Transferable Skills: When to Use and How to Describe Them in a Resume

It will be a challenge if you need to switch to a different job or career path when you don’t have any related experience yet. Listing your experiences that are not relevant to the new career you are aiming for may not provide very effective. This is where you need to use your transferable skills.

What are transferable skills?
 
First of all, transferable skills are those skills that would be developed throughout your professional history. Mostly, these are the soft skills that include flexibility, leadership ability, problem-solving talents, written and verbal communication aptitudes, etc.
 
When to use your transferable skills?
 
The right time to use your transferable skills is when you are looking for a new job - a career change. There are instances when your desired job is totally different from your previous experiences and your education. You need to strategize creating your new resume to showcase what you can offer to the company you are applying to.
 
Backtrack your past jobs and try to list down the skills that you think you have acquired during those years of your experience. In the end, you will realize many things that you can do aside from the job where you are focused at from the start.
 
How to better describe your transferable skills in a resume?
 
Hiring managers would manually review applications or use an applicant tracking system to gather information among candidates who fit the job. To guarantee a possible spot, you need to list your transferable skills on your resume. But how to do that?
 
There are specific keywords that you may find through job postings. Maximize the use of those job postings that you can find on various job sites and match your transferable skills. The most important thing is establishing the core qualifications and skill-set that you can include on your resume.
 
You can call this part of your resume “Summary of Relevant Experience” or “Career Overview” where you can find your transferable skills. Nevertheless, any title will do as long as you are conveying those skills that would match your desired job.
 
Transferable skills are critical because if you are planning to move forward to the next chapter of your career, you need to update your resume with your skills. Better update your resume once in a while regarding your skills to ensure that you won’t forget about putting your “edge” among the other candidates.
 
Keep in mind that you have to apply different techniques to display your transferable skills on your resume, just in case you want to change your career. This means that you have to take time in refining or updating your resume together with your transferable skills to make sure you will not be lost in your future job search.

To learn more about transferable skills, schedule a call today to speak with one of our career experts. 
 
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