Transferable skills are the abilities you can use in different jobs and industries, such as communication, problem-solving, and leadership.

Transferable skills encompass the capabilities that seamlessly transition from one role to another. These skills, such as effective communication, adept problem-solving, and collaborative teamwork, hold the key to your professional success across various domains.

While technical skills empower you to perform specific tasks, like utilizing CAD software for engineering design, transferable skills form the foundation for exceptional job performance. This makes them incredibly valuable to employers, as evidenced by the preference for a programmer skilled in collaborative coding over one who excels individually.

Explore how employers perceive transferable skills, learn to identify your unique skill set, and discover a compilation of five prevalent transferable skills, complete with illustrative examples to enhance your self-assessment.

By the conclusion of this guide, you’ll possess the insights needed to effectively showcase your transferable skills to prospective employers, empowering your pursuit of the next phase in your career.

Six Essential Transferable Skills with Examples

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking involves objectively evaluating, synthesising, and analysing information to generate original insights or judgments. Individuals with strong critical thinking capabilities encourage profound consideration of issues, ensuring meticulous conceptualisation of products, ideas, or policies.

Examples:
• A teacher designing a curriculum tailored to students’ unique requirements.
• An employee consistently challenging prevailing opinions in meetings to foster well-informed decisions.
• A data scientist posing inventive inquiries about datasets.
• A union representative raising vital queries to safeguard factory workers’ safety and well-being.

Resourceful Problem Solving

Problem-solving aptitude facilitates the resolution of intricate or demanding issues. Proficient problem solvers adeptly discern the root causes of problems and skillfully execute strategies to address them.

Examples:
• A cashier promptly devising an alternate order-taking method during a point-of-sale system outage.
• An accountant innovating an efficient filing system.
• An intern in a political campaign constructing a database to enhance voter engagement.

Seamless Adaptability

Adaptability signifies swiftly acclimatizing to novel situations. Adaptable individuals not only embrace unfamiliar environments and challenges but excel within them.

Examples:
• A warehouse worker proficiently alternating between packing, inventory management, deliveries, and shift coordination.
• A dispatcher adeptly juggling driver requests, suggesting alternative routes, and navigating various applications.
• A recently hired employee rapidly immersed in a pivotal project.

Collaborative Teamwork

Teamwork involves effectively collaborating with peers and prioritizing collective goals over personal interests. Strong team players support colleagues, motivate teammates, and adeptly give and receive constructive feedback.

Examples:
• A waiter excelling under pressure while coordinating with bussers, cooks, and dishwashers, deftly managing diverse personalities and customer interactions.
• A builder orchestrating harmonious teamwork to ensure timely home construction.
• A stagehand contributing to rapid stage preparation during an opera performance.
• A copywriter adeptly producing original content and incorporating client feedback.

Attention to Detail

Attention to detail guarantees the refinement of project nuances. Professionals with this trait focus on critical yet often overlooked aspects of projects, elevating overall quality.

Examples:
• A ceramics factory worker scrutinizing tiles for glaze imperfections, size deviations, shape irregularities, and material flaws.
• A diligent bookkeeper reviewing company accounts line by line, ensuring impeccable financial records.
• An editor refining written content for spelling, grammar, and phrasing accuracy.
• A programmer debugging code lines.

Effective Management

Management involves adeptly overseeing people and processes, including time and plans. Accomplished managers supervise, direct, schedule, and comprehensively grasp team dynamics within broader organizational contexts.

Examples:
• A stage manager ensuring flawless operations during live theatrical performances.
• A multitasking parent adeptly orchestrating family responsibilities, schedules, and tasks.
• A shift leader fostering clear task comprehension and adherence.
• A proactive club president efficiently coordinating meetings, discussions, and activities.
• A savvy grocery store owner proficiently managing employee schedules and supply orders.

Translating Transferable Skills to Your Resume

Whether seeking new opportunities or contemplating a career transition, identifying your transferable skills is paramount. Kickstart this process by familiarising yourself with this comprehensive list of prominent transferable skills:

• Adaptability
• Administration
• Advanced computer skills
• Advanced writing skills
• Analytical thinking
• Artistic skills
• Attention to detail
• Budgeting
• Classifying
• Clerical skills
• Coaching
• Collaboration
• Communication
• Conflict resolution
• Coordinating
• Cooperation
• Counselling
• Creative thinking
• Critical thinking
• Customer service skills
• Data analysis
• Decision-making
• Defining needs
• Delegating
• Dependability
• Developing rapport
• Diligence
• Empathy
• Enlisting help
• Evaluating
• Facilitating discussion
• Financial skills
• Flexibility
• Imagining alternatives
• Instructing others
• Interpersonal skills
• Interviewing
• Language skills
• Leadership
• Listening
• Logical thinking
• Management
• Mechanical skills
• Mediation
• Mentoring
• Negotiation
• Perceptual skills
• Providing feedback
• Quick learner
• Quick Thinking
• Organisation
• Patience
• Performing skills  
• Persuasion
• Persistence
• Planning
• Problem-solving
• Punctuality
• Public speaking
• Supervising
• Record keeping
• Researching
• Responsible
• Results-oriented
• Salesmanship
• Supervising
• Synthesising
• Teaching
• Teamwork
• Technological skills
• Training
• Verbal communication

Discover Your Transferable Skills

Now that you’re well-versed in the realm of transferable skills, it’s time to uncover your own personal set:

1. Handpick 10 skills from the aforementioned list that resonate most with you.
2. Document the ways you’ve applied each skill, both in your professional and personal life. Aim for inclusivity, capturing the full spectrum of instances that embody each skill. (In need of examples? Refer to the preceding section.)
3. Identify the 5 skills that have delivered the greatest impact in your professional and personal life.
4. Sketch out pivotal accomplishments for each skill on your shortlist.
5. Organize your five skills in order of their impact, from most impactful to least. This exercise isn’t about passing judgment on your abilities but comprehending the skills that have served you extremely well so far.

You now possess a compilation of your most potent transferable skills. 

By understanding these transferable skills, you’ll be empowered to effectively align your proficiencies with potential job roles, setting the stage for a successful professional journey. Be on the lookout for chances to convey these skills, whether it’s on your CV or during your job interview. Identify the transferrable skills referred to in job advertisements, descriptions and person specifications and refer to your listing for relevant use in your applications.

For additional input, consider seeking input from a friend, family member, or colleague regarding what they perceive to be your standout skills. At times, those closest to us possess a clearer vantage point on our strengths than we do ourselves.

Why Transferable Skills Matter

Transferable skills often refer to as “soft skills,” contrasts with “hard” technical skills. As a result, many get the mistaken impression that transferable skills are less important than technical skills. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Research has regularly found that employees with strong transferable skills have greatly increased workplace productivity and profitability. 

A 2018 report by McKinsey & Company found that in the next decade, the need for transferable skills will increase substantially, and the need for repetitive and manual tasks will decrease (Automation and the workforce of the future | McKinsey)

Although transferable skills have proven to be effective in the workplace and are needed for the future, McKinsey & Company noted that human resource professionals found it difficult to identify potential employees with in-demand transferable skills. The top three “missing skills” according to HR professionals are as follows: 

• Problem-solving, critical thinking, innovation, and creativity
• Ability to deal with complexity and ambiguity
• Communication

The value of transferable skills should not be underestimated by employers or employees. Transferable skills provide an opportunity for job seekers to stand out from the applicant pool, align your proficiencies with potential job roles and you will be setting the scene for success in your job search and career.