Your Skills Aren’t Enough Without This (Secrets of the Career Game #2)

Most people think skills are what get them promoted.
But if those skills don’t match what the company needs or values—they’re not worth much. That’s the hard truth behind Secret #2 of Secrets of the Career Game.

Kendall unpacks why skill alignment is the real key to professional growth. She explains how even high performers can fail when their talents don’t line up with team culture or leadership expectations. This minisode is a must-listen for anyone applying to jobs, switching roles, or wondering why their current role just doesn’t “click.”

🎧 Listen to this special bonus episode in our 6-part mini-series leading up to the release of Secrets of the Career Game — launching May 13.

📘 Pre-order the book now and send your receipt to [e-mail] to unlock exclusive resources, live Q&As, and a private Slack group.

📌 In this episode, we discuss:

• Why do high performers sometimes struggle at work?

• What is skill alignment and why does it matter?

• How do I know if a company values my strengths?
  What questions should I ask in interviews to assess alignment?

• How can I identify the kind of leader I thrive under?

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That Career Coach

Want to know more about Kendal Berg, that career coach?

Follow her on Instagram: @thatcareercoach_

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Build out the tools you need to navigate the corporate game: — Self Driven Mastermind

 

Episode Transcript

Kendall Berg (00:00):
This week we are reviewing secret number two. So this is a later secret in my book, but one that I think is really important. This is unneeded. Skill is unvaluable, not invaluable, valuable. The reason this is important is I'm going to use the adage of if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to see it, did. Did it really fall? If you have a skill and no one around you really needs it, is it a skill? Is it valuable? Sadly, the answer is no. Right? This is important because as you progress through your career, as you get to know yourself better, as you work with a coach or a mentor, you'll come to find that you have certain niche skills that separate you from your counterparts.

(00:49):
It'd be really boring if we all went to work and were all really good at the exact same things, and were all really terrible at the same things, make it really hard to build a successful company. Also, we would be getting in fights because everybody who thinks they're great at something wants to fight with everybody else who also thinks they're great at that thing. So let's avoid that, shall we? Interpersonal conflict management. Okay. When you understand your unique skillset, what you bring to the table, it's going to set you apart from your peers. However, if it's not a skill that's important to your leadership, your company, their culture, where they're going, their vision, and it's not going to help you progress.

(01:23):
And the reason that this is important is because this means you have to have good company and team alignment to see the success that you want. Now, similar to what I shared with secret number one, this doesn't mean that there aren't times where we're going to advocate for ourself. We're going to stay in a position a little longer, we're going to manage up, we're going to network for an internal opportunity. All of those things are still true. But when it comes to your skillset, first you must understand what you're uniquely good at. Right? For me, one of the things I'm uniquely good at is that I can learn new things very quickly with very limited context.

(01:55):
I didn't realize how important this was early on in my career, but the more senior I've become, you can throw me in a lot of different situations, and odds are I'm going to pick up what's going on, who the big players are, what needs to be done, and I'm going to start executing and driving a solution really quickly. And so that sets me apart from a lot of people who need more time. They do more research, they need more context. For me, if you need something done quickly, that makes me a huge asset. But I have worked for companies where they did not need that skill or want that skill or value that skill or what they wanted instead was somebody who was very attention to, detail oriented, who was going to sit in their box and do their task.

(02:31):
That is never going to be me. I want to be thrown in the deep end. I want something new to do. I want something fun to focus on that we haven't focused on before. I want a challenge to solve. I want a problem to solve. If you don't align your skill with what the company is looking for, with what the team is looking for, it's going to chafe. Okay, I have been considered a high performer a lot of my career. There are definitely times where I wasn't. We've talked about that on the pod before. But a lot of the time I've been considered a high performer. But there are roles I have taken where it didn't matter how theoretically great I was at my job, what I was delivering, what I was doing, it was not valued by the people I worked with.

(03:06):
And that ultimately makes you a low performer. And so when you are looking for jobs, when you are doing internal transfers, when you are looking to get promoted, you need to make sure that the opportunities you are targeting have a good alignment with the values and appreciation of that hiring manager, company and team. Now, there's a lot of ways to do this. Tactically, this is going to be asking the right questions in an interview. This is also going to be understanding your skills so that you can ask the right questions. And this is going to be a little bit of trial and error when you're first starting out.

(03:37):
But once you learn what you're good at, you can hone in on what size companies appreciate that, what type of culture tenants they need to have, what the leader needs to be like in order for you to thrive.