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Determining
Your Skills
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Job
listings rarely read, "Wanted:
Philosophy majors specializing
in Socrates," or "Calling
all English majors for top
jobs at high-profile firm," or "Were
you a history major? Earn
six-figures for performing
intellectually fulfilling
work."
If you are a liberal
arts major, targeting
potential
employers and marketing
yourself may seem a monumental, if not impossible, task. You should have
majored in electrical
engineering, right?
Wrong. Sure, your technically-trained
friends generally don't have much
trouble determining which employers
to target and how to showcase their
tangible skill
sets. But, with a savvy approach to getting a job, you are just as likely
as a computer science major to
find meaningful work. And, best
of all, your liberal
arts degree generally isn't limiting: You have the freedom to do nearly anything
they want.
The first step is not to think
of yourself in terms of your specific
degree. Companies often do not
hire
students because of their specific
degrees - instead
they use job applicants' skills as criteria for filling positions. So, instead
of asking, "What are good jobs for Romance Languages majors?" ask, "What
are my passions and strengths? What skills do I have? What do I want to be doing
in my job?"
The first step in responding to these questions is to honestly address what you
love to do. What fascinates you? What do you find compelling and fulfilling?
Once you've answered these questions, address what skills you can bring to the
work place.
Your first response may be that
after four years of college, your
skills
amount to doing close readings
of King Lear and analyzing the
socioeconomic
implications
of the Kennedy administration.
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However,
according to Phyllis R. Stein,
a career coach in the Boston
area, liberal arts majors tend
to have a lot of skills they
don't even know they have. "It's
not just that you took a Shakespeare
class," Stein says. Instead,
she explains, in that Shakespeare
class you honed your researching
skills, you learned to make coherent
presentations, and you refined
your ability to organize your
thoughts in writing.
Stein adds that liberal arts majors generally have excellent administrative and
management skills. They write well, they can think critically, they can analyze
problems, and they can communicate well with co-workers. Liberal arts majors
can work simultaneously with big picture concepts, and with the small details
that fit into these large visions. They are also, she says, adept at adapting
to the vocabulary of different occupational fields. For example, the jargon of
marketing, law, and accounting is such that different words in each field often
have similar definitions. Liberal arts majors are good at achieving fluency in
many different occupational languages, simply by virtue of spending their undergraduate
careers using terminology specific to English, philosophy, and history. This
versatility is helpful to liberal arts majors as they tailor their resumes and
job applications to prospective employers.
Also, when you assess your skills, don't forget the skills you gained from doing
volunteer and extra-curricular work.
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