Transferable skills are the skills people learn in the course of their careers and lives and can be transferred from one job to another. These may include hard skills such as data analysis or accounting or soft skills such as communication, teamwork, and problem-solving. They are called transferable skills because they can be applied to a wide array of roles and life circumstances, such as home and school. Transferable skills are not necessarily developed in the workplace. Some can be learned in school or at home.
In a world where one’s skills are often emphasized in recruitment and hiring, it is axiomatic that employees should know the transferrable skills they possess. Even though all transferable skills are inherently beneficial, some carry more weight than others. You can use these skills to leverage your position in the job market and stay ahead of your peers.
These are the top transferable skills:
1. Problem-Solving
Problem-Solving is the ability to identify problems, analyze alternatives, and implement the best solutions. A good problem solver understands the context of a problem, researches, analyzes, and makes good decisions based on the available data. This transferable skill is identifiably one of the soft skills you need to become a winner at the workplace. This is because employers want employees who are always showing creativity when faced with a challenge.
Additionally, good problem-solving skills can help you resolve some common work-life problems. For instance, working parents face problems prioritizing family over work and vice versa. Problem-solving as a transferable skill can come in handy on numerous occasions and help you avoid work-life challenges.
2. Adaptability
Adaptability is a transferable skill that allows an individual possessing it to change easily to circumstances. An adaptable person is not rigid at the workplace and can easily embrace change, shift schedules to employer’s and customer’s needs, and change roles seamlessly if needed. Unlike most skills, adaptability is learned empirically as an individual engages in fast-paced highly-fluid environments. It challenges an individual’s resilience, responsivity to feedback, and ability to grow.
Employers are invariably looking for adaptability skills due to the ever-changing nature of the job market. They want to know whether you can cope with the ebb and flow if faced with new technological developments such as industry 5.0. They also want to understand if certain developing workplace trends can be a challenge to you.
Ergo, if you have this transferable skill, you can showcase it in your resume to show employers you are the person they are looking for.
3. Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is a soft skill and encompasses thinking clearly and rationally to understand and appraise the logical connection between ideas and arguments. As a transferable skill, critical thinking allows you to perceive issues reasonably, comprehend arguments, and express yourself professionally.
One important element of critical thinking is that it allows you to embrace inclusivity and diversity in the workplace. This is because it allows you to reflect on your biases, beliefs and prejudices and determine if they are justified. Consequently, this helps you avoid workplace bias and promote a good company culture.
If you also want to hike up the corporate ladder, critical thinking can help you express your ideas appropriately and determine the best skills you can diversify into.
4. Management
Management involves handling other people and processes effectively. A person with this transferable skill can plan properly, manage relationships, prioritize tasks, and supervise people. Management also considerably involves coordinating teams, organization, and problem-solving to ensure everything runs smoothly and efficiently.
Employers are always looking for employees with this transferable skill as it helps optimize organizational operations and achieve greater yields. For instance, as more work goes virtual, employers want to know if you can work and help manage remote teams. Additionally, they want to know if you can use your management skills to become a good team leader when working on projects. If you have this transferable skill, you can always use it to advance your career.
5. Teamwork
The essence of this transferable skill cannot be overemphasized in the modern job market. Teamwork encompasses working with other people to achieve organizational goals. Whilst everyone understands this basic element, few people acknowledge that teamwork considerably involves creating working relationships, embracing diversity, developing empathy, and communication.
Granted, an excellent team player is indispensably a good communicator, an active listener, empathetic, socially aware, and honest. These accompanying skills can also critically help you stay sane in an insane workplace as they allow you to manage your relationship with other employees and managers.
6. Attention to Detail
Possessing this transferable skill means you go through everything with tremendous precision and focus on trivialities, irrespective of how meaningless they may seem to a task. A person with an attention to detail is also hair-splitting and wants to understand every element of information. They always pay attention and can be probing to ensure no detail is lost. The key element to this transferable skill is attentiveness.
In the customer service industry, attention to detail is an indispensable quality. Customers often want to engage customer service representatives who do not repetitively ask for clarifications and properly get the information they are provided with.
In normal organizational work, supervisors are also attracted to employees with a keen eye for detail and those who can timely pinpoint problems. In leadership, this transferable skill can help you become an amazingly effective leader. It can help you understand problems in the system, create mechanisms and strategies for change, and foster a learning environment that is beneficial to everyone.
These six transferable skills can help you advance your career, gain a promotion, or land a dream job. Even though some of them can be learned in the classroom, the bulk of them is developed through experience. In effect, you should endeavor to engage in projects and environments that hone these skills. This may include volunteering during your free time, engaging in communal work, taking up leadership opportunities whenever necessary, making an effort to chat with colleagues, and signing up for seminars and workshops. The transferrable skills you gain from these activities are invaluable to your career and personal life.
