What are transferable skills? How to identify (with a checklist)

Technical knowledge can become dated, but the strategic logic and people skills you’ve honed over the years can remain your most reliable assets for navigating a major career pivot.

What are transferable skills?

Transferable skills are the portable talents and functional abilities you acquire throughout your professional life that you can apply across different jobs and industries.

Skills that are transferable represent the broader “professional skills” that help you succeed in any environment. Recognising these can make you feel valued and confident about your potential to adapt and excel across industries.

Transferable skills are different to technical skills and are often referred to as “hard skills”. These types of skills are usually specific to a particular role or software, such as knowing how to write in a specified coding language or operate a piece of machinery.

Employers want to hire career changers with proven transferable skills because they indicate capacity for long-term growth and resilience in a new industry.

Transferable skill examples

To effectively market yourself in a new industry, you need to categorise and articulate your specific transferable skills in your resume to demonstrate professional maturity.

The following list explains some of the most common transferable skills:

• Communication: Process complex information, negotiating with stakeholders, and facilitating clear dialogue across organisational levels.
• Customer service: Managing stakeholder expectations, managing complex interpersonal conflicts under pressure, and fostering relationships that drive brand advocacy.
• Leadership: Taking initiative, mentoring peers, and fostering a culture of accountability.
• Adaptability and agility: Pivoting strategies and learning new systems with minimal friction.
• Problem-solving: Identifying challenges, researching potential solutions, and implementing data-driven strategies to mitigate risk.
• Project and time management: Prioritising workflows, managing resources efficiently, and meeting rigorous deadlines.
• Critical thinking: Evaluating information objectively and using logical reasoning to reach informed conclusions.

The importance of transferable skills

Transferable skills are essential when applying for a new role because they reduce the risk of onboarding for employers. Every new employee represents an investment of time and energy. They want a professional who can step into the role, collaborate with the team, learn the systems quickly, and start executing.

Employers want to see that you have the capacity to take on more responsibility as you progress and grow within the company. Your professional skills prove that you can handle the complexities of their business, even without a background in that specific role.

Uniquely human skills, such as ethical judgement, creative strategy, and interpersonal empathy, become invaluable in the AI-enabled workforce. These skills remain highly sought after and are worth investing in for professional career development and longevity.

How to identify and enhance your transferable skills

Identifying your own list of transferable skills requires professional self-reflection. It is all in how you frame your experience. Start by thinking about the skills that you’ve forged through the tasks you perform daily, not just the task itself.

To get started, review your career history. Think back to any specific challenges you overcame and the methods or skills you used to get there.

Reflect on these questions to help you think about where your talents may lie:

• What specific tasks do my colleagues and supervisors consistently rely on me for?
• When a problem arises, what is my instinctive first step toward a solution?
• In my current role, which responsibilities give me the greatest sense of professional efficacy?
• How have I adapted my workflow when faced with sudden organisational changes or new technologies?

For example, if you are responsible for leading a weekly briefing, dig into how have you helped solve problems that the team is facing, and if so, write down some examples. 

If you don’t have any examples yet, don’t worry. There are many ways to develop your skills, and you can feel confident about growing your capabilities over time. Consider the following avenues for enhancing your skills:

• Strategic work experience: Seek out stretch assignments in your current role. Volunteering for cross-departmental projects allows you to apply your existing skills in a new context.
• Volunteering: Non-profit work is a high-impact environment that can enable you to develop skills and experience in leadership, and/or large-scale event coordination that you may not be able to access in your primary job.
• Further study: Academic environments provide the theoretical framework to back up your practical experience.

If you’re looking to make a significant career leap, you might find that your first step is further education. Our industry-aligned courses are designed to integrate practical experience with theoretical knowledge, so you can test your skills in real-world scenarios and gain the experience you need to land in your next role.

Using career mapping to decide on a new career >

Transferable skills checklist

If you’re ready to take a practical step, this checklist will help you evaluate the transferable skills you already have in your toolkit. Write down which ones you can answer ‘yes’ to with concrete evidence:

Communication

Teamwork

Organisation and time management

Leadership

Adaptability

Digital literacy

Problem-solving

Critical thinking

Knowing your worth is crucial for any career change. Your past experiences have given you a foundation that no one can take away. By focusing on these transferable skills, you can walk into your next interview with the confidence that you have exactly what your employer needs.