We’ve all heard of transferable skills by now. But what are they? How do you identify YOUR transferable skills? And once you’ve identified them, how do you describe them in ways an employer in a different field or company can grasp?
Put simply, transferable skills are skills that can be applied in different situations or environments. We all have them, but sometimes they can be hard to identify and describe.
Before getting into how to identify and talk about yours, let’s take a look at some classic examples of transferable skills and why they’re important.
Teaching
Critical Thinking
Problem Solving
Coordinating
Relationship Building
Teamwork
Listening
Customer Service
Planning
Flexibility
Flexibility
Evaluating
Management
Organization
Public Speaking
Mentoring
As you can see from the table above, there’s lots of transferable skills, and you probably have a decent amount of these.
Let’s pause right quick. You might notice that these are generally what we’d also call “Soft Skills.” Soft skills are mostly interpersonal, while hard/technical skills are mostly industry or job specific.
Part of why soft skills are so valued by employers is because they’re relatively difficult to teach. How many week(s) long trainings have you sat through at work where communication or collaboration was a big topic? And how many communication- or collaboration-related problems did you encounter at work after said training? Exactly.
Highlighting your transferable skills well will make you a much more attractive candidate because hiring managers know the value of soft skills: they’re absolutely necessary for success in the workplace.
So let’s take a look at how you can practice identifying and describing your transferable skills.
DE-CENTER THE CONTEXT
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Are you skilled at anything? What are your strengths? Quick, tell me what they are!
Ok you can relax now. Breathe.
I was talking with a friend who was looking to change his career path recently when he said, “I don’t have any skills.” Now mind you, this is somebody with a whole PhD and years of experience. And somehow, this person was convinced that they had zero skills. I was thinking, “What are you even talking about?! Is that a joke???”
But this person was being serious.
Here’s the thing: Everyone has skills. Having skills isn’t necessarily special. What is special and sometimes challenging is knowing what they are and how to talk about them. You have them, you just might not know how to talk about them, which may make you think you don’t have them.
Here’s something I do with my 1-on-1 clients who struggle with identifying their skills:
“Tell me TEN strengths and/or skills you have. TEN. Right now. Go.”
It’s at this very moment the look of panic sets in. Almost every time. Ten is a lot, especially when being asked to name them on the spot. But guess what. They always manage to give me ten things they’re skilled at. Sometimes it takes them 10 or 15 minutes. Sometimes they’re worded clumsily. Sometimes they’re basic. But they always complete the task. Trust me, you have at least that many too.
DEVELOPING YOUR LANGUAGE
If you feel like you have a hard time identifying what your skills are–what you’re actually good at–you’re not alone.
Many people have a hard time with that.
And while there are plenty of online assessments you can take to help you figure those things out, what I’ve found to be maybe just as important is developing your own language around how you describe your skills. Tell me in your own words what you’re good at.
It’s one thing to take a StrengthsFinder or MBTI assessment and regurgitate what pops out of it, it’s another thing to be able to talk about your strengths and skills in a way that’s natural to you and based on your own life experiences. That takes practice. But it’s valuable because people in the professional world want to know who YOU are. The real you. Not some curated profile.
When you can talk about your skills in a way that’s natural to you, you come off as more authentic. Don’t you like authentic? I like authentic. You know who else likes authentic people? Hiring managers. It sucks to hire somebody only to realize after the fact that they’re a totally different person–skills and all–on day one of the job.
SPEAKING THE LANGUAGE OF AN EMPLOYER
You gotta be able to talk about them in your own language (meaning naturally and authentically), but for the job searchers among us, you also have to be able to talk about skills in the language of your would-be employer.
You need to be able to embed their language in your examples in an interview, your highlights in a cover letter, when you’re networking with them, etc. We’ll get into transferable skills in a future issue, but this is essential in making your skills transferable.
BACK TO IDENTIFYING
Give yourself 10 minutes to identify 10 skills and write them down. Even if they’re clumsily worded. Once you have them all down, write them down again, but less clumsily and more concise. Do that as many times as you need to until you have something that feels good and real. This is how you start to develop your language!
But wait, there’s more.
Ask yourself this: What would my co-workers and friends say I’m good at? Sometimes, the people around you can identify your skills better than you can. Think from their perspective. What skills would the people you work with every day ascribe to you? Ask some of the people you trust about it. See what they have to say.
STORYTELLING AND PROFICIENCY
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