🔎Activity: Transferable Skills (Exploratory only)

Introduction

Completing an evaluation of your transferable skills is an important part of understanding your full potential. By identifying and understanding your transferable skills, you are giving yourself more options to explore.

We analyzed five reports to examine the most wanted skills by employers from various Canadian, American, and global sources between 2019 to 2021.  Two themes emerged: transferable skills and technological skills.  

Transferable skills, also known as soft skills, are versatile abilities applicable across various roles, industries, and contexts. They are not tied to specific jobs and are learned and developed through personal and professional experiences. Employers highly value these skills for their contribution to workplace effectiveness, productivity, and success, irrespective of job roles or responsibilities.

Despite rapid technological advancements, transferable skills hold equal, if not greater, importance to employers, including industry leaders like Google. While technical skills can be taught, candidates and employees are expected to already possess and improve transferable skills like communication, creativity, and collaboration.

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Versatility of Transferable Skills

If you will, imagine the world of professional dance for a moment. Now think of computer programming in the world of cyber-security.

• Can you think of two professions more disparate than these? 
• Can you imagine a successful leap—career change—from dancer to coder? 
• Can you identify common transferable skills? 
• Does this appear to be a far stretch?

Bryson, (Bryson, 2020, para. 5, 7) provides an example of a dancer who successfully makes a career change to political administration.

This example demonstrates the versatility of transferable skills!

Develop Examples of Your Transferable Skills

Now, we invite you to review the top ten list of transferable skills*:

Activity

Choose one transferable skill that:

• you enjoy using, 
• one you would rate yourself as “better than average” at using, and 
• one that you really have not become immersed in yet. 

Next, develop an example for each skill from your academic studies at Royal Roads. 

It is important to be able to list your skills with examples because they demonstrate how a you have applied those skills in real-life situations. When you provide examples of your past experiences, projects, or achievements, you showcase your abilities in action rather than simply stating that you possess certain skills.  

Stating, for example, Master of Arts in Leadership on your resume acknowledges this credential, which is a phenomenal accomplishment! However, it does not describe the transferable and technical skills that were required and/or gained to complete each course for the credential.

The examples can be brief and you can use the STARS format to construct your examples.

See the next page for an example of transferable skills gained from a course at Royal Roads University.

*Reference: Top 10 transferable skills:

1. Problem-solving,
2. Creativity,
3. Workforce digital skills (e.g., Microsoft Office), 
4. Communication,
5. Collaboration,
6. Critical thinking,
7. Leadership,
8. Resilience,
9. Service orientation/customer service,
10. Stress tolerance/dealing with stress.

Example

Here is an example illustrating the MA in Leadership course with the transferable skill, collaboration.

S/T (situation/context)/(tasks): One of the courses I completed in the Master of Arts in Leadership program was Communications and Leadership in Groups and Teams. We were required to form teams of four and develop an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) training package for staff at a not-for-profit organization within two weeks. I wanted to take the lead because this was my area of expertise; working in this specialization for 20+ years. However, one of my team-mates wanted to lead the project.

A (actions): I stepped down and let my team-mate lead. I observed, asked questions, offered encouragement, and redirected the team when we went off course. Also, I compiled the team’s written drafts for the project and wrote the final training document.

R (results): I learned new EDI content. Our group obtained an A on the project. The professor thought so highly of our package, she asked for our permission to share it with one of her colleagues who was an Executive Director of a not-for-profit.

S (skills demonstrated): Collaboration skills demonstrated: active listening, clear and concise communication - verbally and online through Microsoft Teams and in writing though email. Contribution to the team - wrote the final training document.