Transferable skills and your resume - helping you change careers

Understanding your transferable skills is essential to an effective job search strategy and absolutely vital if you are seeking a new direction in your career or lacking in direct or recent experience in the role you are applying for.

What are they? They are the general skills you offer that you’ve gained through your work, study and personal life that are transferable and relevant to the roles you are applying for. These skills don’t have to have been built in the workplace, in fact unlike job-related skills they may have been developed through volunteer activities, studies, past projects, even through your hobbies or experiences as a parent or carer.

Regardless of where you have developed them, knowing what skills employers are looking for in the positions you are applying for and showcasing your skills in these areas is vital to marketing yourself effectively in the jobs market.

Everyone has a bank of transferable skills that will be valuable to future employers, although many people overlook these skills when preparing their resume and other career marketing documentation.

Review your past positions and break them down into the tasks that you performed and the skills you needed to perform them. If these skills can be used in other positions, then they are transferable skills.

When you have done this for past positions, broaden your assessment to others areas of your life such as voluntary work, studies, community activities and even hobbies to further broaden your skills lists.

When trying to brainstorm skills consider common transferable skills such as time management, planning and organising, adaptability, decision-making, team work, relationship development, communication and interpersonal skills, problem solving and critical thinking.

When you have a comprehensive list, review it to distil it down to your core transferable skills and strengths. Remember the most important consideration is that the list you develop is authentic to you and relevant to future roles.

Once you've identified your transferable skills you are now able to use these to market yourself to potential employers in your resume, application letter and interview.

All jobs incorporate the use of transferable skills and the most successful career chameleons recognise this and adapt their resumes and interviews to suit.