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.

Build Your Resume: Mining Your Transferable Skills TOOL

Your story is unique!

Building Your Transferable Skill List for Resumes

I’ve heard it many times before…

“What would I have to offer if I didn’t do this work that I’ve always done.”

“I’ve been in ____field, doing ____type of work, for the last 10, 20, or 40 years. I can’t start over at this point.”

Hearing “I have nothing to offer” is a limiting belief that stirs emotions deep inside of me. It calls forth the exhorter in me and reminds me of the passion to catalyze others creativity and unique calling in the world.

Without even knowing you, I am certain that you have a lot to give! You have a unique fingerprint in the world. Your life matters and what you do matters!   

Finding the right people, the right organization or the right team that value you, is your ultimate mission. Acknowledging the limiting beliefs that keep you from living into your fulfillment is a necessary part of vocational discernment.

If I could sit down with each person that I hear a similar sentiment from, I would do two things: First I’d listen to their life, their passions and their talents. And secondly I’d ask, who or what was impacted because of what they’ve done? I would want to affirm that they matter and that what they have done is important.  

When we’re in the trenches of our own stories, often feeling overwhelmed in the midst of transition, and lacking affirmation it is easy to forget where we’ve come from. Perspective is the number one thing that is needed in these times. A way to gain leverage and a new viewpoint to be able to see what is true, good, notable, praiseworthy from our lives. Perspective in these times is often found in others. That’s one of the primary roles I play with people.  

For just one hour, I challenge you to set aside the notion that “I have nothing to offer the world, if I’m not doing x”.

Whether a pastor, a mom, a non-profit worker, we all have many skills that we have done in the past, in a specific way for a unique purpose.

Here’s the formula:

Learned, applied and enjoyed skill +

Environment (Specific way = people, things, ideas & information) +

Quantity of time/Unique purpose (verb + object + adjective) =

Transferable Skill

In writing a resume we want you to draw on your experience to create your future.  Identifying these skills that you had that are able to be transferred into a new role in the future, regardless of the organization, is the goal.

While you don’t want to exaggerate or minimize the work you’ve done, this is your chance to highlight the unique skillset that you have. These transferable skills lists will give a future employer an opportunity to better understand what you have to bring to a new company. This process will also serve as an exercise in self awareness highlighting for you the contributions you have made thus far as well as start to point you in the direction of what you want to do more of.

Mining your Transferable Skills

~60 minutes

Goal: Let your history speak new life into your future. Mine the value of previously-held roles to determine transferable skills for a resume and future job.

Part I – Mind Mapping Skills

1.     Consider the last 10 years of your life. Brainstorm the jobs you’ve had and roles you filled during this duration.*

2.     In the center of each circle, list the job titles you’ve had. (i.e. waitress, teacher, pastor, writer, mom)

3.     Starting with your favorite role, brainstorm which skills you had to use within that role. See skill verbiage list below. Ask yourself this one question: What are the verbs, the actions that you performed this week?

4.     Creating lines from each circle, consider all the work that you did in that particular role. Using action words, break down the list of jobs (i.e. execute, serve, deliver, administer, create).

5.     Go back and cross out action verbs you disliked and circle words you liked and desire to do more of. (i.e. execute, serve, deliver, administer, create).

6.     Continue to expand on the role you enjoyed most. Using a thesaurus or a brainstorm of words (see below), let the action words represent you best. (i.e. teaching = adapted, advised, coordinated, communicated, developed, evaluated, guided, informed, instructed, persuaded, etc.). The more descriptive you can be the more user friendly words you’ll have for the next steps.

* If you were without work or in a role that was unfulfilling, consider a longer period of time than stated above.

Congratulations, you have just completed the first stage of understanding your transferable skill set for resume building

Part II – Environment = Who or What was impacted?

While identifying our skill set is challenging, moreso than that is the ability to recognize how and where to use this treasure chest of unique-to-me gifts.

The next step in understanding your transferable skills is to ask, who or what was impacted?

Go back over the skills that you enjoyed and create new lines branching from those skills and add THE OBJECT of the skill. (i.e. Children, cross-cultural workers, animals, a completed book, a clean closet, a fixed car).

What we’re looking for is not a single item or time that you performed a skill. We’re searching for the list that makes you stand out in a crowd. Consdier what you did many times, in an extraordinary way, with incredible results.

I.e. I made ice cream (Kindof neat but not that unusual). I made ice cream every weekend for 2 years for 100 people. (That’s a lot of time and a lot of mouths but I want more details!) I created 25 new flavors of ice cream over the course of 2 years for more than 100 people. (That’s impressive and not something I’ve ever done!). Bonus: List your top three hot sellers!

Part III – Quantity/Unique Purpose

Finally, how often or how many times did you do x skill? We’re looking for the quantifiable results of what you have done.  What change took place? What value was gained in the world because of your contribution?

Examples:

*Organized fundraising events for 5 non-profits over 10 years, raising over 1 million dollars in donations.

*Educated 3500 university students in East Africa, during the course of 12 years on issues of social injustice towards women

*Coached over 1000 people to complete their sabbatical over the course of 10 years
*Assessed vocational fit utilizing mid-career assessment tools I co-created
*Hosted over 300 global workers in our home for a total of 30000 hours of rest and recooperation

Which of these stand out to you? What questions would you ask if you were the interviewer?

A few things to consider:

Don’t get caught up in the minute details of numbers of for example, how often or how many. Go with the information that you know or the most accurate understanding of how you functioned in a given role. Most important is what you did and secondarily is how you did it. Keep the information accurate and be willing to give a reference for several of these transferable skills. Someone who can validate your experience.  

Note: If you’re over 40 you should have a long list to chose from. They may not all be in the same line of work. They may not make sense in light of what you might want to do. 

I recall a story of a friend of mine who graduated college with a degree in Engineering. He and I had worked as servers at a local restaurant together. When he went to interview for engineering jobs, they were incredibly impressed that he had relational skills gained from the service industry. Inevitably he got the job. Maybe in part by his engineering experience, but I would guess because he included other transferable skills such as conflict resolution learned during his years of service outside of engineering.

Note: If you’re under 40, you may have to expand on some of the details further or consider the same role and different angles based on the type of work you’re looking to fill.

Top tip!: When you’re creating a resume, you will want to choose from your longer list the skills that are relevant from your past that you want to transfer to a new role. This may seem counter-intuitive to the way resumes were written in the past, because it is. Hiring committees and HR departments are looking for you to shine and stand out apart from the stack of other applicants. The approach of using transferable skills will allow them to converse with you on a relatable basis. Trust me, you will stand out.