How honing “durable skills” can protect your career in rocky times

IF YOU’RE A student or newly graduated job seeker, summer’s relatively laid-back pacing, without the school-year’s pressures, is a perfect time for developing what employers call “durable skills,” and quite often such self-improvement can even pass as fun.

What do we mean by durable skills? Employers consistently say they’re looking beyond grades and technical knowledge for the human skills that help people succeed in any workplace. Unlike specific software programs or processes that may become obsolete, these inter-personal skills remain valuable even as technology and jobs change. Not only does their value survive any A.I. onslaught, it also transfers across careers and industries. These days, durable skills can be a kind of superpower.

Here’s a list of the Core Durable Skills Categories:

• Communication: Clear verbal, written, and digital exchange of ideas, active listening, and intercultural understanding.
• Collaboration: Teamwork, empathy, conflict resolution, and the ability to work toward shared goals with diverse peers.
• Critical Thinking: Analytical problem-solving, decision-making, logical reasoning, and contextual thinking.
• Creativity: Brainstorming, innovation, and generating new approaches to improve processes.
• Leadership: Initiative, accountability, inspiring others, and leading effectively from any position in an organization.
• Adaptability & Flexibility: Thriving in changing environments, learning agility, and managing ambiguity.
• Fortitude & Resilience: Fortitude, tenacity, the ability to handle rejection, and persevering through obstacles.
• Growth Mindset: Self-awareness, self-directed learning, and a constant drive for improvement.
• Metacognition: Self-awareness, goal-setting, and actively managing one’s own learning and thinking.
• Character & Ethics: Professional conduct, moral reasoning, and civic responsibility.

So what are you doing this summer? If you have a job, even part-time, that’s a perfect platform for developing and practicing some of the above skills. Show up on time, take the initiative on new projects, and concentrate on working effectively and cordially with your colleagues. Are you volunteering at a local nonprofit or youth leadership program? Learn to write professional emails, make phone calls, introduce yourself confidently, and speak clearly in meetings. Have you started your own summer business mowing lawns, tutoring, pet sitting, or selling crafts? Be dependable, be kind, be thoughtful, be generous. Are you playing on a community sports team or participating in a local theater production? Strive to be an upbeat, positive force for your teammates or crew.

The fact is, almost anything you do is an opportunity to work on developing your durable skills, because, unlike earning a technical credential online, these are the skills of a mature, self-motivated, self-aware human being. Confidence, courtesy, responsibility, resourcefulness, tenacity, imagination, sense of humor—these are just some of the qualities that will set you apart in an employer’s mind.

And for you parents reading this, you have a role to play too. Parents often ask how to prepare teenagers for the future. The answer isn’t always another class or another credential. Instead, encourage your young people to make their own appointments, manage a budget, solve everyday problems before asking for help, write thank-you notes, and practice interviewing. Those simple experiences build confidence that lasts well beyond high school or college.

Technology will continue to reshape work. But while A.I. may automate some tasks and eliminate others, it can’t replace integrity, empathy, curiosity, resilience, and good judgment. These are the qualities that help people succeed whether they become electricians, healthcare professionals, teachers, software developers, manufacturers, or entrepreneurs.

Summer doesn’t have to be filled with expensive camps or elaborate travel. Sometimes the most valuable education comes from showing up every day, working hard, solving problems, and learning how to work well with other people. As one workforce leader recently observed, “Skills may get you hired, but durable skills help you grow.”
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This article was composed and edited in-house by humans, with research assistance from ChatGPT.