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In the podcast about Creating a Career Development Plan, it was suggested to identify development areas by categorizing them according to: (1) skills, (2) traits, (3) abilities, (4) qualifications, (5) experience.  I would greatly appreciate any insight or further explanation regarding the different categories listed above.

Mark's picture
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Skills are things  you've learned how to do that are almost exclusively proessional.  Some you do well, some not.  Gemerally, people assume all skills are strengths, but some are not.  A strength is a skill you're very good at.

Abilities are like skills, except that they're not necessarily or particularly exclusive to the professional field.  Some abilities do have significant professional value, such as conversation.

Traits and characteristics are the same thing, but they are not skill/task based.  Rather, they are generally thought of as personality-based tendencies that you have.  It's not a skill to say that you prefer technical problem solving to creative tasks, for instance - that's a characteristic. 

Mark

JosephAsher's picture

Thank you for your time.