KSA

KSA- noun- an acronym that stands for Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities.  This term can describe a candidate for employment, a current employee, or a job position.

KSA's.  I swear they never covered these in my professional development class in college.  Granted, we were more focused on begging for internship spots and applying for grad school, but with the prevalence of this term on job applications and the like, you'd think there would have at least been a paragraph or two for us.

The government seems to like KSAs a lot.  Of all the jobs I applied for right out of college, only the government jobs asked for this.  The first few times, I struggled while writing my statements.  After all, wasn't the point of the cover letter, the resume, and my references supposed to cover this?  And didn't someone tell me that I shouldn't repeat the same information over and over again?  How else can I present this?  Maybe I'll write a paragraph or two of prose to cover that information...

Eventually, I became proficient on writing my KSA statements.  They really just became one more instance where I could spin the same mundane terms into ridiculously technical celebrations of my very minor accomplishments as a college student.  Ultimately, I got my job here at DHEC and totally forgot about KSAs.  That is, I forgot about them until last month.

Living in a hurricane-prone area, you can imagine that there is quite a lot of preparation for a natural disaster that might never happen.  We have several trainings each year, refresher e-learning courses, and a gosh-awful eight-hour educational nightmare courtesy of FEMA.  New to me this year was a KSA questionnaire that more or less asked us what we could help out with after a hurricane.  By far, this was the most interesting KSA I've ever had the pleasure of completing.

First we had to sign off that we understood the following terms that we would use to rate our proficiency in the various fields listed.  For example: "Experts" could successfully complete a task in a given subject area and lead others.  "Skilled" individuals would be able to successfully complete a project with no supervision.  "Novices" would know what they were doing, but would need supervision.  The state would assume anyone who checked "no" would not know anything about the given field.

Some of my co-workers gave great and careful thought to their answers.  They checked "novice" in a number of areas and used the comment box like crazy, explaining things like, "Yes, I can speak basic Spanish and would be able to provide basic instructions to a Hispanic client, but I'm not fluent," or "I probably could direct traffic, but I would want someone else with me."  Then there was me- I decided that if I didn't want to be put in a situation where I would be more of a hindrance than a help, I wasn't clicking anything but "no." 

The KSA was VERY through.  There were questions about specific fields like engineering and biology, questions about training we had received, professional licenses we held, etc..  My favorite part though was the assortment of questions related to completely random topics.  With these questions, we were asked to rate our ability on things like forklift operating, graphic art design, and public speaking.  I felt fairly confident in a few of these areas, so as of last month the state knows that in addition to my normal, boring, everyday job-specific skills, I am proficient with most of the Microsoft Office suite, I can copy write, I am health educator extraordinaire, and I can take care of farm animals.

It's the little things that provide amusement.  While just a minor bit of paperwork, this project provided my clinic with a few hours of excitement.  And this year, if there is a hurricane, I might just be taking care of some cows.  Which actually, wouldn't be bad, because I have this really random dream to show cows at the fair, and taking care of cows would be, like, one step below that.  On a more normal note- enjoy the nice weather, get a tan, and for all of you thinking about working for the government: get familiar with KSAs.