From Natural Ability to Workplace Skill

THE HIDDEN SKILLS SERIES · PART 3

How to Translate Your Aptitudes Into Resume and Interview Language—and Find the Experiences That Prove Them

Written by Kristi Windish, in collaboration with Jenna Bottolfsen of Wallace Associates

In the first two articles in this series, we've talked about recognizing natural abilities you may be overlooking and understanding what aptitude results can tell you about how you're naturally wired to think, solve problems, and approach work.

But there's another step:

How do you turn that self-awareness into language an employer understands?

It's one thing to know that you score high or low in certain aptitudes, or that you're a Diagnostic Problem Solver or Focused Implementer. Those descriptions may help you understand yourself, but they're probably not the words you'll put on your resume.

Instead, we need to translate:

Natural Ability → Workplace Skill → Evidence

For example:

High Classification (Diagnostic Problem Solver)

Natural ability: Quickly recognizes patterns and gets to the heart of a problem.

Workplace value: Problem solving, analysis, troubleshooting, identifying opportunities.

Evidence: Where have you actually done that?

Or:

Low Idea Productivity (Focused Implementer)

Natural ability: Prefers taking a good idea and moving it forward rather than continually generating new possibilities.

Workplace value: Execution, follow-through, implementation, project completion.

Evidence: What have you actually brought across the finish line?

That last piece matters.

Strategic thinker. Excellent communicator. Creative problem solver. Strong leader. Detail-oriented.

You've probably seen some version of those words on hundreds of resumes and LinkedIn profiles.

There's nothing wrong with them. The problem is that they're easy to say.

How do you prove they're actually true?

That's where your experiences become important.

Your Assessment Gives You a Clue. Your Experiences Give You the Evidence.

When I review Highlands Ability Battery results with a client, I don't want them to simply walk away saying:

"I'm a Diagnostic Problem Solver."

That's useful self-awareness, but the next question is much more important:

Where has that shown up in your life? (And in what roles in the future might you use this ability?)

If you're naturally a Diagnostic Problem Solver (high Classification), perhaps you quickly recognize patterns or get to the heart of a problem.

Great.

Tell me about a time you did that.

Maybe you:

• figured out why customers kept complaining about the same issue

• noticed a scheduling problem everyone else had worked around

• identified what was going wrong with a group project

• saw a better way to organize a fundraiser

• recognized a problem on your sports team and suggested a different approach

The aptitude gives us a clue about what to look for.

Your life gives us the evidence.

This Is Where Jenna Says Candidates Often Get Stuck

When I talked with my colleague Jenna Bottolfsen of Wallace Associates about this, she pointed out that one of the most common mistakes candidates make is focusing on responsibilities or tasks rather than accomplishments.

There's a big difference between:

"Responsible for scheduling employees."

and

"Reorganized employee scheduling to reduce coverage gaps and last-minute shift changes."

The first tells me what your job required.

The second tells me what you contributed.

Jenna also sees candidates underestimate examples that don't fit neatly into a traditional job description.

They'll say:

"Well, I didn't do exactly that, but..."

and then proceed to tell her a fantastic example of doing something very similar.

Her advice?

Stop qualifying your answer and tell the story.

You Have More Evidence Than You Think

This is especially important for students.

A 17-year-old isn't going to have ten years of professional accomplishments.

That's okay.

Think about what you've done through:

• school

• athletics

• clubs

• volunteer work

• church

• music or theater

• part-time jobs

• family responsibilities

• hobbies and personal projects

Suppose an interviewer asks:

"Tell me about a time you worked with a difficult team."

You don't need a corporate example.

Maybe your answer comes from your basketball team.

Or your robotics group.

Or a class project where one person didn't do their share of the work.

The employer isn't really interested in whether the experience happened at a Fortune 500 company. They're listening for evidence of communication, judgment, collaboration, initiative, adaptability, and problem solving.

Career Changers Have the Opposite Problem

Adults often have plenty of evidence.

They just dismiss it because it came from a different industry.

A teacher might think:

"I've never managed a corporate team."

Maybe not. But have you:

• managed 25 competing priorities every hour?

• communicated difficult information to parents?

• tracked and interpreted student data?

• adjusted your approach when something wasn't working?

• taught complex information to people with very different learning styles?

• led committees or mentored new teachers?

Those are transferable skills.

A healthcare professional, stay-at-home parent, nonprofit volunteer, military spouse, small-business owner, or community leader can do the same exercise.

Don't start with the job title.

Start with:

What problems did I solve?

Go Back to Your Natural Abilities

This is where understanding your aptitudes gives you an advantage.

Instead of staring at a blank page trying to remember every accomplishment you've ever had, use your natural abilities as prompts.

If you score low in Classification (Fact Checker)...

When have you caught something other people missed?

When did taking the time to gather information prevent a mistake?

When has your attention to facts improved a decision?

This may look like "researched, verified, evaluated, implemented" in resume language.

If you score High in Classification (Diagnostic Problem Solver)...

When did you quickly see what was really causing a problem?

When did you make a connection other people hadn't considered?

When did you recognize an opportunity?

Your words may include: "analyzed, diagnosed, identified, solved or improved."

If you score low in Concept Organization (Process Supporter)...

When have people depended on you to keep something running?

When have you followed a complicated process accurately?

When did your consistency make a team more effective?

When did your pragmatic approach allow you to keep your eye on the end goal and delegate the details?

Think words such as " coordinated, maintained, executed, ensured."

If you score High in Concept Organization (Sequential Thinker)...

When did you take something complicated and organize it?

When have you created a plan, process, schedule, or system?

When did you help other people understand what needed to happen next?

Key words for you may be: "planned, developed, structured, designed."

If you score low on Idea productivity (Focused Implementer)...

When did you take someone else's idea and make it happen?

When did you stay focused while others moved on to something new?

What have you actually brought across the finish line?

You might describe how you: "implemented, executed, delivered or launched."

And if you score high on Idea Productivity (Brainstormer)...

When did you come up with an approach no one else had considered?

When did your ideas help a team get unstuck?

When did you see another possibility?

When did you come up with an innovative idea that proved successful?

You'll want to use word such as: "created, developed, generated, innovated."

Your assessment isn't giving you canned resume language.

It's helping you know where to look for your best stories.

Then Build the Story

Once you've identified an example, Jenna recommends turning it into a specific accomplishment rather than another generic claim.

A simple framework is:

The Situation → What You Did → What Changed

For example:

Situation: Our volunteer organization was struggling to fill shifts for its annual fundraiser.

What I did: I reorganized the signup process, grouped shifts differently, and personally contacted previous volunteers.

What changed: We filled every shift before the event and eliminated the last-minute coverage problems we'd experienced the year before.

Now compare that story to:

"I'm organized and a good problem solver."

Which one do you believe?

Numbers Help—But They Aren't Everything

Jenna also encourages candidates to quantify accomplishments when they can.

Maybe you:

• increased participation by 20%

• managed a $50,000 budget

• supervised 12 employees

• served 100 customers per day

• coordinated 30 volunteers

• reduced processing time

• exceeded a fundraising goal

Numbers make accomplishments more concrete.

But don't panic if every story doesn't have a percentage attached to it.

Impact can also sound like:

• reduced confusion

• improved communication

• prevented errors

• increased consistency

• improved customer experience

• completed a project ahead of schedule

• helped a team reach consensus

The important question is:

What was different because you were there?

Your Resume and Your Interview Have Different Jobs

There's another distinction worth making.

Your resume doesn't need to tell the whole story.

Its job is to give enough evidence that someone wants to know more.

Your interview gives you the opportunity to fill in the details.

For example, your resume might say:

Developed a new volunteer scheduling process that eliminated coverage gaps for the organization's annual fundraising event.

During the interview, you can tell the story behind it.

Why was there a problem?

How did you recognize it?

What did you change?

How did other people respond?

What happened?

That's where an employer begins to understand not just what you've done, but how you think.

Start Building Your Story Bank

You don't need to wait until you're applying for a job to do this.

In fact, Jenna recommends keeping a running list of experiences you're proud of.

Think about times when you:

• solved a problem

• helped someone

• learned something difficult

• improved a process

• dealt with conflict

• led others

• made a mistake and recovered

• adapted to change

• completed something difficult

• took initiative

• persuaded someone

• worked successfully with a team

For each one, jot down:

What happened?

What did I do?

What was the result?

What does this example tell someone about me?

Over time, you'll build a bank of evidence you can draw from for resumes, interviews, networking conversations, applications, and even performance reviews.

Don't Try to Sound Like the Perfect Candidate

This may be the most important point Jenna and I agree on.

Candidates often spend so much time trying to figure out what an employer wants them to say that they stop sounding like themselves.

Understanding your natural abilities gives you another option.

Instead of inventing strengths you think the employer wants, you can confidently say:

This is how I tend to approach problems. Here's an example. Here's what happened.

That's much more convincing than a list of adjectives.

And it's much easier to defend in an interview because it's true.

Know Yourself. Then Tell the Story.

Understanding your natural abilities isn't the end of career exploration. It's the beginning.

First, recognize the abilities you may have been overlooking.

Then, understand how those abilities influence the way you naturally think and work.

Finally, learn to recognize where they've already shown up in your life—and how to communicate that value to someone else.

So instead of asking:

“What skills should I put on my resume?”

Try asking:

“What stories from my life show someone how I naturally contribute?”

You probably have more of them than you realize.

And those stories, not a list of buzzwords, are what help an employer understand the value you might bring to their team.

This is part 3 of the Hidden Skills Series. Explore the other blogs in the series here:

1. The Hidden Skills You Didn't Know You Had - Why the things that come naturally to you may be some of your most valuable workplace strengths.

2. How Your Hidden Skills Show Up at Work - Learn what aptitude results can reveal about how you naturally think, solve problems, and contribute.

If you'd like to learn more about Jenna's work, check out her website www.WallaceAssociates.com