Employers of all types are constantly on the lookout for transferable skills – they are a sign that the job applicant is flexible, able to cope with tasks to which he/she is perhaps unaccustomed and, therefore, a good asset. Also, if a company is cutting back, an employee with an abundance of these skills is much more likely to hold on to their job. Not only that, but if you possess them, transferable skills, can also help you move into new industry sectors should you fancy a change of direction.
Basic transferable skills
Communication
IT
Foreign Languages
Organisation
Management
Customer Care
Numeracy
Research
You will no doubt recognise most of the skills listed above. That is because they appear in literally thousands of job specifications every week, across all industry sectors. There are of course many others, in a way it is up to you to decide which of the skills you possess you can ‘sell’ to a prospective employer.
Communication skills came top of a list of company training needs in a recent survey from Capita, Learning and Development with 47% of businesses rating them as the most important area in which to train their staff. Also in the top 5 came IT competency, customer care and people management – all of them transferable skills. If you do feel the need to change jobs/industries, you should try to work out which of these skills you possess in abundance and which you could perhaps develop before you make any new applications. Research industries that are of interest to you to discover exactly what you will require.
Gaining the skills you need
Remember you have to be able to demonstrate these qualities to a future employer in interview. You must ask yourself, for example, in what way you made use of your excellent communication skills in previous positions? How did these skills help improve a particular situation?
Ultimately, you have to take responsibility for improving your employability. If there is a skill that you feel you need, your first step should be to discover if you can gain experience in the area by volunteering for specific duties/projects in your current job. If this is not possible, but you feel training in a particular area would help you to perform better in your present job; it can do no harm to ask your employer from some training.
Alternatively you can seek training outside of work hours. There are numerous courses in IT, management, etc. which can provide you with the skills you need, whilst not stripping you of too significant a percentage of your monthly pay packet.