What Are Transferable Skills?
We learn a great many different things during our working lives and many of these can be applied to other jobs or to a second career, if we decide to go down that road. They are sometimes called portable skills because we can take them with us and they will benefit us throughout our entire careers.
The other type of skills that are specialised to a particular job can be referred to as technical skills. These are the skills that involve a specific aspect of a job role. It may be writing in a particular style that only works for financial reports or learning to code in a particular computer language. These are clearly skills that only have a function in a particular kind of workplace.
What Kind of Skills Are Transferable Skills?
What people normally mean when they talk about transferable skills is the kind of skills that can be useful in any job. These tend to be “softer” or “people focused” skills and they are valued by employers as they make the workplace function at a much higher level than it otherwise would. We have included some examples of these below.
Working Well in a Team
Being able to work well as part of a team is an essential skill to bring to many workplaces. It is important to be able to understand team dynamics and figure out when to press for a leadership role in the team and when to allow others to play that part.
Understanding that everyone should be pulling their weight and gently encouraging the even distribution of work within a team are attributes that bring value to the workplace.
Showing Leadership
When people think of leadership they think of their boss micromanaging people. It can just as easily manifest as a more experienced employee helping someone who is new to understand a difficult task, so they are able to do it more confidently and quickly.
Praising others sincerely for their efforts on a particular task is also a form of leadership. It is helping others to gain confidence and improve their performance within the company, making the experience better for everyone involved.
Problem Solving
Being able to figure out the solutions to problems is an invaluable skill in any workplace and employers always love to find employees who are adept at this particular skill. If you can think outside the box and approach problems from angles that other people just don’t even see, you will be well placed when bringing your transferable skills to bear in your workplace.
Problem solving can extend to creating a new and more efficient filing system because the previous one just wasn’t up to scratch.
Clear Communication Style
Being able to communicate clearly and succinctly and to explain ideas in ways that people find easy to understand is a real boon in any workplace setting. There are so many people who are unable to give explanations that the majority of people can understand. For this reason, it always feels like a breath of fresh air when someone can come in and explain something complicated in a way that is easy to follow and to understand.
This can be as true of new concepts as it is of new software that is being introduced across the organisation. Being ready and able to give clear explanations when they are needed can mark you out as someone to watch in terms of career progression. This is a skill that can put you firmly on the track to the higher echelons in the company.
Analytical Skills
Having superior analytical skills will always stand you in good stead throughout your career. If you are able to figure out what is causing the network to drop out, or why a certain section of code is failing, very quickly, you can be an incredible advantage to any company.
Being able to extrapolate the underlying meaning from tables of data in an accurate manner, or with an advanced level of acuity can see you becoming a prized employee wherever you are working. These are the types of skills that you should always mention in job interviews.
Analytical skills don’t have to relate to a particular job role and the overall ability of identifying the process all the way from cause to effect can help to make the office run more smoothly.
Critical Thinking
This skill is one that is very valuable in many occupations. One of the most obvious is in teaching, where a teacher must deliver a set curriculum to their students. Their critical thinking faculties can help them to adjust their teaching methods in order to include the students who have particular challenges.
The ability to take an idea and develop or change it in a way that fits the needs of colleagues or the constraints imposed by the working environment are fantastic assets to have.
Adaptability
Being able to adapt seamlessly to different situations can really help companies out when people are off on sick leave and are unable to perform their normal job function. This is also true when there are skills gaps and some aspects of job roles are left unfilled. If you are as comfortable doing a different job to your normal one at short notice as you are doing your usual job, you will be an asset to any employer. Being adaptable and easily redeployed within the company to troubleshoot problems will increase your perceived value accordingly.
Being adaptable can look like being a new employee who got themselves up to speed on their project quickly and needed the minimum of onboarding and instruction in order to do so.
Transferable Skills Are Valuable
These skills are highly valued by employers and you will learn more of them throughout your career. Be mindful about these special, transferable skills that you have learned and when you see colleagues exhibiting them, do your best to learn from them.
Being able to explain the times that you have used these skills, putting them into context, will help you in any job interview you have in the future.
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