Using Transferable Skills to Land an Ideal Job

by Monika Pitonak

What are transferable skills and why are they important?

Transferable skills are skills that can be used across a variety of positions and industries. They most often include soft skills, which are interpersonal skills or personal skills and traits like communication, teamwork, or time management, but they can also include hard skills, which are technical skills such as data analysis or knowledge of a programming language. Many employers look for candidates who have transferable skills, as they are valuable assets in the workplace and are needed in order to complete the requirements of many positions. Highlighting your transferable skills that are relevant to the position you are applying for on your resume and throughout the hiring process will make sure that you have the best possible chance of getting the job that you really want. This is especially important if you are looking to have a career change and are applying for positions in a field or a seniority level where you do not have much relevant experience, or if you are a new graduate with limited work experience.

Identify needed skills

In order to make sure that you are focusing on the right transferable skills and meeting the needs of potential employers, you should carefully read through job descriptions or postings to get an idea of the specific skills that employers are looking for. After identifying these required skills, you can reflect on your past experiences and your personal strengths and identify ways that you fulfill the needed skill requirements. For example, if you want to apply to a sales manager position where the job duties include negotiating contracts with clients, you might take your previous experience as a restaurant manager and write on your resume that you have experience with mediating conflict, reaching compromise, and ensuring costumer satisfaction. Feel free to be creative and highlight smaller or less important aspects of previous experiences that are relevant to your desired position, but make sure that you are truthful and are able to provide more detail that you can use to support your claims that you have the needed skills.

Look to all aspects of your life

While transferable skills can often be learned and developed through work experience, they can also originate from experience at school, in community associations, participating in hobbies or sports, or from performing family duties such as managing a household, caring for a sick loved one, or raising children. For example, you might have excellent time management skills from managing your family’s appointments and your children’s sports practices and other extracurricular activities. You might have developed technical transferable skills during school, such as learning data management and analysis. You might have leadership experience from organizing community charity events. Skills can be learned anywhere, and it can be especially important to draw from experience other than work experience if you have a limited amount of work experience or if the work experience that you do have is not relevant to the new positions you would like to be considered for.

Stay relevant

It is important to keep the transferable skills that you include on your resume relevant to the specific position you are applying for. Thoroughly reading job descriptions and posting will allow you to figure out what you should include and what you should leave out. For example, if a role would primarily include individual work, it might not be best to highlight your teamwork skills. Instead, you could highlight your time management skills, organizational skills, or strong work ethic. You should also try to include the specific language and terms that are used in job postings wherever possible. For example, you might change the term “time management” on your resume to “scheduling ability” in order to reflect the specific language used in a particular job description. This will ensure that your resume will be more likely to pass through automated applicant tracking systems (ATS) and make it to the next step of the hiring process, and will make it easy for hiring managers to see that you are well-qualified for the position.

Additionally, it is important that you do not include unnecessary detail or industry-specific jargon in your resume if it is not relevant to the jobs you are applying for, especially if you are looking for a career change. Using language specific to your previous field that is not used in the field you are looking to go into might make your resume unable to pass through ATS systems or might be confusing to hiring managers. Stick to more general language, or include specific terms that are used in the job posting or description of job duties and responsibilities.

Use an appropriate resume layout

A functional or combination resume layout might be more appropriate than a chronological layout if you have limited relevant experience and you want to focus on the skills that you offer as a potential employee. In a functional layout, most of the content in your resume will be included in a “Skills” section where you can organize your relevant skills into specific themes or categories. For example, you could include a “Leadership” theme where you explain that you have good conflict-resolution skills, are able to divide tasks among a team in an equitable and efficient manner, and are able to foster a positive and motivational atmosphere. You could also include a “Technical Skills” section where you list the technical skills you have that are relevant.

A combination resume layout also includes a robust “Skills” section, but includes a larger “Work Experience” section as well, where you can connect your transferable skills to specific positions where you have worked in the past. Choosing between a functional or a combination layout will depend on whether or not you have had work experience that you think could be considered an asset. If you have an extensive work history but it is in a different field than the one you are looking to go into, it might still be beneficial to include information about your most recent positions so that you can present yourself as being an experienced professional.

Add detail in your cover letter and interview

When you are writing your cover letter, focus on about two different transferable skills that you think would be especially valuable to the employer, or that you think are unique and would set you apart from other candidates. Your cover letter is an opportunity to go more into detail into a few of the most important or interesting points you included on your resume and provide more specific examples of how you have used those skills in the past and how you would be able to apply them in the context of the position you are applying for. If you are looking to change fields or career paths, explain why and describe how the company you are applying to work for could help you achieve your new career goals. Make sure you also explain why your particular skills would be an asset and how your unique set of skills would be able to improve or benefit the company. As well, make sure that your cover letter has a positive and professional tone, as you want to give a good first impression. During an interview, use specific examples when you are describing how you have used your transferable skills in the past or how you would use them in your desired role. In both your cover letter and your interview, specificity and detail will ensure that your interviewer is confident in your ability to use the skills that you claim to have.

Focus on the potential of your skills

Although the easiest way to demonstrate your abilities is to provide detailed descriptions of your past work, it is also important to demonstrate that you will be able to adapt your skills to a new job and a new environment. This is important to do for any potential job, but it is especially necessary when you are looking to change careers or are a new graduate looking to start your career. Your specific past experiences might have little relevance to your desired job, and so only focusing on how you have applied your skills in the past might not convince an interviewer or a hiring manager that you are fit for the position. In both your cover letter and in your interview, you should describe a past experience where you used a transferable skill in order to demonstrate your competence, and then follow it up with an example of how you would be able to use that skill in the context of your desired job in order to highlight the potential of that particular skill and your overall potential as an employee. This will demonstrate that you are prepared to take on the duties and responsibilities of that position and that you will be able to quickly adapt into the new work environment, which will persuade your interviewer that you are an ideal candidate.

Conclusion

Transferable skills are valuable skills that can be applied in a variety of career fields and positions. They are commonly sought after by employers and they can be developed in work, school, community, family, and extracurricular settings. In order to use your transferable skills to land a desired job, it is important to first identify the specific skills that your desired position requires, and then include the relevant skills that you have in an appropriate resume layout. Use your cover letter and interview as an opportunity to expand on how you have used these skills in the past, but remember to emphasize how those skills could be used in your new position and how they would ensure that you would be an asset to the company. This will ensure that you stand out to your future employer and position yourself as an ideal candidate.

Sources

Denicolo, Pam. Developing transferable skills: enhancing your research and employment potential. SAGE, 2014.

“How many transferable skills do you actually have?” YouTube, uploaded by Cityline, 11 July 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2HJon6Un4c.

“How to Identify Your Transferable Skills – National Career Service London Webinar.” YouTube, uploaded by CareersLondon, 21 May 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=MntQDy4wOI4.

Pope, Lauren. “How to Use Transferable Skills to Change Careers.” HubSpot, 29 May 2019, blog.hubspot.com/marketing/transferable-skills.

“Soft Skills: Definitions and Examples.” Indeed, 3 Mar. 2021, www.indeed.com/career-advice/resumes-cover-letters/soft-skills.

Stobierski, Tim. “8 Transferable Skills to Help You Change Careers.” Northeastern University, 6 Aug. 2019, www.northeastern.edu/bachelors-completion/news/transferable-skills-examples/.

“Transferable Skills: Definitions and Examples.” Indeed, 3 Mar. 2021, www.indeed.com/career-advice/resumes-cover-letters/transferable-skills.