How cross-skills help take your career to the next level

Linear career has long been a thing of the past. In today's world, many people are employed in several jobs at once, and climbing the career ladder has become a surprisingly flexible process.

Of course, a deep level of knowledge and honed skills in one particular area lead to amazing achievements. However, this is a rather narrow approach that limits the number of possibilities. The concept of related skills will help open new horizons.

What are related skills

Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary definesAdjacent / S. AND. Ozhegov, N. YU. Shvedova. Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language adjective "adjacent" as "located directly next to, having a common border" and "closely adjoining, close". Thus, related skills are abilities and skills that are closely related to your profession.

This means that you do not need to start from scratch: to get additional skills, you need to apply the ones you already have. This not only facilitates the learning process, but also deepens your competencies.

In addition, related skills enhance your existing skills. talents, and help you stand out in the workplace and work more effectively in a team.

Why is it important to develop related skills

This will increase empathy for colleagues

We often feel that our work is more difficult than that of others. But when an engineer learns more about the responsibilities of a technical writer, and a UI designer understands what engaged in a UX analyst, they understand the peculiarities of the tasks of colleagues and begin to appreciate their contribution to common cause.

This will improve communication

The study of related skills expands the vocabulary of working terms. And this helps to better understand other employees and more effectively with them. to interact.

This will keep you motivated

Even if we really love our work, sometimes it can be difficult to work on the same projects for too long. Adjacent skills allow you to switch between tasks in a wider range.

This will widen the viewing angle.

Deep knowledge in areas close to yours helps you notice what others miss. This makes it possible to look for non-standard and more productive solutions.

It will open career prospects

There are not many designers on the market who can code, or programmers who have design skills. But employees, limited by their field, are countless. Related skills will open new doors and make you a unique specialist.

This will develop the ability to evaluate the skills of others.

If you are the boss or HR manager, which constantly considers candidates, expanding the range of competencies will help to better understand the abilities of beginners.

All these undoubted advantages of related skills make them useful not only for managers and those who work in a team. They will be useful for any fruitful cooperation, for example with business partners or clients.

How to find your related skills

Potential related skills are not always obvious. If you need some inspiration to search, here are some examples from different fields:

A good way to find your related skills is to reflect and identify as many abilities as you can that could be useful in your profession.

Despite the fact that most of the options from the table refer to hard skills, that is, competencies that can be objectively assessed and verified, one should not forget about the development of soft skills. These are universal socio-psychological qualities that increase the chances of success, such as mastery of negotiation techniques or time management.

Once you've made a preliminary list of related skills, choose one to focus on in the near future. To decide, ask yourself these questions:

• How interested am I in this professional skill?
• How easy will it be for me to acquire it given my current competence?
• Will it be useful for my work?

Ideally, the related skill chosen should be intriguing, easy to learn, and rewarding for your career. However, the end of the world will not come if this skill does not meet all three criteria. Let's say you're extremely interested in learning design, and besides, it will raise your professionalism to a new level, but the study will be difficult. Such a scheme would still lead to significant results.