
Both you and your future employer need to know exactly what kind of skills you possess. Throughout your degree you’ll have developed a whole range of skills relating to reading, writing and analysing texts. Employers value these discipline-specific skills but they also want to know about broader skills, which your studies will have helped you to develop. Typically, there are 6 skills employers look out for:
1. Cognitive (identifying and resolving problems)
2. Generic (planning, communication, teamwork)
3. Personal (creativity, decisiveness, leadership)
4. Technical (working with technology)
5. Business and organisational (understanding how organisations operate)
6. Practical (handling processes and procedures)
If you don’t think you possess all of these attributes, don’t worry. The list may get you to think about what you’re good at and what you enjoy. It’s worth experimenting too. For example, if you think you lack leadership potential, take up a leadership role in an area you’re interested in. You never know you might surprise yourself.
To help you to identify your skills, you might want to give this Competencies Assessment Exercise a go. It’s helpful to complete this exercise well before your finals, to give yourself time to figure out the areas you’d like to work on whilst you’re a student.
You can also find out more about careers that English graduate go into by looking at Prospects (although, as you can see from the blogs, there are so many options it's impossible to summarise them on one page).