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MNHQ

What life skill do you wish you'd been equipped with to help you face the world of work? Share your thoughts with MN and Barclays...

85 replies

AnnMumsnet · 18/10/2013 11:50

Here at MNHQ we are pleased to be involved with the Barclays LifeSkills programme.

This is a new programme giving young people the skills, information and most importantly the work experience opportunities they need to get ready for the world of work.

LifeSkills employs hands-on learning to give young people from the age of 11 to 19, the confidence they need to get started" . It's paid for by Barclays but works with loads of partners to develop and promote the programme.

Mumsnet will be supporting this initiative by hosting students at MNHQ for work experience, so we'd like you to share your top tips and experiences on this thread.

~ If you could go back and whisper in your own ear the day you started work, what would you say?!
~ What skills do you wish you'd had before you started work?
~ Who helped you before you started work with advice and support? What sort of support do you wish you had?

All comments very much welcome and we'd also love you to pledge your support for LifeSkills - just click below

If you're a teacher or have connections to children aged 11+ please also do spread the word and sign up here

If you're a business owner you could make a real difference for young people in your area, by offering work experience opportunities through LifeSkills register here

Or get in touch with your boss or HR department to see what work experience opportunities they can provide to help young people.

And remember, getting the message out there to schools, friends, family, whoever you can will give LifeSkills the push it needs to start moving. This is a nationwide move to get young people ready for work, and it needs your support.

thanks, MNHQ

OP posts:
minsmum · 01/11/2013 12:58

Touch typing, budgeting skills and assertiveness training would have helped enormously.
Also to be able to think long term about a career and not just find a job

bishbashboosh · 01/11/2013 13:39

How to deal with knob heads, the art if keeping your mouth shut and pretending you didn't hear thingsGrin

NotCitrus · 01/11/2013 13:44

To know that it was okay to ask for help when necessary, and much better to keep asking than end up not doing anything because you don't want to get it wrong.
How to be assertive when patronised (and in general!)

That office politics exists, and includes all the bitching and bullying you're told at school "don't worry, you'll leave school soon" and adults don't do that. Oh yes they do. Just more subtly.

Good advice was "Remember the people who work here aren't necessarily any better or cleverer than you, they're just older with more experience." And everything about budgeting and all careers and jobs that don't fit into primary school stories.

gintastic · 01/11/2013 15:07

When to shut my mouth and listen. I still have problems at 35 with compulsive verbal diarrhoea...

ShatnersBassoon · 01/11/2013 16:09

I wish I'd been encouraged to please myself more. I ended up following a path I wasn't naturally cut out for and wasted a few years plodding away at something I was never going to learn to love.

NowWhatIsit · 02/11/2013 20:32

So many reasons to say no to stuff. Just be a 'Yes' person

unquietmind · 02/11/2013 22:36

Wish I had been told.... aged 16

What to say / not to say
No one believes kids lying about being late or other carp
How to make friends with adults at work
How certain things just aren't impressive

What skills I wished I had aged 16.....

When on site I was a real hard worker. My skills would have been social communication, understanding others needs and their social circumstances, navigating work place politics, being less self centred (but that's an overall thing for that age) and being inoffensive small talk. My very academic school didn't provide any prep and thought everyone was going to oxbridge adj they didn't need skills. Insight would have been marvelous at 16 also.

It would have been good if school could facilitate this. My parents were great hard worker and did their best but I was pigheaded. I got the manners and the hard work fine it was the politics that help would have been useful for but I don't know whwre that is best coming from

maxmissie · 05/11/2013 12:15

On my first day it would have been useful to:

  • know that not everything matters so pick the battles to fight - being enthusiastic and hoping to change the world won't last forever!
  • understand that office politics do exist and that plenty of people are not what they seem.
  • not to worry so much about work.
  • know that you might be loyal to work but that it won't always be loyal to you.
  • that if you can't be in work (for whatever reason) that it and the people there will carry on without you.

Skills I wish I had before starting work:

  • more confidence and assertiveness
  • ability to speak up
  • presentation skills.

Help before starting work:
Got some from my parents and from doing work experience and part time/temp jobs whilst at school/uni so when I started my first proper job I had an idea of how to fit into an office/work environment. Also had some help from uni but the best help comes from practical work / work experience.

manfalou · 06/11/2013 11:05

~ If you could go back and whisper in your own ear the day you started work, what would you say?!

Find somewhere else to work... this place will make your life a living hell.

~ What skills do you wish you'd had before you started work?

A bit more assertiveness to not take the horrid comments they threw at you to make themselves feel superior.

~ Who helped you before you started work with advice and support? What sort of support do you wish you had?

No advice or support.

StillNoFuckingEyeDeer · 06/11/2013 19:08

~ If you could go back and whisper in your own ear the day you started work, what would you say?!
Don't panic!

~ What skills do you wish you'd had before you started work?
I wish I'd been more confident and felt able to ask for help. I also wish I'd figured out what things I needed to do for career progression from the start.

~ Who helped you before you started work with advice and support? What sort of support do you wish you had?
I got advice from senior colleagues before I started work and in the first few weeks. I wish I'd asked them more questions. I could have done with support with career progression.

YesterdayI · 07/11/2013 15:34

~ If you could go back and whisper in your own ear the day you started work, what would you say?!

Keep a list of all your tasks, knock off the ones you least want to do first thing in the morning. If you are worrying about something try to just get on and do it

~ What skills do you wish you'd had before you started work?

Better IT skills

~ Who helped you before you started work with advice and support? What sort of support do you wish you had?

I did lots of work experience when I was at school and was very fortunate to get lots of help and advice directly from people in the job. It was a local government job. I was sponsored by a council to go University and felt I received excellent support throughout. It was a very positive experience

Torrorosso · 08/11/2013 11:34

It's not just about doing a good job (although you need to do so), it's also about visibility - talk up your achievements and network.

Learn to manage upwards.

Ime men are better at these things than women, which is why they go further even when they're not necessarily better.

BillyBanter · 09/11/2013 14:57

The ability to mobilise the workforce to not put up with employer bullshit or at least the persuasive powers to get them to join a union.

CrewElla · 09/11/2013 16:52

I think decision making would have been very useful. It is very easy to float through your career but it would have been great if I had realised that I was making decisions all along.

In retrospect I wish I had weighed my options more and had been more active in deciding my path.

flamingtoaster · 09/11/2013 17:28

I wish someone had warned me that at work you will find people whose main objective in life is to make your life difficult - and that it is nothing you have done, it is just what they do. In my first job two colleagues constantly deliberately made my job more difficult, and were incredibly condescending and nasty. It was only when I moved up a couple of months later and someone else took over the job I had been doing I realized they did this to everyone new.

Also guidance with how to deal with intrusive personal questions - I couldn't believe some of the things I was asked.

Doshusallie · 09/11/2013 19:02

Try not to take criticism personally. Acknowledge it and use it to build a plan to make improvements - make it obvious to relevant colleagues what the plan is and update them on progress.

Jojay · 09/11/2013 19:19

Another vote for assertiveness training. I joined a graduate scheme which meant within a year I was managing a fair sized team with some right old battle axes who didn't want to be told what to do by some kid straight out of uni! I got there in the end but better preparation or that would have been useful.

nameuschangeus · 09/11/2013 19:36

I wish if been warned to be more respectful to people who were more experienced than me (everyone, basically!) and to realise that I didn't know everything. I also think that workplace etiquette should be taught - having enough sense to keep your mouth shut sometimes and avoid the contentious people. These are life lessons really I suppose, not just work ones.

Salbertina · 09/11/2013 19:54

Resilience, ease of public-speaking, empathy. Only middle one can be 'taught', I guess.

MyNameIsInigoMontoya · 09/11/2013 20:22

Like someone already said, I wish we had had better careers advice and more information about traditionally "male" jobs.

Our careers centre was a bit feeble, and I think I probably ruled myself out of a number of jobs I might have been interested in because I either knew nothing about them, or - like with engineering for example - the posters etc were all covered with pictures of men in hard hats and so on, with no indication of what was actually involved, the range of jobs available, or that it was something women might also be interested in and able to do.

Twoandtwohalves · 09/11/2013 20:41

Watch out for female ghettoes. I drifted into a PA role which I enjoyed and was very good at (and it taught me many of the things listed above) but I'd hit the ceiling of possibilities aged 26. Moved into HR (great, but the senior people are males with a 90% female workforce beneath them). I worked briefly in construction in an admin role before I was 20 and wish now I'd stepped aside for a few years to train in it somehow: interesting, and given my rise otherwise like to think I'd be doing much better now.

Yakky · 09/11/2013 21:28

I would have whispered....
You only get one crack at building a career. Dead end, low paid jobs are there for the taking, but a career that you will love for the next 50 odd years is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Grab life with confidence, follow a path you will love and are passionate about and don't settle for anything less.
Wish someone had said that to me.

petalsandstars · 13/11/2013 04:12

I would have liked to have been told that just because they (colleagues) are older than you doesn't mean that they are right or that they are behaving appropriately. Also how to handle insidious workplace bullying.

tinypumpkin · 16/11/2013 20:46

Confidence, I just wish I could have been more confident in my own abilities. I think I have lost out because of this.

daisydaisy11 · 05/12/2013 19:27

I wish I had not been so worried about everything and let my life revolve quite so much around my job. I would worry about my job after work and at weekends. If I could go back in time I would tell myself to relax, that work isn't the be all and end all and to allow myself to switch off and stop thinking about it after working hours. A bit more self confidence would have also helped.