The vast majority of job seekers start straight away by writing a CV and cover letter . transferable skills . When it comes to describing what they are good at in order to match it with the employer’s requirements, they are surprised that their existing skills have little in common with the skill requirements that the employer has specified.
If you don’t want this to happen to you, don’t start directly with writing a CV and cover letter ! First, analyze your previous skills – those you have developed in previous positions. Add to them the skills you have acquired thanks to your favorite activities (hobbies), practiced sports, life experience. What you will get is a “set” of skills. Most likely, they will seem disparate and unfocused to the job you are applying for.
Among them, however, there are certainly the so-called ” transfer skills ” – these are the skills that you have learned before, but they are also useful for the new job. Your transferable skills are actually your biggest proof that you’re right for the new job, however different it may seem from what you’ve worked before.
How can you discover what transferable skills you possess?
This is how:
1. Read carefully what wording the transfer skills have .
Here’s a sample list of transfer skills to get you used to thinking about “your” transfer skills:
- “I plan other people’s work”
- “I motivate other people to do a certain task”
- “I present products”
- “negotiate”
- “make successful deals”
- “I manage my time”
- “mentoring others”
- “manage my finances”
- “I speak a foreign language”
- “I am skilled in any physical work”
- “I analyze situations and discover trends in development”
- and the so-called
These are of course exemplary transferable skills. Some of them you may own, but you may own others similar to these. For example, “I handle several tasks at the same time.” Or “I successfully resolve conflicts with clients”. Or “I know how to offer goods that are liked”.
2. Once you are used to expressing yourself correctly about your personal transference skills, list one by one the jobs (tasks) you have done so far.
Against each of the tasks, write the skill(s) that helped you the most to cope with the task. You should get something like a table with two columns – first column with the tasks, second column with the skills.
It would be a good idea to mark in the skill column the degree to which you master the skill with some symbol. For example, put a “plus” against the skill you are very good at, a “minus” against the skill you are not very good at, and a “wavy line” against the skill you have but should improve in the future.
3. After completing the two-column table, make a list of only those skills that you are very good at.
These are your transferable skills that you have thanks to your previous positions (occupations). To them you can add those skills that you think need improvement, but you liked the tasks they were associated with (these are the skills with a “wavy line”).
Personally, I recommend that you keep these skills in mind, but still know that they don’t lend themselves as well as others.
4. It’s time to take stock.
How good are your transfer skills? Seven, ten, fifteen?
It does n’t matter how many there are. What matters is that you already know what your specific skills are, thanks to your previous jobs or occupations that you have practiced.
5. Now get the job description of the position you are applying for.
You have to re-analyze what the tasks are that are provided in the job description , and whether they somehow fit the skills that you have already identified in your pitch.
Use the same way – the one with the two-column table. Only now, in the first column, write down the tasks from the vacant position . In the second column, have skills from your transfer skills list.
Once you’ve done this last step, the next question is how to better sell your skills. If you’ve forgotten, re-read the CV and cover letter articles .
