Different kinds of jobs can involve distinctly different percentages of each of these ingredients. A nuclear energy plant's control room operator uses heavy TSs and a poet's work requires a reservoir of PQs, but some mixture of these basic vocational building blocks is present in any viable job candidate.
When we speak of technical skills here, we're using the word skill in a particular way, not simply as another word for competency. For our purposes, a technical skill is a body of knowledge, and the way you describe a technical skill is to say "I know it." For example: "I know computers" or "I know Russian" or "I know the federal regulations that govern the interstate transportation of chickens" or "I know what every switch and light in this nuclear control room does." Another word for technical skill is "expertise."
When asked to describe themselves, many people naturally start by describing areas of technical expertise. Why? Because expertise tends to be yes or no: either you know something or you don't. If I were to put a gun to some poor networker's head and say, "You have 15 seconds to list your primary areas of expertise," chances are the person would survive. Most people can describe their TSs pretty well, even under stress.
A word often substituted for technical skills is credentials, specific references to a job seeker's formal educational background. Education frequently has little predictive validity for on-the-job success, yet many shortsighted employers fixate on credentials: "Where'd you go to school? What was your grade-point average? What were your scores on the SATs?" They think they're asking, "What do you know?" A petty overreliance on credentials is one of the major blind spots of the job market and the hiring process.
Some interesting characteristics of technical skills may not be readily evident, but are important to constructing a vocational profile. First, a young person can know a given technical skill just as well as an older person. Indeed, he often knows it better, perhaps because he just finished courses on the latest thinking in the field. Second, you can acquire more technical skills at any point in your career. If you want or need some kind of expertise or some new credentials badly enough, you can always go back to school, attend a seminar, or ask for on-the-job training. Want to start scuba diving? Go learn the skills in a scuba-diving class.
The third point requires a little thinking over: a technical skill creates a pigeonhole; it tends to define or be defined by the setting in which it's used. Here's what I mean. If I were to tell you, "I know COBOL," I would be placing myself, in your mind, in a room with an old-fashioned mainframe computer, which is the only setting in which that technical skill is relevant. COBOL has no value whatever on camping trips or in negotiations for collective bargaining agreements. If I say, "My practice requires expertise on the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure," then (1) I am a lawyer, (2) I am a criminal lawyer and (3) I am a criminal lawyer practicing in federal court. That body of expertise probably does me little good in state court and none at all on the racquetball court.
Another way of making this point is to say that technical skills aren't transferable. One of their greatest virtues is that they define neat labels or categories that we can assign ourselves. When a doctor says, "I am a thoracic surgeon," he's telling you that he possesses at least the minimal amount of technical skills required to use that label to describe himself. He also is telling you what he isn't: he isn't a brain surgeon, he isn't an orthopedic surgeon, he isn't a radiologist.
For our model, technical skills are a logical first line of self-definition. How can you catalog your technical skills? Simple; get a piece of paper and a pen or pencil, sit down where you can write comfortably, and list them on the paper. If you're pursuing a linear career path, focus on those TSs that are relevant to your calling or area of expertise. If you're thinking of making a career shift (or are feeling low in the self-esteem department), broaden your inventory to include all the areas in which you have technical skills.
Do you know how to cross-pollinate an orchid? Know how to mix a high-fire ceramic glaze? Know what kind of crown moulding was used in English architecture between 1790 and 1830? Know the best mixture of cheeses for making a great lasagna? Once you start listing your technical skills, you'll be amazed at all the things you know.
Next, you have to do some prioritizing. You aren't going to sell all your technical skills to your next employer, so choose the ones that best define your fundamental product identity. Which will be most important, or absolutely required, when you are considered for a position in your line of work? When you've completed and prioritized your list, create a vocational profile and write down your technical skills.
Once you've tallied their technical skills—"described your credentials," you may call it—you may think your self-assessment is done. You've defined the product; now it's time to start networking and job searching. Wrong.
Your technical skills tell the job market only whether you're entitled to play. If you lack the technical skills a certain job requires, by definition you're incompetent for that job. The rest of your profile, no matter how attractive, is irrelevant. An excellent set of credentials (your 4.0 from MIT as a nuclear physics major) will get you through the screen faster than a mediocre set (your 2.4 in underwater basket weaving from Larry, Moe and Curley's Three Way University, but it doesn't determine your overall attractiveness to the job market, and it certainly doesn't define the kind of setting in which you'd be happiest or most productive.
