Learning the Transferable Skills Language for Resume Building

Transferable Skills

In the book What Color is Your Parachute, Career Coach, Richard Bolles talks about 3 ways of discussing what you’re good at. This list is broken down into good with people, good with things, good with ideas. It is important to note that those categories are further broken down.

People – Individuals or groups

Things – the body, materials, objects, equipment, buildings, animals

Ideas – Information, data or ideas

What’s important to know about the way that Bolles talks about these categories is that the more specific we can get, the better we highlight our unique fingerprint on the world. What you’re ultimately exploring is an understanding of your transferable skills in the form of verbs that describe what you do best. To get at these, we.ask what, how and who questions. “What questions” will answer the things you do, the “who questions” answer the people you do it with and the “how questions” will inform if you use ideas, objects, people, etc.  

What do you do everyday?

Who is impacted when you do it?

How do you interact with your world?

What is accomplished when you engage?

Who benefits when you deliver a service?

How do you get the job done?

“What you’re ultimately exploring is an understanding of your transferable skills in the form of verbs that describe what you do best.”

Skill verbiage list (transferable skills broken down into 3 categories: Things, Ideas & Information or People.)

When you picture your past, were you working alone, with individuals or with a group? Were you working with ideas or things?

Process (45 min - 1.5 hours)

Step 1: Think about jobs that you have had in the past. They may be voluntary positions or full-time paid positions. Specifically think about ones that you enjoyed. There is no use creating a resume of all the jobs you hated, only to end up in the same type of work again. Many make this mistake in career searching.

Step 2: As you think about past jobs that brought you life, answer the following by circling from the list below or writing the words on a separate piece of paper…I am good at and enjoy working with:_____________

1)    Things -

a)     Skills with the body > using my hands, using my body, having agility, speed

b)    skills with materials & objects > crafting, sewing, weaving, cutting, carving, molding, shaping, sculpting, painting, restoring, cleaning, preparing, making, producing, cooking, maintaining, repairing,  

c)     skills with equipment > Assembling, operating, controlling, maintaining, repairing

d)    skills with building > constructing, reconstructing, modeling, or remodeling

e)    skills with growing things > growing a garden, caring for animals,

2)    Ideas & Information –

a)    Creating, Compiling, searching, researching, gathering information, observing, synthesizing, analyzing, organizing, prioritizing, planning, evaluating, memorizing, managing, managing, studying, imagining, inventing, designing

3)    People -

a)     Individuals > taking instructions, serving, helping, communicating in person, in writing, instructing, teaching, training, advising, coaching, counseling, mentoring, empowering, diagnosing, treating, referring, connecting, evaluating, assessing, persuading, selling, recruiting, representing, interpreting, intuiting

b)    Groups or Organizations > leading, guiding, speaking, writing, teaching, training, designing events, persuading, consulting, giving advice, connecting, establishing, negotiating, resolving conflict, hearing all sides, considering, contemplating, reading a room

Note: If this list is not comprehensive enough, consult a thesaurus to gain better words that describe you. You might also do a quick internet search on “functional transferable skills”

What you should end up with is a list of verbs and actions which begin to create the next step towards looking at lengthy job descriptions and help begin to create your resume.

If you’re struggling to come up with a list, consider doing the following. 1. Take a self-assessment inventory like strengths finder or a personality test like the Myers-Briggs. 2. Ask a trusted friend, relative or a coach for honest feedback. 3. Consider going for a walk or doodling to take your mind off of this and let your brain do the work from the bottom up (right brain) rather than the left, logical, linear top down brain.

If at all possible let this list-finding grow. It can be incredibly enjoyable in the career search process to remember times in your past that were life-giving. Lean into this and allow yourself to dream a little in the process.