What Skills to Add to Your Resume
The global pandemic shook the job market upside down and left to right, leaving many Canadians out of a job. Even those who weren’t victim to mass layoffs found themselves unemployed. Covid-19 had Canadians reconsidering their overall job satisfaction, and after reflection, many decided to leave their jobs willingly. With the economy getting back into the swing, now is the perfect time to make a career change.
What are transferable skills?
Transferable skills are skills valuable to all employers across various industries and positions. These skills include listening, teamwork, conflict resolution and other qualities. When undergoing a career change, transferable skills can help you reposition your experience for the new role.
Top 10 transferable skills
- Decision making
- Creative problem solving
- Communication
- Management
- Initiative
- Collaboration –
- Critical thinking
- Adaptability
- Attention to detail
- Empathy
- Decision-making – The ability to weigh options to make decisive choices.
- Creative problem solving – “Out of the box” thinkers can overcome challenges with unique solutions.
- Communication – Both written and verbal skills are needed in all jobs to communicate ideas.
- Management – This can include managing staff and ensuring projects and tasks are completed efficiently and successfully.
- Initiative – Someone who takes initiative is a self-motivator and can work effectively without supervision.
- Collaboration – Cooperatively working with others.
- Critical thinking – evaluating and interpreting information to make judgements, come to a resolution or switch your course of action.
- Adaptability – Shifting your priorities and going with the flow in moments of significant change.
- Attention to detail – Paying attention to the finer details can help you catch errors and make decisions with great intent.
- Empathy – Understanding others’ feelings and providing support to build positive relationships with colleagues and clients.
Why do employers seek transferable skills?
Employees with transferable skills have extensive skill sets they can tap into when necessary. Employers seek out these employees because these skills extend past their technical toolbelt, making them well-rounded. Combining these soft skills with technical skills allows you to go above and beyond the job description, making you more efficient and effective in your role.
Where to highlight your transferable skills
During the recruitment process, your resume, cover letter, interview and the help of online profiles can all be used to showcase transferable skills.
Resume
You can use a couple of options when including those key skills. The obvious choice is the skills section, but you can also utilize the summary or objective section along with your employment history descriptions.
Cover letter
Rather than just rehashing your resume, your cover letter should tell a story highlighting one or two transferable skills. Review the job description and choose a few skills to highlight.
Interview
Refer to concrete examples to showcase your transferable skills when answering the interviewer’s questions. Using the STAR method, you can create detailed stories of past experiences where you successfully used key skills.
Online
Whether it’s LinkedIn or your online portfolio, you can add soft skills at the click of a button.
Additional ways to prove your skills to employers
- Use your network to back you up. For those career changers, references and referrals can have a lot of pull in convincing employers to take a chance.
- Prioritize face-to-face conversation. Sharing your stories and marketing yourself to recruiters and potential employers can show your communication and other interpersonal skills.
- Forget the buzzwords and career jargon. Use clear and descriptive language to make an impact when describing your transferable skills. You want employers to envision you in this new endeavour. Using jargon will just remind them of your former job.
- Researching the new role and industry will prepare you for your interview and prove you take initiative. Volunteering and providing work samples are also great ways of gathering tangible proof of your skills.
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