Transferrable skills are highly sought after for employers and hiring managers. They can help you stand out from a crowd, change careers, or showcase experience when you might not have a lot at the start of your career.

For graduates, they will often have limited practical experience or baseline technical skills so transferrable skills become very important when putting their best foot forward.

These transferrable skills are gained from a both life and work experience and it’s going to be crucial to keep developing them and learning how to show them off in the job-hunting process!

What Are Transferable Skills?

Transferable skills are talents and abilities that can be used in many different jobs and career paths and applied in different settings and scenarios. They can be acquired through employment, studies, internships, hobbies, volunteer, and general life experiences.

As we know, all jobs require a combination of skills and generally can be used in multiple career fields/industries. Some are hard skills, which are teachable and easy to quantify, like being fluent in multiple languages and others are soft skills, which are harder-to-quantify skills like problem-solving, time management or teamwork. Transferable skills can be either.

Important Transferable Skills

Most employers are looking for ‘well-rounded’ candidates or new graduates who can show:

• Critical reasoning and analytical skills
• Problem-solving skills
• Entrepreneurial spirit
• Lateral thinking and technical skills
• Teamwork

University Degree

• Consider what skills and resources you used to complete your assessments/projects.
• You may have gained transferable technical skills through completing a project task or teamwork skills in completing group projects.

Work Experience

• This can include part-time and casual jobs, internships, and placements, working for a family business or volunteering.
• Not only can you gain transferable skills through employment experience, but you may have developed transferable skills in time management and communication if you managed a part-time job or internship during your studies.

Extra-Curricular Experience 

• Engaging in sporting activities, student societies, professional associations and hobbies can provide you with transferable skills in organisation, teamwork, networking, and communication.
• The more involved you are in activities of this nature means it’s highly likely you have or are developing transferable skills in leadership, administration and project management.

Articulating Transferable Skills

• When highlighting transferable skills on resumes, cover letters or online profiles, a great tip is to communicate through a story or narrative. Actions speak louder than words.
• Rather than writing ‘I have exceptional administration skills’, communicate this information by including it within a situation that demonstrates this ability.
• For example: “Within my team project for initiative X, I undertook administrative responsibilities to co-ordinate the multidisciplinary and cross-functional team effort to develop unique customer service solutions. This involved ensuring time schedules for myself and the team were coordinated which allowed us to deliver our project as per deadlines.”

Positive attitude

• One of the most important transferable skills for 2022 is positivity.
• Employers want to recruit people who can not only bring the right skills to the role, but also have the right attitude and resilience.
• Can you motivate and inspire yourself even when you’re working from home? Can you see the positives in difficult situations? If you’re the type of person who can do this, ensure that you demonstrate positivity, along with your other transferable skills to employers.