Why Talking About Your Marketable Skills Is So Confusing
Who’s Your Skill Set Avatar?
One of the most common questions/complaints/conundrums I hear from career coaching clients is: How do I talk about the marketable skills I bring to the table?
I've noticed that this predicament comes in three varieties. Which do you most identify with?
1. Keeley Jones (Ted Lasso)
When we first meet Keeley, she doesn't see herself as someone with highly marketable and valuable skills. She's a professional model, but is best known as the girlfriend of star footballer player Jamie Tartt.
As she gets to know coach Ted and club owner Rebecca, she pitches in to help with the team's marketing and relations efforts—and she shines. Keeley earns herself a role as a consultant to the club, securing brand partnerships, publicity opportunities, and swag for individual players. This sparks a whole new professional journey for Keeley, who eventually launches her own PR firm.
What strikes me about Keeley's path is that she's not striving for or contorting herself to reach into becoming someone brand new—she stays authentically Keeley all the way. Instead, she uncovers and expresses her natural talents: the creative way in which she thinks and approaches brand development. Her skill set has been there all along. And she brings a ton of value to the table. She just needed to recognize the skill set she already had.
2. Mirabel Madrigal (Encanto)
Protagonist Mirabel is part of the Family Madrigal, generations of relatives who each possess their own specific and extraordinary skills. Her tia Pepa's mood controls the weather, her mother Julieta can heal others through food, her cousin Delores has super hearing, and her sisters Lucia and Isabella have super strength and the ability to grow flowers on demand. In a family of exceptional abilities, Mirabel is the only one who does not possess a unique magical gift.
Mirabel's family doesn't understand what she brings to the table because she doesn't have one specific, unique gift to share. Call Luisa when you need a building moved! Call Antonio to communicate with animals! Call Mirabel to....what? Stay out of the way? Mirabel questions herself and the value she brings, frustrated that she's unable to find her place in the world.
She embarks on an unexpected journey, eventually discovering that she does have something valuable to contribute—it just looks different from the rest of the family. While everyone else possesses a specialized, specific, or "hard" skill, Mirabel is more of a generalist who brings a host of "soft" skills to the table—leadership, fostering connection, and conflict resolution. She and her family come to appreciate her unique abilities and the valuable role she plays in their lives.
3. Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer's skill set is hardly ever in question—it's right there in the title of the show. With her innate abilities passed down through the slayer line as well as training from her trusty Watcher Giles, Buffy's role is to defend Sunnydale from vampires, demons, and other supernatural threats.
Buffy is one of those people whose identity and skills are fused—she is known for a highly specific skill. So what happens if she wants to change paths? Could she become Buffy the Accountant or Buffy the After School Arts Program Manager?
Throughout the series, there are moments when she weighs her sense of duty to the path she's on with the desire for a different life. It just seems impossible to take her skills and become anything different than what she's always been.
These three popular characters sum up what I see as three challenges to owning your marketable skills. Either:
You haven't yet uncovered and connected the skills that you already possess (like Keeley),
You see people all around you with specialized expertise, and (like Mirabel) you can't see your own unique offering, or
You've been on a path so specific (like Buffy) that you're not sure how to position yourself for something new and different.
Understanding and talking about your unique, marketable skill set with clarity and confidence is essential to successfully navigating your professional path.
And no one has taught you how to do it—well, not until now.
