12 core skills
海角社区's 12 Core Skills and related skills
The 海角社区 Award is based on our Core Skills Framework which consists of 海角社区鈥檚 12 Core Skills, each of which also includes a range of sub-skills or related skills.
The 12 core skills were designed using research into the graduate labour market and employer's skills needs and have been developed by a broad base of academic and professional services staff across 海角社区. These skills are important to graduate employers in all sectors, as the kinds of transferable skills students need to complement and apply more specific knowledge and skills.
Communication is the ability to convey or share ideas and feelings effectively, by speaking, writing, or using some other medium.
Related subskills:
- Creating discourse
- Presentation and public speaking
- Adapting output to audience
- Active listening
- Creative writing
- Professional writing
- Nonverbal communication skills
Examples of where you might develop this skill during your time at 海角社区: giving a presentation, writing an essay, volunteering with Nightline.
Critical Thinking is the ability to independently analyse facts, data, information, and opinions to form an evaluation and engage in debate.
Related sub-skills:
- Identifying
- Clarifying
- Questioning
- Interpreting
- Analysing
- Contextualising
- Evaluating
- Arguing
- Synthesising
You might develop this skill by writing an essay, conducting a literature review, doing some independent reading to understand an issue or event in the news, or examining a conventional approach in your work before developing an alternative.
Current students can find out more with our Critical Thinking course on Moodle.
Digital literacy is the ability to live, learn, and work in a society where communication and access to information is through digital technologies like internet platforms, social media, and mobile devices.
Related subskills:
- IT skills
- Data skills
- Information evaluation
- Data security
- Social media content creation and management
- App development
- Search Engine Optimisation - SEO
- Software creation
- User experience/interface development
- Data visualisation
- Reputation management
- Personal brand
- Using Learning Technologies
You might develop this skill by using common Office software such as Excel and Word, managing a club/society social media feed, and building an effective LinkedIn profile.
Current students can find out more with our Digital Literacy course on Moodle.
Ethical values are the ability to operate in the workplace with high moral standards 鈥� namely being fair, respectful, compassionate, honest, and responsible 鈥� as well as negotiate the sometimes-difficult situation of taking responsibility for your own actions.
Related subskills:
- Integrity
- Trustworthiness
- Compassion
- Empathy
- Accountability
- Organisational values
- Freedom of expression
- Inclusivity
- Being aware of unconscious bias
You might develop this skill by being accurate and honest with referencing in academic writing, not fabricating experiment results, and mentoring a school student through an outreach project.
Information literacy is the ability to understand the nature, value, use, and management of information.
Related subskills:
- Understanding Academic Information
- Understanding Information outside Academia
- Valuing and using information
- Articulating an information need
- Searching for Information
- Managing Information
- Selecting information
- Using and creating information
You might develop this skill by using databases, conducting literature reviews, communicating research findings, and identifying limitations of research.
Current students can find out more by exploring the courses provided by the library.
Intercultural awareness is the ability to work productively with people from different cultural backgrounds.
Related subskills:
- Intercultural Communication
- Intercultural Relationships
- Intercultural Sensitivity
- Intercultural Adaptation
- Intercultural Understanding
- Language Learning
- Language Flexibility
You might develop this skill by learning a language, working in multicultural teams, and sharing experiences with people from different cultural backgrounds, e.g. meals, sports events, seminars.
Current students can find out more through our Intercultural Programme.
Organisational awareness is the ability to understand how organisations work and act on that knowledge to interact effectively with and within them.
Related subskills:
- Organisational Research
- Talent Management
- Achieving Organisational Goals
- Networking
- Corporate Social Responsibility/Impact
- Organisational cultural awareness
- Commercial Awareness
- External stakeholder awareness
- Market Awareness
You might develop this skill by performing a SWOT analysis, researching an organisation and finding out its values, priorities and culture prior to a job application/interview.
Current students can find out more with our Organisational Awareness course on Moodle.
Problem solving is the ability to define a problem or challenge, then find, design, and select a solution to it.
Related subskills:
- Problem Design
- Intuitive Problem Solving
- Creative Problem Solving
- Co-Creating
- Innovation
- Logical processing
- Logical Reasoning
- Cyclical Reflection
- Decision Making
- Learning from Failure
You might develop this skill by selecting ingredients to make a meal, creating a brand-new product, choosing modules that are relevant to your career aspirations, and applying feedback on your essays to improve them next time around.
Professionalism is the ability to be reliable, set your own high standards, show you care about every aspect of your job by being industrious and organised, and hold yourself accountable for your thoughts, words, and actions.
Related subskills:
- Responsiveness to change
- Accountability and responsibility
- Time management
- Project management
- Risk management
- Operating autonomously
- Resilience
- Personal impact
- Leadership
- Emotional literacy
- Negotiation
- Working under pressure
- Attention to detail
- Creative thinking
You might develop this skill by balancing competing deadlines to still complete all assessments and coursework on time, thoroughly proof-reading and editing coursework before it is submitted, and representing your course-mates鈥� views to University staff.
Self-awareness is the ability to be aware of your own personality, strengths, and emotions, then learn and develop accordingly.
Related subskills:
- Self-Reflection
- Critical Reflection
- Learning Adaptability
- Responsiveness to Opportunity
- Personal Worldview
You might develop this skill by reflecting on your experiences for the 海角社区 Award, undergoing training to build skills you don鈥檛 feel confident in and identifying what else you need to do to practise them further, joining a course in a format you鈥檝e never experienced before, and carefully examining your principles and perspectives in relation to other peoples鈥�.
Current students can find out more with our Self Awareness course on Moodle.
Sustainability is the ability to develop capabilities towards balancing the needs of human culture and wider environments for the present and future.
Sustainability is unique among our Core Skills because it can be used as a lens for reinterpreting any other skill on our framework.
Related Subskills (indicative):
- Systems Thinking
- Future Thinking
- Sustainable Decision Making
- Social Engagement
- Community Citizenship
- Global Citizenship
- Accountability
- Contextualising
- Analysing
- Personal Worldview
You might develop this skill by recycling wherever possible, voting in your local elections and considering local issues of environmental and social sustainability when choosing who to support, researching an organisation鈥檚 values and seeing if they match up with the actions of the organisation when applying for a job.
Teamwork is the ability to work collaboratively.
Related subskills:
- Collaboration
- Managing Team Processes
- Building/managing Rapport
- Inclusive Practices
- Overcoming and negotiating obstacles
- Creativity in Teams
- Leadership/ managing tasks within a team
- Virtual Teamworking
You might develop this by completing a group project, setting meeting agendas, being part of a sports team, and managing team deadlines.
Current students can find out more with our Working in Intercultural Teams course on Moodle.