Marketable Skills

What are Marketable Skills?

"Today more jobs require postseason education (degrees and certificates) than ever before. The United States must produce more workers with associate degrees, bachelor’s degrees, and certificates to keep pace with mounting demand and to remain globally competitive.

Earning a degree or certificate boosts your income potential (that means more money!) and gives you the skills you need to succeed in the workforce. Employees with postseason education earn 74 percent more than those who have a high school diploma or less, and completing your certificate or degree is the key to earning power and being career ready!

Being career ready means having skills that broadly prepare you to transition from being a college student to being an employee, manager, or entrepreneur. You will learn these skills during your time in school. Being career ready also means you can demonstrate these skills when you start a job.

60x30TX defines marketable skills as “skills valued by employers
that can be applied in a variety of work settings . . . These skills can be either primary or complementary to a major and are acquired by students through education, including curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular activities.”

In and outside of class, you will be learning the skills you need in the workforce. Learning marketable skills will help you find and keep a job and build a career once you graduate!"

Excerpt From Career Readiness by Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and Texas Workforce Commission

Two Types of Marketable Skills

Marketable skills include both hard and soft skills and are often referred to as employability skills or transferable skills. Marketable skills are intended to help students market themselves to employers.

Hard Skills
Soft Skills

These skills are specific and usually measurable skills that are needed to do a job. You will learn these skills for your future career as you take courses. Hard skills, for example, might include building websites, cooking for fine dining restaurants, performing statistical analysis, learning graphic design, mastering math, or understanding art restoration. These are also called technical or applied skills.

You will learn hard skills in your courses, but you can also use sites like Khan Academy and Codecademy to teach yourself certain skills.

EXAMPLES OF HARD SKILLS

These skills are also known as transferable skills because you can transfer them to any job you have over the course of your career. You will learn these skills as you interact with teachers, course materials, and other students during your courses or through extracurricular activities. Soft skills, for example, might include listening, reasoning, professionalism, courtesy, punctuality, or public speaking.

EXAMPLES OF SOFT SKILLS

TAMIU'S MARKETABLE SKILLS

In compliance with the Texas Coordinating Board’s 60x30TX plan, TAMIU develops Marketable Skills for all of its degree and certificate programs. TAMIU has established a Marketable Skills reporting system for all faculty program coordinators, department chairs, and college deans to effectively report and annually review the Marketable Skills that students acquire from their degree and certificate programs.

Please visit our TAMIU Career Services Webpage for more information about how to use marketable skills for promoting oneself for his/her/their future.

To see each Program’s Marketable Skills click here.