If you’re a candidate, particularly if you’re looking to make a career change of some sort, the barriers are high. Regardless of years of experience, accolades received in the past or just an all-around fabulous resume, breaking into a new field means that you’re once again starting with a blank page in terms of your ‘fit’.
If you’re a hiring manager, typically speaking, you want the profile that you want, because you want it. And that’s your right. A key component of that profile is usually having ‘industry experience’, or ‘similar role experience’. In a flush market, that’s not a problem… people are moving between jobs, more jobs in the industry are being created, and so there’s an available well to go to. However, in a new industry or a tight market, a search for industry experience becomes a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack.
What then can bridge these 2 seemingly opposing issues- the candidate who has lots of great experience but not in the specific industry or role, and the hiring manager who needs to get someone with relevant experience so that there’s a better success rate?
That’s where the discussion around ‘transferable skills’ comes into play.
First, let’s be clear. We’re not talking about specific education, language proficiency or technical requirements. A Lawyer needs a law degree; an Engineer needs an engineering degree, and so on. Transferable skills are those which can translate to many industries and companies because they are core fundamentals that build upon technical knowledge already there.
A discussion around transferable skills is really about getting to the root requirements to be successful in the role, assuming that the candidate has the necessary technical skills & certifications. Consider that skills generally will fall into these main categories[1]:
- Communication- writing, speaking and presentation skills
- Research and planning- forecasting, planning, building scenarios, understanding risks
- Human relations- working with others and individually
- Organization, management and leadership- organizing tasks, follow-through, delegating, promoting new ideas
- Work survival- time management, multitasking, enforcing corporate policies
When either building or reviewing a job description, you need to ask yourself the very tough ‘why’ and ‘what’ questions- “Why do I care about this specific requirement? What value does it add to the person’s overall success?”. By answering these questions, a hiring manager can help simultaneously confirm the key success factors of the role, and also potentially broaden the pool of potential candidates and help ensure that they actually fill the open position.
Another value of looking at less traditional candidates with transferable skills is that the team dynamic may end up being the silent benefactor. Having a fresh set of eyes that are not encumbered with the ‘this is how we’ve always done it’ perspective often times brings new ideas on how to develop and execute.
It does remain the responsibility of the candidate to articulate how their experience does translate or transfer into the specific job description. A good rule of thumb is that if you can’t think of at least 2 demonstrated examples (ie. you could get a reference for them) for each of the job criteria listed, then the skill probably isn’t transferable. In other words, it’s up to the candidate to show that they’ve got the specific history.
Another way for candidates to address the question of transferable skills is to look at the nature of the specific industry or company, and compare that to where you’ve worked in the past. What are the similarities in history? Structure? Geography? Types of clients / suppliers?… etc. By understanding how the industries and /or companies align, and being able to articulate that in a resume and interview, will help the hiring manager to see the connection.
In an economy that is increasingly dynamic, ever global and interconnected through social media, and where new industries are forever rising, looking at transferable skills forms a type of market intelligence. It helps organizations keep up with new skills arising and also ensures an ongoing influence of fresh perspectives.
[1] “Transferable skills sets for job seekers”, Quintessential Careers