what you have to offer the world. This is about bringing together your package of skills, personal attributes, attitude and much more. Your true marketability is so much more powerful than just marketing your transferable skills and is at the heart of my six-step Career Navigation Cycle process.

So what do you have ‘for sale’ that you can offer to an employer? You have a complete package of:

• Skills
• Attributes
• Attitude
• Strengths
• Achievements
• Knowledge
• Connections
• Interests
• Passions
• Values
• Your personal brand

I cannot stress this strongly enough, regardless of the level you are working at or aspiring to – the majority of people greatly undersell themselves. In today’s fiercely competitive job market, by establishing and really accentuating your true marketability, you will stand out from the crowd.

Consider this scenario:

Imagine two CVs landing on an employer or recruiter’s desk. The first one is purely skills focused, and the second one really brings the person to life in a very positive and powerful way so that their personality, work ethic, career objectives, achievements and energy leap off the page. Unless the skill level is the only prerequisite for the job, who are you going to invite to interview? The second one, I’m sure.

Why is it so important to understand your true marketability?

Developing an in-depth self-awareness of who you are and what you have to offer is essential for effective self-marketing and developing your career. This provides focus and clarity to ensure that you are applying for the right jobs, your applications are targeted and you sell yourself in the best light on your CV, and also in any networking or interview situation.

I’m sure you can now see by establishing your true marketability that this is an infinitely more powerful proposition than just focusing on your skills. So try not to rule yourself out of opportunities because you don’t feel you have the necessary skills, because in the words of the late, great personal development guru Zig Ziglar: “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude!”

Steve Preston is a leading career development coach, speaker and author – his website can be found at http://www.steveprestonthecareercatalyst.com/

NB: This article contains extracts from Steve’s latest book Winning Through Career Change, based around his highly successful six-step Career Navigation Cycle process, which has many strategies and inspirational case studies to help people move forward with their careers.