Alright, so you're applying for a job.  And you know that you should match its general qualifications. 

You won't expect an electrician to run kitchens, likewise, you won't expect a chef to upgrade your home's electrical box.  Unless this same person has multiple careers, then by all means!  Even so, the person will likely have two sets of resumés, one geared toward kitchens, and one geared toward electrical work. 

That is talking about hard skills.  Hard skills have to do with the job title.  But this article will talk about the beauty and power of transferable skills which are anything but hard skills.  It guides you on how to recognize them in yourself and how you can inspire the employer to see them too. 

This article also examines common transferable skills and what they could look like in the workplace.  You don't have to read them all.  A good start is to pick out which skills are common for the jobs you like and read about them.  And you can treat this article as a catalogue or reference. 

Let's examine why we need transferable skills before we go into examples. 

Why are transferable skills important?

Hard skills are what they hire for.  Transferable skills are what they keep you for. 

The way someone works, regardless of what they do, ends up propelling their growth just as much as continually upgrading and expanding their hard skills. 

And this doesn't only work for employees, but for business owners and freelancers too.  This is how your clients call you back and refer you to their friends. 

What exactly are transferable skills?

So hard skills have to do with the job title.  And transferable skills are anything but.  That is why another name for them is soft skills.  And you're at an advantage here.  Any job can teach you transferable skills.  That's why they're called transferable skills!  

The beauty and power of transferable skills is that you can take these skills and transfer them from one job to another.  

Hard skills, while important, often don't have that flexibility. 

And unlike hard skills, transferable skills are not taught, but they're somehow learnt. 

Let's take a deeper look at transferable skills. 

Transferable skills usually have two categories: 

1. Self-management skills:  This is about your relationship-building skills with yourself, and is an internal interaction of how you respect and care about yourself and others. 
2. Interpersonal skills: This is about your relationship-building skills with others, and is an external interaction of how you respect and care about yourself and others. 

It is not so important that you can tell the difference between them.  What is important is that you identify your strengths in each category, so the employer can see them too. 

Here are some transferable skills listed in each category, named by some common terms that are used for them on paper (on job postings and resumés) and what they mean. 

Examples of self-management skills

1. Prioritization: the ability to manage multiple responsibilities in a given time.  
2. Time management: the ability to manage your time when given multiple tasks.  
3. Organizational skills: the ability to plan and execute. 
4. Problem-solving skills: the ability to look at issues as opportunities to grow rather than as stressors. 
5. Detail-oriented: having a high level of quality and accuracy in completing tasks. 
6. Focused/driven/self-motivated: it means that the employer doesn't continually need to light a fire under your butt to get you moving, or moving in the right direction. 
7. Ability to work individually as well as in teams: it means the employer will have confidence in your follow-through and how you work with others.

Examples of interpersonal skills

1. Communication skills: oral and written, in multiple languages as needed.  
2. Listening skills: this is listening to understand and "active listening". 
3. Empathetic/compassionate: this shows that you are sensitive to the needs of others and helpful. 
4. Conflict management skills: this is a drive to manage differing perspectives and foster harmonious work. 
5. Negotiation skills: this is a drive to bargain and compromise to get the best for your employer or client. 
6. Relationship-building skills: this shows that you are strong at building trust with others. 
7. Leadership skills: this is the capacity for both self-leadership and leading groups. 
8. Teamwork: this shows the capacity to work with a team as a unit rather than as a set of disjointed parts or with an unhealthy competitiveness.

Here are these examples expanded below in each of the two categories. 

Self-Management Skills

1. Prioritization

Prioritization is the ability to manage multiple responsibilities in a given time.  

Prioritization is the ability to set one responsibility over the other depending on the demand.

When it comes to distinguishing which responsibility or task will take precedence over the other, the Eisenhower matrix[1] is a good resource used by many persons in project management and workplaces in general.  This matrix responsibilities or tasks into crucial and not crucial categories and evaluates whether they are urgent or not urgent.

For example, a building evacuation is an emergency and is both crucial and urgent, whereas organizing the buttons by size and colour in your textile supply chest is not crucial but will become important later on when you get new clothing design orders.  Therefore it can wait until after you finish your client's current order on time. 

Prioritization demands a willingness to understand what is important in the scope and depth of your job, and how it relates to what the organization does and what it stands for. 

2. Time management

Time management is the ability to manage your time when given multiple tasks. 

This can involve working with deadlines when you have submissions for a design project or getting a bunch of kindergartners to an outing on time (either one of those can be more challenging than the other). 

Regardless of if quick turnarounds on work are required or not, time management is how you allocate your time to cover all of your bases.  

It is resource management, with time as that resource.  And in the case of kindergartners, it is getting where you need to be and succeeding in all your head counts.  What's being on time anyway when you get a mini-heart attack because one adorable cretin decided to break from the group to go potty without telling you?

As you can see, time management does not exist in a vacuum, it exists with other goals, and it can take on different forms at any given time. 

It can mean breaking up tasks into sizeable chunks of work with deadlines on each.  You can split these chunks over periods, and this strategy is called having a work breakdown structure[2]. 

For example, if you're a technical writer and have four weeks to produce your client's workplace instruction manual on operating the hydraulic press, you can allocate the first week to identifying persons and resources so you can gather information, the second and third weeks to interviewing persons and studying resources while verifying information, and the fourth week to put the manual together.  

Your work breakdown structure can even have overlapping tasks, where verifying information can overlap from the third week to the beginning of the fourth.  However you do it, the aim is to break up tasks to make things more efficient and less stressful for you.

Time management can also mean checking in on a regular enough basis with your supervisor to report on your progress of work and to ask for guidance to ensure you are going in the right direction.  This can also involve checking in with your team members so you can share support.  Again, this skill does not exist in a vacuum.  And as much as we may manage time effectively on our own, we also need to work with others to move the work along, whether that's with our managers, our peers, or our clients. 

3. Organizational skills

Organizational skills is the ability to plan and execute. 

This can cover a wide range of skills from understanding the needs of a task or project to allocating resources required to complete it. 

At the very least, it is organizing your office or mobile workstation.  But there's more to it than that. 

Work functions more efficiently (and less stressfully) when it's not haphazard.  

And this doesn't mean this has to put a damper on your personality or kill your creativity.  If you have an understanding of where everything is at a given time, it's easier to move the work along. 

Jobs that ask for strong organizational skills often have a reason for their ask.  You will see this in jobs that have standardized procedures and protocols, as is required in many regulated professions (nurses, doctors, surgeons, engineers, lawyers, social workers, etc.)  Your ability to work in tandem with these requirements is a part of your organizational skills.  

Organizational skills can also mean standardizing certain procedures when there were none.  For example, if you are an admin assistant for a mechanic and you notice that their order forms are lacking specific details, and there are no discernable logs for inventories, you can work together with the mechanic to create a better system so that everyone can stop pulling less of their hair out. 

You may also see employers ask for strong organizational skills in many creative professions. This is because the work is not only about producing it but producing it in a way that is the least confusing to use. 

Though these kinds of jobs are driven by creative fuel, like art and music, that tend to be more spontaneous and have varied periods of inspiration, organizational skills are what help pin that passion down on paper or get it to a presentable shape for a client.  

For example, if you are applying for a graphic designer position, you can put together a portfolio of relevant pieces you feel would interest the employer or client, using the "show don't tell" approach to help you illustrate your skills.  This can either be in print or on a tablet or phone.  And if they're looking for someone with experience, you can tell them about which quality pieces you did for a former employer or client and under what timeline. 

4. Problem-Solving Skills

Problem-solving skills: the ability to look at issues as opportunities to grow rather than as stressors. 

The employer is hiring you because they have a problem without you being there: a vacancy that needs to be filled, work that needs to be done, and a missing member of their team.  So you're already solving a problem by applying!

Still, a lot of people feel that they don't have problem-solving skills because they might not be technically oriented.  But there's no correlation. 

Problem-solving skills have more to do with your attitude than it does with whether or not you see yourself as a technical person.  

The employer wants to know, at the very least, that you will not cause more problems than you solve, reasonably speaking.  Refusing unsafe work until adjustments are made to make it safer is not a problem.  It is a problem being solved. 

Certain things should not be compromised on, like safety.  But many things are born from figuring things out introspectively or together.  Therefore, having problem-solving skills is the opposite of the "my way or the highway" mentality, especially when you're working in teams.

Who do you think of when you think of a problem solver?  Well, you should think of you.  Right now, you're attempting the solve the problem of your unemployment with employment.  Good for you!  And if you thought of your mum or dad, good for you again!  They are your first example, and a strong example, of keeping a family together and functioning. 

If you thought of a problem-solver as someone who is innovative or thinks outside the box, you might think that they're valuable to the employer.  And you'd be right.  The ideas they come up with can seem equal parts dramatic and peculiar.   But you don't need to score dramatic solution points to be valuable.  When you're open, you listen to different perspectives, and you contribute things thoughtfully, this confirms to the employer that they made the right choice at the interview.  

5. Detail-oriented

Being detail-oriented is having a high level of quality and accuracy in completing tasks. 

Yes, it is more than being a detail junkie or having a keen eye for errors and inconsistencies.  

Being detail-oriented ultimately ties into the quality of the service or finished product.  

Therefore it means also having a keen ear, as well as a resilient heart, to collect feedback so that the service or product does what it's supposed to do within its scope and depth. 

At this point, you may be noticing that some skills bleed into others.  Being detail-oriented has to do with strong organizational skills, or your details are for naught!   And being detail-oriented often comes with problem-solving. 

For example, if you were an assistant to a home spaces designer, and you notice that the archaic Rolodex that sits atop your manager's desk houses contacts the team uses, you could sit with the manager to digitize it on a spreadsheet on the shared drive.  So no more calling the wrong numbers because their one looks like a seven, ending up with poor mother-of-four Jayden who just wants you to stop bothering her instead of the landscaper who does retaining walls.

Another example, if you were a nurse trainee, being detail-oriented could be noticing that a nurse's station in triage is situated too near an emergency exit and offering a suggestion of where to relocate it. 

Jobs may also require people to be goal-oriented or results-oriented, meaning the person can align their efforts with certain outlined milestones.  And then some jobs require candidates to be service-oriented, especially with jobs in social services, not-for-profits and charitable foundations. 

These orientations don't mean that you don't need to be detail-oriented.  They simply allude to what you should expect frequently on a job. 

6. Focused/driven/self-motivated

Using any of these skills means you are signalling the employer that they don't continually need to light a fire under your butt to get you moving, or moving in the right direction. 

Other ways of saying this is having a "strong work ethic", or "strong sense of responsibility".  Again, this alludes to transferable skills not being taught, but somehow being learnt. 

These skills can also give a sense of your passion in your line of work or career.  Such individuals strive for excellence rather than settling for mediocrity. 

This can bring joy to the individual and a great many others in the organization.  And that joy is contagious.  This is why employers love hiring "new blood" in every hierarchical level that exudes this passion. 

For example, a chef who puts down "driven" on her resumé can talk about a time at her last job when the restaurant podiumed at a festival cookoff when she led the kitchen staff. 

Being driven and passionate doesn't always have to be dramatic.   For example, if you were a chartered accountant, and you helped your employer through tedious audits by documenting logs well in the first place, you're showing the employer that you value their credibility and yours.  

More than how well you can dazzle everyone, passion is about what you stand for. 

7. Ability to work well individually as well as in teams

The ability to work well individually as well as in teams means that the employer can have confidence in your follow-through and how you work with others.

It is a skill that shows that you can get the ball rolling without bothering your supervisor and peers too much, and you can work with teams to accomplish goals as a group. 

It can mean that some tasks require individual attention while others need to be completed in a team, and it may mean that you need to foster this interaction or at least be cooperative when it happens. 

For example, if your organization is doing a fundraiser walkathon and you show up still wearing an arm cast because your dog is not leash trained on walks yet and doesn't calculate your clearance of light posts while they dash for squirrels, you can offer to be the mascot to cheer your team on. 

Another example is being willing to do some grunge work when you're entry-level so you can learn closely with more seasoned persons you work with.  This demonstrates your understanding that no task is menial and that every team member is important.  But be careful of coffee runs that take you offsite and away from your responsibilities.

The skill to work individually as well as in teams is a skill that can bleed into leadership skills, which is an interpersonal skill that is derived from the ability to work in teams. 

Interpersonal skills

1. Communication skills

This is the ability to communicate in oral and written forms, in multiple languages as needed. 

Language skills have four skill categories: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

Communication skills involved using language skills, and covers a wide range of skills and can be done in person or remotely, such as giving and receiving instructions, doing presentations, having discussions, keeping necessary parties in the loop, finding out necessary information from respective parties and keeping information organized, accessible and in circulation. 

Organizational skills tend to bleed into this skill. 

Communication skills are required for every job, regardless of if it demands a lot of individual or remote work.  If not, the work would simply be a pastime. 

That's right.  Communication skills also encompass how you receive and deliver your work. 

For example, if you were a copyeditor and your manager tasked you with writing copy for a client who wishes to launch their website on customizable purses and handbags, it would be a good idea to find out why that idea is a good idea in the first place.  Having strong communication skills can mean researching the market and interacting with the client to see how they supply a need.  Often, people don't think they need something unless it was presented to them in a way that clicks.  And you are the one writing for the clicks they will in turn make.

2. Listening skills

Listening skills means listening to understand and "active listening" skills. 

This is more than paying attention to what is being said or instructed.  It can be asking the right questions to make sure you understand the task at hand too.  This way, the skill is "active listening".

For example, if you're a Home Support Worker and your task is to look after the children at a given time, it can mean listening to them and thereafter having a discussion with their parents on what they seem to struggle with and what they excel at.  If you're an assistant lecturer, it can mean running a tutorial session based on areas the students express they are having difficulties rather than going over the material in general. 

People love feeling heard and seen.  It's what separates us from things that exist and beings that are meant to interact with and acknowledge each other.

Listening skills are often an ask in care or service professions.  But they're also a common ask in technical professions.  And this is not only for learning procedures quickly but for being sensitive to changing needs. 

3. Empathetic/compassionate

This shows that you are sensitive to the needs of others and helpful. 

This is an innate feeling to connect with others and feel what they feel so you can help them, especially in service-oriented jobs.  But it should be a requirement in every job.

For example, if you're a pediatrician, it can mean that you have a way with children that helps calm them down during sessions.  And if you're a roadway maintenance patroller, it can mean that you're sensitive to members of the public when they have questions, comments and complaints - and they will. 

All jobs are customer service jobs anyways, whether we are client-facing or sit behind a desk.  The customers we serve are the ones who end up using our products and services, from children in preschool and patients needing diagnoses for diseases to people needing food and goods and using various means to get it.

4. Conflict management

This is a drive to manage differing perspectives and foster harmonious work.

This is often an ask for a manager or supervisory role where you are leading and are responsible for a team. 

Not all conflict is harmful.  Conflicts often bring up issues which when overlooked, can lead to disaster.  

And if we look at conflict as opportunities to resolve problems rather than as stressors, we're often better for it. 

Listening skills and problem-solving skills bleed into this skill. 

For example, if you're a manager leading a team of associates at Walmart, and some of them say that the frequent meetings are taking them away from their responsibilities, that may be so.  Your conflict management skills will show when they continue to be open with you and you work together to resolve issues in meetings as well as in between them. 

Conflict management skills may also be an ask on entry-level jobs, especially those that are client-facing.  It may involve listening to customers' feedback and complaints, getting down to the root of the issue, offering solutions within your scope or depth, and escalating issues to managers as needed. 

For example, if you're a youth camp counsellor and one of the youths in your group starts having sneeze attacks and admits to you that they forgot to take their allergy medication that morning, it could mean arranging for them to get it while consulting with your leaders. 

Another example is if you're a customer service representative at an automobile repair shop and the customer was called in to make the repairs when all parts have not arrived yet, it could mean apologizing to the customer and prioritizing them on the schedule when the parts do arrive. 

5. Negotiation

This is a drive to bargain and compromise for your employer or client. 

Negotiators often put their effort into making better deals. 

Negotiation involves understanding where multiple particles are coming from and applying appropriate persuasion to come to a common solution. 

For example, if you're a financial agent at a brokerage, it could mean comparing quotes and features of products from multiple financial providers to find the products that best suit the specific needs of your client.  And if you're a car salesperson, it could mean getting the best price or better yet, landing the most sales with the fewest returns. 

6. Relationship-building

This shows that you are strong at building trust with others. 

This is a focus on the values of building professional relationships with others so that people feel heard and are more inclined to cooperate. 

Being empathetic and having listening skills can bleed into this skill. 

Relationship-building skills is often an ask in care and service professions, but can also be an ask in technical professions where you will be interacting with various teams, internally or externally.  While this skill is often an ask for supervisory or manager positions, it is not an uncommon ask in entry-level jobs. 

For example, if you're an entry-level coordinator in customer service for a real-estate office, relationship-building could be promptly following up with customers on inquiries of units they're interested in with relevant details.  They will appreciate this.  And if you're an assistant at a dental office, it could mean calling clients to remind them of their next cleaning or checkups.  Their teeth with appreciate this.  If you're a manager for a construction company, it could mean having clear communication with your subcontractors on your expectations, regularly resolving issues, and sticking to the contractual payment schedule. 

7. Leadership skills

This is the capacity for both self-leadership and leading groups. 

Leadership skills can cover a wide range of skills. 

Self-leadership can involve not waiting to be told everything to do, and taking initiative within your scope of work.  And leading groups can involve picking up on and leveraging the strengths of your team members so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, or it can look like being a natural motivator or communicating well to keep everyone on the same page.

Leadership skills are often an ask for managers and supervisors, but they can be an ask for entry-level positions, especially those that have had team leadership responsibilities, like a preschool teacher, camp counsellor, or coordinator.  

Leadership skills can sound complicated, but often, the efforts that are the simplest are the ones that yield the best results. 

For example, if you're a teacher at a science fair, your leadership skills could look like having some of the students do some demonstrations instead.  And if you're a crew leader on a build site, it could mean teaching first-timers using a table saw how best to keep all of their fingers attached.  And if you're an employee anywhere, it could mean refusing unsafe work until adequate arrangements are made so you can proceed. 

8. Teamwork

This shows the capacity to work with a team as a unit rather than as a set of disjointed parts or with an unhealthy competitiveness.  

This is one of the reasons the torture device called group interviews[3] exists.  Contrary to popular belief, it's not often done to pit candidates against each other.  It's to see how they can work with each other.

Teamwork covers a wide range of skills from working together, building trust, cooperation, collaborating, and learning from each other.  

It is a common misconception that teamwork is only lateral, but it can be hierarchical and cross-functional too. 

For example, if you are a procurement officer that keeps track of inventory and you notice that this information comes from multiple departments, your teamwork skills could look like communicating with their managers to get input on time.  And if you're a supervisor that had one of their employees leave for a personal emergency during a big delivery, it could mean rolling up your sleeves with the rest of the team. 

What are employers looking for with my transferable skills?

If you've gone through that list above and marked out your strongest transferable skills, you've done more than what most job seekers do when they simply claim on their resumé that they have these skills.  You are looking to see how your strengths would help the employer solve their problems and get you further in your work or career.  This will not only help you at the interview, but on the job as well. 

And you can add your strengths to make a better list.  As mentioned, this list is not conclusive.  There are many other skills in each of the two categories (self-management skills and interpersonal skills).  With the list and examples above, you have seen what some of what employers are specifically looking for.  And as they look at your transferable skills in general, they get a better picture of you. 

What they are looking for is how you function and how you "people".  You're not a machine, after all. 

And before you get anxious, remember that people "people" in different ways, because people are different. 

It becomes easier to identify your transferable skills when you think about your experiences.  In coming out of a global pandemic, we see how work has shifted in the past several years.  The COVID-19 pandemic had us build strengths in doing remote work.  And the ability to work remotely all the time or some of the time is a clear-cut requirement on many more job postings today. 

Another common ask you might notice is "multi-tasking".  This does not mean dividing your attention into twenty different directions at the same time and burning the house down or causing a car crash... that's the kind of disastrous results it leads to anyway.  

When employers slap "multi-tasking" as a requirement on a job posting, what they mean to ask is how are your prioritization and time management skills.  These two skills can also allude to task-switching, which is another skill in that set.  The employer wants to know your capacity in managing multiple responsibilities at a given time, just like a Subway Sandwich Shop attendant would need to do. 

How do I write transferable skills on my resumé?

You can write transferable skills on a resumé similarly to how you write your hard skills, in the appropriate section, and with suitable language. 

And just as you may use a few choice examples to demonstrate hard skills, doing the same with soft skills piques the employer's interest to read further.

People are different.  And jobs are different.  If you notice your strengths or skill sets align you to certain jobs instead of the ones you're looking at, they might be worth checking out as well.  

And if the jobs you're looking at demand strong skills in a certain area when you have different strengths instead, it is not a weakness but a power to play your strengths and to look for employment opportunities that help you do just that. 

Eagles and blue whales have different strengths.  The eagle can swiftly swoop in when they notice things, and nothing can catch up to a blue whale when they decide to go the distance. 

Regardless of if you're an eagle or a blue whale, you will stand out because you know your strengths, and you know your worth.

Summary

I've got you for a summary.  Here's a recap on transferable skills and how you can showcase them on your resumé.

1. Transferable skills are soft skills.  They are skills you can take from one job to another. 
2. They have two categories: self-management skills and interpersonal skills. 
3. Self-management skills is about your relationship-building skills with yourself, and is an internal interaction of how you respect and care about yourself and others. 
4. Interpersonal skills is about your relationship-building skills with others, and is an external interaction of how you respect and care about yourself and others. 
5. Examples of self-management skills are prioritization, time management, organizational skills, problem-solving, detail-oriented, focused/driven/self-motivated, and the ability to work individually as well as in teams. 
6. Examples of interpersonal skills are communication skills, listening skills, empathetic/compassionate, conflict management, negotiation, relationship-building, leadership skills, and teamwork. 
7. You can write transferable skills on a resumé similarly to how you write your hard skills, in the appropriate section, and with suitable language. 
   

 

Notes

This article contains no text pictures to ensure that every word can be read aloud by a text-to-speech application. And was tested using Google Chrome’s “Read Aloud” add-on.

Resources

Check out my other articles for help in building your targeted resumé. And if you're looking for a resumé guide to land that dream job, book me to help. Rates apply.

Bio

Tiffany Persaud is a freelance writer who has written for clients and organizations in Canada and the USA, on topics ranging from books, films and media, to health and employment skills. She has her website (https://tiffany-persaud.writing.io/) where she publishes many pieces just like these each week.

References

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