Switching Careers? How To Advertise Your Transferrable Skills

I recently wrote a resume for an actress who was having trouble getting her career off the ground. She wanted to be a personal assistant so she could have the flexibility to go on casting calls while still making rent money. At first she told me, “Acting is all I’ve ever done.” Though she wasn’t sure what skills she could offer as a personal assistant, I found out through interviewing her that she was a stage manager for a time as well as a volunteer event planner for a major non-profit organization. Perfect! This experience allowed my client to gain essential skills in organization, planning, coordination, negotiation, and task-juggling (not to mention inherent communication skills from acting). I displayed clear examples and outcomes from her use of these skills and the result was an experienced and highly efficient personal assistant’s resume that truly shined. Like many people, she was under impression that because these experiences were not full-time jobs they didn’t count. That is simply not true, and the skills gained from part-time or volunteer work can be very valuable.  A good way to channel your transferrable skills is to take a job description you are interested in and look for words or phrases with which you have experience or knowledge. For example, let’s say you’re in retail management and you want to become a teacher. In addition to taking the required teacher training, you can transfer skills like hiring and training, task delegation, employee engagement (morale), record keeping, planning, customer service, verbal communication, schedule coordination, etc. These are just some transferrable skills that can be expanded upon to specifically bring out the teaching aspects, like so:
* Conducted hour-long training exercises for up to 40 employees at a time including mentoring, test administration, grading, and tutoring. Increased passing rate by more than 60%. There are many ways to apply your current skills to new careers, just don’t try to fabricate skills you don’t have. Hiring managers do have ways of knowing the difference. Unlike 40 or 50 years ago when people picked a career and stayed with it until they retired, today’s job market requires flexibility and adaptability to new opportunities. The skills you gain in one career might be a great “in” into a new and excited field. Utilizing the transferrable skills you have now is a great start on your new career path.