Meet J.A.F.A.R., The Skills Manager Pro

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From the course by The State University of New York

How to Get Skilled: Introduction to Individual Skills Management (Project-Centered Course)

2 оценки

The State University of New York

How to Get Skilled: Introduction to Individual Skills Management (Project-Centered Course)

2 оценки

Do you want to gain a competitive edge on the job market? Would you like to improve the way that you organize, manage, and present your skills to succeed in a competency-based, competitive job selection? Have you prepared to compete for jobs in the age of AI-powered recruiting? This project-centered course* is designed for working professionals who want to direct their skill-building activities towards creating powerful, evidence-based, data-driven, and externally-verified job applications. When you complete the course, you’ll be able to objectively measure your level of skills acquisition against your desired job’s requirements and the likely competition. You’ll learn how to use experiential methods and tools, such as simulations, benchmarking, competency dashboards, and skills assessment to operationalize and quantify your skills. You will know how to realistically estimate your likely score in the competitive job selection; you will also find out how much of each skill you need to develop to stand out and beat the competition. In addition to improving your job applications, the course will teach you how to increase the effectiveness of your ongoing professional development by monitoring the level of skills acquisition. The course will provide you with tangible outcomes for immediate use. We’ll show you how to use a simple, powerful computer program to organize and manage your skills inventory. Your completed project will focus on your desired job and will include three components: 1) a Skillset Summary Checklist; 2) a Selection Criteria Statement; and 3) a Professional Development Plan. Upon completion of the course, you will be able to use the results of the project to strengthen your next job application (or promotion request). You’ll be able to use the same technique to direct your skill-building activities and continuously monitor their effectiveness. What is required: In the course, we’ll provide videos, readings, and learning activities. There is an optional course companion book available for purchase on Amazon.com. To download the course software, “J.A.F.A.R, Skills Manager Pro (TM)”, you will need to access the course companion website at https://www.skillsmanager.pro. The software is a copyrighted Excel spreadsheet template; for course participants, it is provided free of charge (for personal, non-commercial use only). To use the software, you will need to have a basic level of proficiency and a licensed copy of MS Excel. *About Project-Centered Courses: Project-centered courses are designed to help you complete a personally meaningful real-world project, with your instructor and a community of like-minded supportive learners with similar goals providing guidance and suggestions along the way. By actively applying new concepts as you learn, you’ll master the course content more efficiently; you’ll also get a head start on using the skills you gain to make positive changes in your life and career. When you complete the course, you’ll have a finished project that you’ll be proud to use and share.

From the lesson

The Quantified Self

In this Module, we move to discussing practical approaches, models, and tools that you can use for measuring and managing your skills in a competitive job market environment. First, we discuss how to operationalize skills (in other words, how to make them measurable). Then, we examine how to cluster skills into job-specific skillsets and use performance management techniques to objectively evaluate the level of mastery. Finally, using a simulated competitive job selection process, we will show how to realistically estimate your total skillset score. In the Module, we also introduce “J.A.F.A.R., The Skills Manager Pro (TM)”, a free and intuitive individual skills management software developed for this course. In addition to organizing skill-building routines, "J.A.F.A.R." will help you achieve tangible outcomes that can be immediately useful for your next job application.

How to Operationalize Skills10:10

What Is Your T.S.S. (Total Skillset Score)?7:14

Meet J.A.F.A.R., The Skills Manager Pro10:54

Meet the Instructors

Dr. Valeri Chukhlomin
Professor
SUNY Empire State College
Amy Giaculli
Assessment Specialist
SUNY Empire State College

In the previous lecture,

you learned how to use JAFAR.

A simple spreadsheet application for skills management.

That we developed with this course.

You may even recall a magic trick.

That we did in the lecture by converting your field notes

into a practically useable selection criteria statement.

In this lecture, we will review the theoretical model for designing the application,

and explore how the application can be used in various career development scenarios.

Previously, we walked you through the process of

identifying a job specific skill set for your current position.

You also practiced simulating a competitive selection process for the position

and learned how you can estimate your total skill set score based on self assessments.

The process that you went through included four important and distinctly different steps.

Namely, job analysis, full mastery analysis, assessment,

and skill set review.

As you can see, JAFAR is just an acronym.

We invented it to help you memorize the steps and skills for evaluation procedure.

Actually, we like the name as it seems to have some magical powers.

Just say it, JAFAR. Don't you think?

Anyway. This is how the skills management application,

and the underpinning theoretical model received their name.

Now let's review the theoretical foundations behind the model, and the application.

The origins of the four step JAFAR procedure can be easily traced to

personnel assessment techniques widely used in

performance management systems in the corporate world.

We think that you might already be familiar with one,

or more of these systems.

If you're not. You should Google personnel assessment,

or performance management systems.

Also an excellent overview can be found in the balance website.

Performance management is a managerial approach that provides methods and

techniques for companies to get the best from their employees. There are many H.R.

technologies that implement the principles of performance management,

and use various tools such as workforce analytics, KPI.

Competency dashboards, and professional development planning software applications.

As you saw, JAFAR,

the skills management application that we explored in the previous lecture also uses

competency dashboards which makes it a close

relative to performance management systems used in the corporate world.

You may ask, why do I need to use the competency dashboard?

A competency dashboard is a convenient,

and powerful visual tool.

That helps managers to identify, measure, monitor,

and develop the skills of their employees. This is the heart.

The main engine of performance management in the corporate world.

It shouldn't come as a surprise to you,

that when designing JAFAR we basically use the same approach

which we think allows you to objectively analyze your skills,

identify competitive strengths and competency gaps,

and establish smart goals for an effective skill building plan.

Yet another question that you might have is,

why you would need to use an individual skills management application like JAFAR,

if the company you are working for are ready uses a performance management system?

This is a very important question.

Actually we have already answered it in previous lectures but let's do it again.

The overarching goal of skills management is to empower you,

the Career Builder, so you are in charge of organizing,

managing, and developing your skills.

The corporate world wants to get the best from you.

That's why there are so many sophisticated tools for performance management.

It's only fair that you take the best from the corporate world and use the methods and

techniques originally developed for

performance management for your own individual skills management.

The cool thing about individual skills management is that it can provide you not

only with outcomes that are identical to those of performance management systems,

but it goes far beyond that.

How is that possible?

Just think about the limitations of corporate systems.

Typically, a company's performance management system is configured to

improve the employee's level of competence within the organization.

Meaning that it is only focused on the skills that are deemed important for the business.

It identifies her or his strengths and competency gaps against local benchmarks,

and establishes locally important skill building goals.

How is it helpful if you are not hired for life and the skills

required in the outside world may be different and are constantly changing.

Won't it be great if you could use

the same skill building tool to work on a new job application?

This is where you would probably want to see a theoretical model,

and a skill building tool,

that are better adjusted to your individual needs.

The JAFAR model of individual skills management,

that we use in this course is designed to address that need.

First, the model is intended to measure and manage skills in relation to

any job both inside and outside of a particular organization.

Second, in addition to the four traditional steps utilized and

performance management systems such as job analysis,

full mastery analysis assessment,

and skill set review,

and includes the fifth step tangible outcomes.

The final step in the JAFAR model is intended to provide you with

tangible outcomes that are immediately useful for crafting new job applications,

and planning related skill building activities.

In the following lectures,

you will see how you can use JAFAR for generating evidence based,

and data driven skill-set summary checklists,

functional resumes, selection criteria statements,

and professional development plans for future jobs outside of your current department,

company, or even vocational field.

The next question that we think you may ask is,

how is it supposed to work?

You may recall, that we initially asked you to think about your current job,

and go through a number of steps in the JAFAR model.

This is because you are very familiar with your current job.

So, you could more or less seamlessly walk through the required steps,

and as a result come up with a meaningful competency dashboard.

Now you may want to begin thinking about a new job,

one that you would like to get in the near future.

Let's call it next job.

To prepare for it, it is likely that you will need to draw from your skills

inventory possibly improve on some of the existing skills,

and gain a completely new one.

Here is a list of questions that you may ask yourself.

What is your current level of readiness to compete for the job?

Where do you need to improve and how much?

How should you design your professional development activities?

What would be your smart goals?

The JAFAR model of individual skills management can drive you through

the process serving not only as a roadmap but also as a GPS.

Is it will tell you exactly what kind of skills you will need to develop,

and the level of mastery you will need to gain to withstand the competition.

By using JAFAR the skills manager application,

you will also generate documents to support your job application.

Does it sound like a little magic?

Well, it certainly does.

But wait, let's check out in the following lecture.

In the meantime, we must think about potential scenarios,

and contacts for your next job.

For example is your next job going to utilize your existing set of skills?

Will you need to extend it?

Or maybe you were looking for a significant departure from

your current occupation and you'll need to build a completely new set of skills.

All of these scenarios are described by another model,

that is called the Skills Management Matrix.

The Skills Management Matrix consists of

four quadrants that represent four different career development scenarios.

The scenarios are job excellence,

job enhancement, job diversification, and career change.

In this brief course,

we'll examine how to use the JAFAR model in three scenarios,

and leave one scenario for your independent learning.

The scenario for job excellence is

designed to capture a situation where you are interested in

strengthening your standing in the current job,

or obtaining a similar position with another employer.

In such a case, your job specific skill set is well-defined,

and is not going to change at least in the short run.

In this scenario, your plan of action is to

include running a skill set check for the job,

updating your competency dashboard,

reviewing competitive strengths and competency gaps,

and developing an evidence based and data driven plan for improvement.

The next scenario job enhancement takes place when you add

a new skill to your existing skill set to secure your current job,

or get a promotion,

or obtain a similar job with a broader range of responsibilities in another organization.

Before you can execute a plan of action like in the previous scenario,

you have to learn how to operationalize the skill that you have not mastered yet.

By the way, if there is any sacred knowledge in

individual skills management this is exactly where it is.

If you have not yet mastered the skill how would you possibly know about critical tasks,

benchmarks, and the required level of proficiency.

Well, this is one of the main topics to explore in the following lectures.

Yet another career development scenario is called Job Diversification.

This scenario is intended to capture situation when you are

planning to master a new skill from another vocational field.

For example, you're in marketing,

and you were thinking of taking on finance, or data analytics.

Technically, this scenario is similar to Job Enhancement

but it may be much harder to do in the unknown area.

Finally, the Career Change scenario represents

a situation where you will need to design and build a completely new skill set.

It may seem super hard but with the use of the JAFAR model,

you should be able to draft a prototype skill set fairly quickly.

The idea is that the more often you do it the easier it gets.

See you in the next lecture.

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