Boost Your Chances for Getting Hired by Improving Self-Management Skills

For quite some time now, we have been discussing some of the most critical employability factors. Seeing how we already went to lengths to highlight the significance of writing a perfect CV or boosting one’s soft and technical skills, now it’s time we rounded up this subject matter with another important aspect of getting hired – the improvement of self-management skills.

New college grads usually think that being assertive, qualified, communicative and confident at what you do is enough to build a killer career. However, in order to become an all-round candidate for your dream job, you also need to make some additional efforts that would help you find the golden mean between your knowledge, ambitions and personality. This is exactly where self-management techniques step in.

Put simply, there is an extremely wide set of practices that are all about improving a person’s initiatives, ideas, motivation and determination. Those tactics help an employee make right decisions, feel more productive, stay focused in the world of distractions and, most importantly, communicate with their coworkers effectively.

Obviously, the development of such skills and the ability to refer to them in your job interviews and applications will provide you with an immense advantage over your competitors and nudge your career in the right direction.

Learn to Handle Stressful Situations

Let’s face it. Every job could make you crazy from time to time if you don’t find the way to chill out.

Did you know that an average employee has about 30 to 100 projects on their plate? Parallel with some other factors like continuous distractions or countless hours in front of their computers, it’s not surprising that more than 40% of adults say they are highly distressed by everyday events at their work.

Even though you might not be noticing such symptoms right now, sooner or later they’re gonna cut you down. Moreover, your dissatisfaction will also start reflecting on both your overall performance, productivity and ability to handle even the simplest tasks.

So, how could you possibly prevent such things from happening? Well, the only logical way is to start working on handling stressful situations on time. What you need to know here is that anxiety is usually a highly personalized issue that varies from person to person. It doesn’t matter if it is your favorite episode of The Office (pun intended), a relaxing Pink Floyd song, a soothing scent or exercising, you should always find some stress-relief method that suits you best.

Always bear in mind that such practices are the next big thing among new college grads. Any office work is bound to invoke tension from time to time and people who can cope with such an environment are a genuine asset to any employer.

Improve your Performance by Boosting Communication Skills

Communication skills are surely an important aspect of any segment of your life. However, when it comes to your career advancement, they could definitely make it or break it. Apart from boosting the interpersonal relationships, they also improve teamwork and facilitate the transfer of important data from one person to another.

Therefore, it could be said that effective communication among employees is the backbone of any modern business. Precisely because of this, companies are always looking for candidates that are assertive, open-minded and communicative.

Even though this might seem pretty simple to you right now, you need to know that communication depends on a wide range of elements. For example, apart from being able to convey a particular message in a precise and adequate manner, you also need to learn how to listen to your colleagues, management and clients.

Time Management is the Basis of Success

Time management is certainly one of those skills employers highly appreciate in a candidate’s CV. Only this way will you succeed in expressing your understanding of a timely delivered message, as well as the respect towards other people’s time and obligations. In other words, providing expected results effectively indicates the success of your effort. What you need to know is that there’s a plethora of time management techniques you could possibly resort to.

In a nutshell, there are two basic types of time management you need to be concerned with in order to increase your productivity: macro and micro management. The first one deals with large time spans – usually revolving around deadlines and important dates on large projects. Micro management, on the other hand, focuses on how you govern every single minute of your work.

One of the most effective methods for improving your temporal micro management is to act on a time box principle. This means that you should group your office activities according to type and not just do something until it is finished. For example, you would have an exact period of time in which you were to write emails, and when it’s up you move on to something else. You can also divide your work in half-hour cycles where you work for 23 minutes and rest for 7 (think Pomodoro). This way, by knowing exactly when your break is due, you won’t make any minor pauses in the middle of your work.

If Possible, Work Offline to Beat Distractions

We all live and work in the world of distractions. Apart from affecting our productivity, this issue also impacts the way we handle some difficult problems and situations. Problem solving takes a lot of focus, since it requires you to pass a valid judgement on all the right information. Still, even the most resourceful person cannot act accordingly when distracted.

There’s an interesting research that proves that nearly 60% of disruptions at work come from email, social networks and cell phones. If you’re facing the same problem day by day, there is a myriad of techniques that could help you cope with workplace distractions. For example, for tasks that don’t involve the use of internet, you could try using old-fashioned paper and pen.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that you should just go ahead and unplug your internet cord, only that you need to try and demonstrate some online restraint. When you are working, you need to be working and not liking your neighbor’s status, checking an update on your favorite TV show’s next season or even going through your email every few seconds.

Conclusions

In today’s competitive world where employees are expected to take the full responsibility for their own performance, fully developed self-management skills have become a must. What’s best about them is that they are universally beneficial and equally important in any line of work, regardless of your age and experience.

Now, back to you. Which self-management skills do you consider your strength?