How to Identify Your Transferable Skills

10 May How to Identify Your Transferable Skills

If you’re looking to energize your job hunt and looking to maybe spruce up your resume, here’s something to focus on: Your transferable skills. 

What does that mean? Transferable skills aren’t tied to a specific type of job and can be appreciated and applied in many work settings. 

Transferable skills can be “hard” skills, like speaking another language, or “soft” skills, like time management or organizational abilities. Unlike, say, the ability to build an engine or develop a video game, transferable skills can be used in many different kinds of jobs and could lead to opportunities you’d never imagined before. 

So how do you find your transferable skills, and why might they help your job search? Here are some ideas. 

Are you a good communicator?

This isn’t just how well you speak to others in conversations, but that’s a good place to start! Can you explain things well? Do you write emails that help clearly answer questions? Are you comfortable giving presentations and sharing your information with others? Communication skills — the ability to disseminate information to people in multiple ways — are in high demand in nearly every kind of job, from office work to education to marketing. People need to know things and share crucial information quickly, efficiently, and clearly is an in-demand skill. 

Are you reliable?

Have you always been the most responsible one in your friend group? Are you the person your friends, family, and coworkers have always trusted with important things, like setting up appointments, making reservations, handling deadlines? Reliability means you’re trustworthy and, at work, it means people know they can count on you to get the job done on time and correctly. Being dependable means people don’t have to worry about you, which also provides a little more autonomy in the workplace. This is a great skill to have when managing relationships and teams, keeping things running smoothly, and knowing when it’s time to step up to help or stand back to keep your plate from overflowing. 

Are you organized?

What does your current workspace look like? Are things stored in an orderly manner? Do you always know where things are? Is your kitchen neat and tidy, with ingredients on hand for almost any recipe you might want to create? Being an organized person is something a lot of people think they are, but many really aren’t. You never lose important documents and can retrieve them quickly; deadlines are always present and noted, so they don’t get lost; tasks are always prioritized to meet the most urgent need, and you’re quick to help people find whatever they’ve lost. This is a great skill to have for project management, administrative work, scheduling, and human resource positions — basically, anything where you’re in command of keeping everything humming. 

Are you empathetic?

When someone’s having a bad day, do they come to you? Are you a good listener? Can you put yourself in someone else’s shoes, even if their experience is different from yours? Empathy has long been overlooked as an important skill, but understanding and relating to people is critical in a work environment. Good managers and leaders are empathetic, and their teams respond well to them because they feel heard and understood. Being emotionally aware and available means, people feel comfortable with you and will trust you to listen and act accordingly. Empathy is also a powerful tool when it comes to solving problems among teammates, as you’re able to listen to both sides and find room for compromise when others are too close to a situation. 

Are you computer savvy?

Were you the first of your friends to adopt the latest social media platform? Do you have lots of followers who like and share your content? Do you know how to build a website or edit videos? Computer and technological skills are on every company’s demand list these days, and your expertise and comfort level can help take you far. The ability to help explain various online procedures and practices, to train people on how to use digital tools, and the curiosity and ambition to keep learning and sharpening your skills can make you a really strong asset to a company in the digital age. 

Do any of those skills sound familiar? You have more transferable skills than you thought! Now take a look at your resume and see whether they’re represented anywhere. If not, now’s the perfect time to include your transferable skills to help make you stand out in the candidate pool. 

Identify Your Transferable Skills

Still aren’t sure about your transferable skills? Contact LeadingEdge Personnel. We work with top companies that are looking for these in-demand abilities, and we can help you find just the right fit for your next job. Give us a call, and let’s get to work!