What are Transferrable Skills?
Transferrable skills are the core traits and skills required to succeed in any job. These are the soft skills that will make you desirable to an organisation regardless of your previous training or professional experience. Employers typically look for certain skills including:
Communication
Leadership
Teamwork
Ability to Multitask
Adaptability
Reliability
Self-management
Analytical skills
Why are Transferrable Skills Important?
Having strong transferrable skills will help you to stand out from other candidates applying for the same role. It is important to list transferrable skills best suited to the role you are applying for to improve your chances of being hired.
What are the Most Important Transferrable Skills?
Transferrable skills are developed over time after working in various environments. Transferrable skills can overlap, meaning if you have one employability skill, you will have the basis of another. Make sure you research transferrable skills that are sought after in the particular industry that you are looking to work in, while updating your CV or preparing for an interview. This will help you to present your skills effectively to an employer.
Below are the most important transferrable skills:
Commmunication
Communication is an essential part of work as you should be able to understand and deliver messages clearly to and from your employer.
This will help you accomplish tasks faster and improve your cooperation and productivity with your peers and your overall efficiency in the workplace.
There are 4 main skills involved in communicating effectively in the workplace:
Writing – Every job requires good writing skills, such as composing emails, memos, letters, financial documents. To do this, you must have a good grasp of spelling and grammar.
Verbal – It is important to be able to speak to people in a professional manner in the workplace. You will no doubt be required to talk to people on the phone, along with meeting people face to face and potentially delivering presentations.
Listening – You should be able to listen carefully to your employers’ instructions and raise any concerns or relevant questions.
Presenting – Presentation skills involve the ability to address a group of fellow employees. This will involve public speaking towards your fellow employees or managers.
Motivation
Employers look for motivated individuals to join their organisation. Motivated staff members are attractive to employers as they often take less time to train up and use their initiative to solve problems to complete the job.
To demonstrate that you are a motivated employee you will be proactive in coming up with ideas to improve business processes, seek out new business opportunities and make decisions independently.
Leadership
Leadership involves taking charge of a project in a team. As a leader, you should make sure that your fellow employees understand and effectively work towards a common goal. It would help to develop more efficient strategies to help complete your tasks and ways to keep the team you are working in motivated to improve their overall performance.
You can develop your leadership abilities by learning on the job by volunteering to lead fellow employees when the opportunity presents itself.
Reliability
Reliability means that you are trustworthy, and your employer can depend on. Trust is earned by completing assigned tasks on time and delivering satisfactory results consistently.
Ability to Learn on the Job & Follow Instructions
You must be able to quickly understand new methods of completing tasks and improving your skills to effectively adapt to changes. Different managers have different working styles and will expect you to adapt to their methods of completing jobs.
Teamwork
Teamwork skills enable you to work effectively alongside your colleagues to achieve your objective. These skills are essential since they enable a company to better reach its goals. Staff working together often hit milestones quicker and are more successful. Staff that work together also create a positive work environment so they will be able to consistently complete tasks.
Those who are members of sports teams often exhibit better teamwork skills than those who aren’t.
Self-Management
Self-management is the ability consistently carry out work with little or no supervision from your manager. You can boost these skills through taking on more responsibility from your manager.
Emotional Intelligence
To have emotional intelligence, you must be able to understand the emotions of your fellow employees as well as your own. As a result, you will be able to assess situations much better and creative positive working environments within teams. You will also be able to develop other skills such as self-control and motivation.
Analytical Skills
These skills can give you the ability to better assess information to gain a more informed conclusion. This involves a great deal of critical thinking and logical reasoning to analyse information. People who are able to deconstruct information to make well informed decisions can often increase the productivity of a business and solve problem with efficiency.
Administrative Skills
Most jobs today require good administrative skills to keep work organised as employees will be faced with multiple challenging situations at once. Admin skills will involve replying to and sending emails, saving files electronically, printing and sending documents, as well as taking and making phone calls.
How to Use Your Transferrable Skills
Identifying your transferrable skills is the first step in being able to market them to employers. Depending on the industry you are looking to get in to, it is important to try and identify the transferrable skills that are best suited to that industry and the new role you are applying for. You should also update your CV accordingly to tailor the job you are applying for.
Comentários