• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Ruth Sternberg | Confident Career Search

Ruth Sternberg, Confident Career Search

Specializing in interview-attracting resumes and LinkedIn profiles. Talk to a career search professional at 614-746-4587!

585-201-8271 Let's Talk
  • Home
  • Meet Ruth
  • Services
    • Resume and LinkedIn Profile Revamp
    • Full VIP Package
    • New College Graduates
    • Value-Added Services
    • “Pick My Brain” Resume and Strategy Session
  • FAQs
  • Testimonials
  • Blog
    • Job Search
    • Get an Interview
    • Job Requirements
    • Identifying Transferable Skills
      • New College Graduates
    • How to Answer: “Tell Me About Yourself?”
    • how do I answer interview questions?
    • Skills
  • Contact

What Are Transferable Skills?

Filed Under: Fighting Ageism, Identifying Transferable Skills, Job Search, Skills, Your Resume and Personal Marketing

What Are Transferable Skills?

Most people in the workforce change roles and even careers several times. It is no longer considered unusual. In fact, you should be prepared, because the unexpected—such as a pandemic—can easily derail your career path and destroy your confidence. But knowing how to assess your transferable skills and match them to employers’ requirements will help you stay on course.

What are transferable skills? Generally, they are the non-technical skills you need to be successful. Many of them are also called “soft skills,” because they are not skills you need a certificate or degree to master. They are skills that help us get along with others, think critically, and manage situations. These are important, because the ability to navigate relationships and reason through circumstances is the differentiator between two employees who have the same “hard” technical skills. In a competitive hiring situation, having these skills and achievements around them can be your key to getting hired.

For example, if you are moving from fundraising to sales, you probably know how to research a prospect and use a CRM system, just like others being interviewed. But your transferable skills such as relationship-building and customer service, when highlighted, can put you ahead of the other candidates.

If you are in the job market, you probably will have to consider how your skills transfer from one industry or role to another. You have competition, and you must stand out. It’s often not an exact match – until you look more closely.

Here are some transferable skills examples to consider mentioning among the listed skills on your resume:

  • Leadership
  • Teamwork
  • Collaboration
  • Communication
  • Analysis
  • Research
  • Problem Solving
  • Customer Service
  • Organizational skill
  • Managing People
  • Managing Change
  • Goal Setting
  • Time Management

But you might be wondering how to come up with the list in the first place. Here is a quick way to assess what transferable skills might work for a new position:

  • Make a list of everything that is required for the new job. A great place to supplement that information is by using resources such as O*Net, managed by the U.S. Department of Labor. You can visit the site to look up your targeted position and get a breakdown of essential transferable skills.
  • Make a list of everything you know how to do for your current job. Make sure to include the “softer” skills that correlate with the list above.
  • Look at your two lists. I’m betting you are finding some matches. For instance, the description may say “responsible for cultivating and maintaining relationships among business partners.” You have listed that you built relationships with community organizations as part of your fundraising job, or you have sought expertise from other companies and partnered with them to finish a project. There are probably many ways that you built and sustained relationships that benefited your employer.

Once you realize this, you will be able to confidently list “Relationship Management” and “Business Partnerships” among your skills and know that, even though they are called something different than “Cultivating Donors” or “Community Building” as they might in the nonprofit realm, they are really the same things. And you will know that when asked to talk about them, you will have no problem.

After you complete this exercise, you may discover that you meet 50% of the skills required for that job. Go ahead and apply!

But be sure you can prove you have these skills. How you showcase these soft skills on your resume makes a difference.

As you develop your resume and write cover letters to employers, make sure that you can support the skills you have listed with accomplishments that show you can use these skills effectively. It is not enough to simply list that you have transferable (or any) skills. Be sure to give examples of how you helped your employers using these required skills.

One way is to use the “CAR” technique.

For each highlighted skill, ask yourself:
Challenges: What big challenges did I face in this area?
Actions: What specific actions did you take to overcome them?
Results: What was the impact of your work?

Here are some examples of CAR-based transferable skills accomplishments. Here, the transferable skills are highlighted as categories – drawing attention directly to them – with proof provided:

Managing Change: Mitigated the effects of a $50M revenue shortfall by creating a policy affecting direct marketing efforts. Reduced the loss by 88% in 8 months.

Leadership:  Resolved turnover problems by reducing staff retention rates from 15% to 13% with a professional development program to help employees improve their skills.

So, next time you read a job posting, scan the requirements. If you see unfamiliar terminology that doesn’t seem applicable to your career history – and yet, you know you have the skills for this job – consider matching the listed skills to your own. You might discover that they compare favorably, even though they are labeled differently. Now you are ready to make your case!

Confused? Overwhelmed? Contact me so I can help. Ruth@confidencecareerserach.com.

Primary Sidebar

A Cure for Job-Search Paralysis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiRsEnarfcw

Client Praise

Ruth is a gifted master of words. I hired Ruth because I needed someone who could clean up and reorganize my resume and LinkedIn profile. Ruth took in my career… Read more “Maria Blauvelt”

Maria Blauvelt

I was really struggling during COVID after getting laid off. I just could not seem to break through and get noticed.  I had used Ruth’s services before and gotten a… Read more “Sam Lewis”

Sam Lewis

I am truly honored to have the privilege of working with Ruth. She took the time to reach me on my level, and assist me in honing my interviewing skills… Read more “Randall Johnson”

Randall Johnson

Ruth is passionate about her clients. She truly cares and loves to see us find our next “Big Step” on our career journey. She is engaging in conversation and she listens. She… Read more “Karen Diehl”

Karen Diehl

Ruth worked to help me understand my strengths, weaknesses, likes and dislikes. She not only built a great resume and LinkedIn profile for me, but also coached me to believe… Read more “Matthew Knouff”

Matthew Knouff

Ruth is a tremendous resource for help in overhauling a resume and building a LinkedIn profile. She is very knowledgeable about what it takes to get noticed by recruiters. Ruth… Read more “Dan Carson”

Dan Carson

I highly recommend Ruth as a career coach. She provides clients with concrete tools and advice to create a plan of action. Ruth truly understands the job search process, from… Read more “Francesca Fuerman”

Francesca Fuerman

Ruth became passionate about my professional experience immediately. She knew I was struggling to effectively portray my depth of experience in writing for effective recruitment by employers. Once I had… Read more “Anthony Bahr”

Anthony Bahr

I felt so confident in myself after working with Ruth, after I was able to take a step back and look at my résumé and see just how accomplished a person I… Read more “Logan Weissler”

Logan Weissler

When you said to me, ‘Okay, we got this. We are going to figure this all out and get you into these companies,’ I felt my whole body relax and… Read more “Cathy C.”

Cathy C.

Ruth took the time to get to know me and understand my strengths and abilities. She overhauled my résumé, which was essentially a list of job tasks, and created an attractive, compelling… Read more “Jillian O.”

Jillian O.

Ruth is an amazing, thorough, and professional résumé writer with an eye for bringing out your hidden story and value. Over the course of a month we were able to transform my résumé from zero… Read more “Craig M. Chavis, Jr.”

Craig M. Chavis, Jr.

Ruth has a gift for listening to her client’s needs with real empathy, and for translating their background into words that accurately reflect relevant talents. Moreover, Ruth is the kind… Read more “Cory Joyrich”

Cory Joyrich

Working with Ruth was an excellent experience. Coming out of the military, I spent several years working with resumes that never seemed to achieve the goal of interviews. After realizing… Read more “Calvin Jones”

Calvin Jones

Ruth fit a wealth of resume advice and career guidance into a one-hour video-call! She led me through my resume and showed me exactly how to reformat its content for… Read more “Veronica Dye Johnson”

Veronica Dye Johnson

I worked with Ruth to gain a different perspective on my resume and LinkedIn profile. Her process is in-depth, starting with a questionnaire that pushes you to really consider the… Read more “Mike O’Brien”

Mike O'Brien

In preparing for my nursing career, Ruth was super effective in organizing the details of my education and work experience. So effective that she helped me secure a position in… Read more “Alexandra Reynolds”

Alexandra Reynolds

My experience with Ruth was amazing, I would highly recommend her to anyone for that personal and professional touch. Ruth is great at listening and helping you find out what… Read more “Marcia Johnson”

Marcia Johnson

Resources Library

  • Get an Interview
  • Job Search
  • How to Answer: “Tell Me About Yourself?”
  • Identifying Transferable Skills
  • Ghosted by Recruiters
Ruth Sternberg | Confident Career Search

CONTACT: 614-746-4587

SCHEDULE A CALL
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

© 2022 Ruth Sternberg, Confident Career Search. All Rights Reserved.

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Cookies Policy