Transferable Skills

An important aspect of developing who you are is found in The Transferable Skills Worksheet, EXERCISE 3.2. The purpose of this exercise is to identify your transferable skills. So many times I hear recruiters say that a candidate (you) isn’t employable because they haven’t worked in that specific industry, employing a specifically defined set of skills. Poppycock!

I recently had a candidate who worked for a Fortune 50 company in their mechanical and electrical controls systems division. Basically, he was responsible for selling HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) controls to larger corporations and public institutions.

I coached him for less than one month. Near the end of that time he secured employment at an IT company and is now happily working as their VP of Sales, selling sophisticated networking and software solutions. By the way, this was not a dot.com. They’ve been in business over 7 years and are highly successful. So don’t tell me that it can’t be done. Just Do It!

This exercise will help you identify your transferable skills. Once identified, you may apply them to the process of developing your resume and interviewing.