Employers are not just interested in the qualifications and technical skills that you have. There are all sorts of soft skills which make you valuable to an employer and one of them is resilience. So, what is resilience and how resilient are you?When we talk about resilience we are talking about the ability to bounce back from a setback or deal with difficulties.Many employers now ask potential employees to take what is called a psychometric test during their interview. This will give them an idea of how resilient you are. You can take a look at a psychometric resilience test here. They normally just consist of questions for you to answer.The kinds of character traits that employers might be interested in include:
Adaptability – how well do you adapt to change or to difficulties that arise?
Self-control – Do you fly off the handle when things go wrong or when others don’t agree with you?
Self-sufficiency – Do you rely on others too much or do you tend to get on with it?
Optimism – Do you expect the best for as long as you can?
Persistence – Do you keep going even when it gets tough?
It can be a good idea to take a resilience test online, not just because it can make you less nervous about taking one as part of an interview but also because if you are brutally honest with your answers then the results really can show you where you need to improve or what might be holding you back. This knowledge can be used for the purposes of self-improvement, and never forget that during interviews, potential employers love to ask about your weaknesses – if you test yourself you can be honest – perhaps you can become frustrated when things go wrong, but that because you recognise this – you have been working on it, recognise it when it happens and modify your behaviour.
