having the right skills

I used to think having the right skills was enough.

Then I realised I also needed to show them.

When you're building a career, especially at the beginning, you hear a lot of advice about what you should learn.

Take a course.

Get certified.

Build your skills.

Update your CV.

I followed that advice.

But at some point, I started asking myself a different question:

If someone asked me to prove that I could actually do the work, what would I show them?

That question changed how I approached opportunities.

I started paying more attention to projects I could contribute to, problems I could help solve, and responsibilities I could take on.

I realised that experience wasn't only about having a job title.

It was also about having something I could point to and say:

I worked on this.

I could talk about coordinating a project, but actually coordinating one gave me something stronger than an explanation.

I could say I understood stakeholder management, but communicating with different people, following up on deliverables and managing expectations taught me things that a course could not.

I could say I had project management skills, but planning activities, tracking deadlines, managing dependencies, and dealing with things that didn't go according to plan gave me evidence of those skills.

That is what I have come to appreciate about proof of work.

It doesn't have to be impressive.

It doesn't have to come from a big organisation.

It doesn't even have to come from a paid role.

It could be a project you worked on.

A campaign you organised.

A community you managed.

A problem you solved.

A report you created.

A process you improved.

A product you built.

The important thing is that it gives someone a better understanding of how you work, not just what you claim you know.

And I think this matters particularly for people trying to get their first opportunity.

When you don't have years of experience behind your name, what you have actually done can become an important part of your story.

Because sometimes the problem isn't that someone lacks capability.

They simply haven't had enough opportunities to demonstrate it.

That is one part of the experience gap I keep coming back to.

(BTS of the Africa SME Assembly Pan- African Project.)