How Transferable Skills Allow You to Change Your Career

How often have you come in to work on a Monday morning and felt a lack of motivation or enthusiasm? At some point in all of our careers, we’ve wondered if we could be doing something more exciting or challenging, and it’s not unnatural for somebody in that position to feel like they’re trapped in their respective career.

When we look for work, we often stay within our own industry as we wrongly assume that recruiters will only be looking for people already within the sector, but the reality is that there are a number of talent shortages in many industries, leaving gaps to be filled by those best qualified from outside of the industry.

Today we’d like to offer some tips on how the existing skills you already have may help you enter the industry you’re dying to work in, and how best to utilise them! So, here goes:

1.      Recognise which skills you already possess – many of your skills will be adaptable in many environments, even if you have to be creative to recognise the similarities in different roles;

For example, an Estate Agent will often have experience with selling, business development, organisation, time management and multi-tasking, as well as the ability to maintain composure under pressure. In an industry such as Recruitment, all those skills will be necessary to efficiently manage the workload. So, the next step is naturally:

2.      Recognising which industries will require a similar skillset. The best thing to do here is to shop around and look at what skills are required for other industries. You can find this out by talking with Recruiters on LinkedIn or looking at job adverts to determine if you’d be able to efficiently manage said workload in other industries.

Sticking with the Estate Agent example, with the aforementioned skills, you might find that adverts for positions in Sales, Recruitment, Business Development, and Account Management suggest an applicant be able to multi-task, competently handle pressure and deadlines, and have experience in either business development or selling. If you shop around, then regardless of your background you will find other industries within which your experience and/or skills are essential.

3.      So, once you’ve found positions to apply to you need to sell yourself! Rewrite your CV to emphasize which of the relevant skills you have extensive experience demonstrating.

Again, with the Estate Agent example: If you were applying for a job in sales then naturally you’d rewrite your CV to emphasize the experience from your current job role that involves selling and turning customers around, whereas a job in Account Management would require great emphasis on the parts of your job that involved looking after clients and bringing new ones on board.

Once you’ve done this, update your personal statement to emphasize the skills you already have, including the ones we’ve previously mentioned (time management, organisation, etc). As well we would recommend that your CV reflects your natural strengths and talents. If you are a self-starter who enjoys working as part of a team then go forward with that as one of your key selling points, whereas if you are a dedicated project manager who prefers to work alone then make sure that you are showcasing that as a strength. If you want to last in your new industry, then realistically you want people to know what you are best at so they can put you in a position best suited to you. Otherwise, you may very well find that you're in another position where Monday morning is a drag.

4. Send off the application. Modify that CV for each industry you're applying to and you should be golden. And when the interview requests come flooding in? Just be honest about your skills, and as I previously said, focus on your strengths. There is no shame in having weaknesses and discussing this in an interview will showcase your mature approach to joining the company, and your ability to recognise that every role requires different perspectives.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully this is able to help you find your next role. If you have any thoughts or think I missed any important points please let me know in the comments.