WHAT ARE THE CORE COMPETENCIES OF THE JOB YOU WANT?

Career Periodisation is not possible without knowing where you are now, and where it is you want to get to.

You will have seen job adverts with “essential” and “desirable” criteria and measured yourself against these. You probably then spend time shaping your CV and cover letters to try to fit these criteria reactively.

But what if you could be ahead of the curve?

Instead of trying to fit your current skills and experiences to the job you are applying for, what if you could be well planned out, and target your personal development to meet the requirements of the jobs you want ahead of time?

Yet, many coaches still wait for the job adverts to come out, and apply in hope. Why wouldn’t you take action and be proactive to guarantee you have these competencies in check?

The answer is that you likely don’t know what you don’t know yet.

You need guidance and reference points to help you make decisions that target your personal development. To do this, coaches need to understand the core competency requirements of the roles they want.

What are core competencies?
They are the skills, qualifications, and experiences required to complete tasks within your job role, to a specific level or standard and they include:

• Experience and employment
  Applied work such as internships, graduate roles, PT/FT employment

• Networking
  Contacts, introductions, meetings etc.

• Professional development and industry skills
  Industry-specific courses and certificates etc.

• Professional reading
  Focused areas you need to upskill on, or areas of interest

• Communication skills
  Focused development to enhance effectiveness with others

To simply understand these competencies or “essential criteria” you see on job descriptions, is not enough. Much like we assess athletes and their physical competencies to understand where they currently sit against where we want to get them, the same goes for your personal development.

Each core competency is a specific quality you need to measure yourself against, understanding where it is you want to get to in the long run. By doing so, you can create actions and solutions to help fill the gaps with intentional and specific personal development.

For example, if in the competency area of “Experience and Employment” you need to have experience working in Football, and you don’t have that yet, there is a clear gap. If you also recognise that your “Networking” competency lacks contacts in the football industry, then prioritising these 2 areas of competency would be a sound approach. Core competencies are outcomes or goals to which you aspire to.

The next bit is identifying HOW you can close the gap. This comes into the overarching concept of career periodisation previously mentioned in my previous emails.

This is the second article in a series of articles which are laying out the key principles and foundations of the project Josh Fletcher and and I have been working on: The ‘Career Periodisation for S&C Coaches’ Manual. This will be a complete game-changer, to keep up to date on all future content and launch information click the button below!