In a market where competition is sky-high for jobs, it may seem to be a bit difficult to find some ground for those looking forward to changing career. It's due to their lack of work experience in a particular field. But to overcome this gap a good strategy, to be precise a killer asset can be including the transferable skills relevant to the post being talked about. Presenting the transferable skills doesn't only reveal the linkage between the candidates' past experience and the job applied for, but also offers some other potential that may leverage his chances of acceptance.
Transferable skills are often gained through past experience in the workplace, volunteering projects or even through someone's hobby! These skills may be defined as those missing links between the past career and the career someone pursues. Skills gained through other jobs, projects, academic works or vocational efforts that can be of good use in the present situation should be mentioned here in a clear and concise manner.
When we consider "skills" as a whole it includes all the 3 sectors like skills with materials, skills with people and skills with communication or information. Therefore skills can be classified into 3 categories.
Skills related to things: Working with inanimate objects like building, consumer products, cars, food, gifts, machinery, tools, instruments, furniture, clothing or jewelry consist of skills with things. Working with animals can also be put into this category.
Skills with data or information: This sort of skills come from desk works like planning, making policies, programming, calculating, compiling, mining, sorting, managing data. Creative works, drawing, designing, writing, copying, editing are also included here.
Skills with people: When the work relates to activities leading to an interaction between the candidate and other parties there develops the skills with people. To name some- working with customers, clients, colleagues, faculty, students, patients, teams or groups. The skills gained through working with the above can be listed as negotiating, motivating people, coordinating, interviewing, counseling, entertaining, informing, serving, selling, training and much more.
It's extremely beneficial for candidates looking for a career switch to analyze the posts they are going to apply for and sort out the requirements to showcase the appropriate transferable skills. When the skills which are asking for are there along with other potentialities, employers are bound to pay much attention to that resume. The way of presenting the transferable skills should be well planned so that highly targeted skills should be placed at the top and understandably so. The better you connect your past with the post the more chances are there to be able to get to your destination.
In a nutshell, the career switchers will need to be smarter and along with their summery of qualification, they will need to compensate for their lack of work experience in the particular field by concisely presenting appropriate transferable skills that will link their past with the future.
