Latest / Career Skills with Fexingo: Hard Skills, Soft Skills, and Future-Proofing Your Career / How Skill Scouting Finds Your Hidden Career Superpowers
Transcript
- Lucas: So here's a question: when was the last time someone told you you were really good at something, and you thought, 'Wait, that's a skill?' Luna: All the time. I had a colleague once say I was great at 'making complex things feel simple,' and I honestly thought that was just... talking. Lucas: Exactly. That blind spot is what today's episode is about. It's this idea of 'skill scouting' — basically, systematically finding the abilities you have but don't recognize as skills. Luna: Because we're usually terrible at assessing ourselves. There's research — I think from Cornell — that shows people rate themselves as above average on almost everything. It's called the Dunning-Kruger effect in reverse, sort of. Lucas: Right. And the flip side is we miss real strengths because they feel effortless to us. So skill scouting is a structured way to surface those. It borrows from how talent scouts work in sports or even inside big companies. Luna: You mentioned Microsoft earlier — I looked into that. They have an internal program called the Talent Scout initiative, where employees nominate peers for projects based on skills the peer didn't even list on their profile. Lucas: Yeah, and the stat that jumped out at me: they found that about 40 percent of non-technical employees had latent AI or data skills that their managers didn't know about. Those people got reassigned to higher-impact roles. Luna: So the company essentially scouted skills that the employees themselves didn't realize were marketable. That's the model. But most of us don't have a corporate scout — we have to DIY it. Lucas: Exactly. So here's a concrete exercise. It takes about 15 minutes. You ask three people — ideally a peer, a junior, and a senior — the same three questions. Luna: What are the questions? Lucas: First: 'What's something I do that makes your work easier?' Second: 'When do you see me at my best?' Third: 'What's a task you'd trust me with even if I've never done it before?' Luna: Oh, that third one is clever — it surfaces trust, not just performance. I'd add a fourth: 'What's something you think I'm underutilizing?' Lucas: That's a good one. So you collect those answers, and you look for patterns. The thing that shows up in at least two of the three responses is your scouting signal. Luna: And often the signal is something you'd never put on a resume. Like 'running a good retrospective' or 'keeping the team calm during a crisis.' Lucas: Right. I talked to a marketing manager at Adobe — she did this exercise and three people said she was great at facilitating post-mortems. She thought it was just part of her job. But that skill — structured retrospective facilitation — is literally a product management competency. She pivoted into a PM role within a year. Luna: That's a concrete example. And it's not about changing your whole career — sometimes it's just about adjusting your current role to lean into that strength. Lucas: Exactly. But here's the tricky part: what if the scouting signal reveals something you're good at but hate? That's a real tension. Luna: I think that's actually more common than we admit. I've known people who are brilliant at data cleaning — meticulous, fast, error-free — but they find it soul-crushing. The scout says 'you're amazing at this,' but you don't want to do it. Lucas: Yeah, and that's where the scouting framework needs a second layer: alignment. You don't just ask 'what am I good at?' — you also ask 'what energizes me?' If those two overlap, you've got a superpower. If they don't, you have a decision to make. Luna: And sometimes the decision is 'I'll use this skill sparingly' or 'I'll delegate it.' Not every strength needs to become your career centerpiece. Lucas: Speaking of decisions that require support — this is something listeners of this show have asked about. How do you fund a podcast that doesn't run ads? The answer is genuinely simple: a couple of dollars a month is what keeps these going. If you've gotten something out of episodes like this one, you can head to buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, it's that direct. No Patreon tiers, no merch. Just a small gesture that lets us keep making episodes ad-free. And we really do appreciate it. Lucas: Alright, back to the scouting. So you've got your signals, you've checked alignment. What do you actually do next? Luna: I think the next step is to experiment. You take one signal and find a low-stakes way to use it more intentionally for a month. Lucas: Right. If your signal is 'people trust me to explain technical stuff,' volunteer to lead a brown-bag session or write an internal how-to guide. See if it actually feels good. Luna: And then track the feedback. Did people engage? Did you enjoy it? Did it lead to something else? That's your validation loop. Lucas: One thing I'd caution against is over-relying on one data source. Scouting is great, but it's still a sample of three people. If your mom says you're a great listener, that's not a scouting signal. Luna: Right — you want professional context. Ideally people who've seen you work under pressure. Lucas: And you want variety. A peer sees you differently than a senior leader. The junior person spots things the senior misses because they're closer to the work. Luna: There's also a risk of confirmation bias. You might pick people who already agree with your self-image. So deliberately include one person who's honest to a fault. Lucas: That's a good point. And if you want to scale this, some companies are building internal scouting tools. LinkedIn has a 'skill endorsements' feature, but it's shallow — people click a button. Real scouting requires a conversation. Luna: One of my favorite examples is from a startup called Guild — they have a 'talent radar' where every quarter, employees nominate colleagues for hidden skills. It's like peer-reviewed skill discovery. Lucas: That's the direction we're heading. But until that's widespread, the 15-minute exercise is your best bet. Do it once a quarter, and you'll start to see patterns emerge over time. Luna: I'd also say: share your results with the people you scouted. Tell them 'Hey, you said I'm good at X — can you give me more examples?' That deepens the signal. Lucas: Great advice. And if you're a manager, you can do this for your team. Instead of guessing what they're good at, ask their peers. You might uncover someone's hidden superpower that changes their entire trajectory. Luna: That's actually a huge unlock for retention too. People stay when they feel seen for skills they didn't even know they had. Lucas: Alright, so to wrap: skill scouting is a deliberate, structured way to uncover your blind-spot strengths. It takes 15 minutes, three questions, three people. And the key is to separate 'what am I good at?' from 'what do I want to do more of?' — then act on the overlap. Luna: And if you try it, let us know what you find. We might feature a listener's scouting story in a future episode. Lucas: Good note to end on. For Career Skills, I'm Lucas. Luna: And I'm Luna. See you next time.