What the heck are transferable skills? You ask?
Transferable skills aren't limited in value to a specific role or industry, which is empowering for anyone's career journey. By definition, these are real reasons to seek out transferable skills. Acquiring, identifying, articulating and incorporating transferable skills into your elevator pitch will undoubtedly benefit you. Importantly, our country's (and the global) shapeshifting employment landscape means employers will only continue to bet on applicants who can demonstrate both experience and transferable skills learned, showcasing agility and adaptability in one swoop.
Here are ten transferable skills to supercharge your candidacy and career path - in a variety of industries and roles - courtesy of (our friends) at Indeed:
(1) Communication
(2) Dependability
(3) Teamwork
(4) Organization
(5) Adaptability
(6) Leadership
(7) Decision-making
(8) Empathy
(9) Initiative
(10) Technology literacy
Masterclass also beautifully outlines several other notable skills, such as interpersonal skills and time management, exploring how the simple act of acquiring transferable skills adds perceived value from employers considering your future training, innovation-capacity, and overall potential.
If you're not sure if you already have transferable skills, try this brainstorming excercise:
(1) Easy button: Grab a pen and paper
(2) Begin writing down your post-secondary takeaways, if you've yet to acquire work experience, or both
(3) Once complete, review your experiences to-date
(4) Cross reference each experience with the above list (or add more, as works for you) of transferable skills and write in a column beside each work experience section which transferable skills were gained
(5) Inject this language into each work experience section
(6) Attempt articulation of your elevator pitch but interweave your top three transferable skills acquired to strengthen the pitch and, simply as an exercise, become clearer on how you can contribute to (any) employer
(7) Now might be the time to re-type up that resume, repackage your understanding of yourself as a candidate, and proceed with more confidence ;) You got this!