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Workwrite Resumes

Changing Careers: With skills, it’s all in the match

Match your skills with those required in the job description to win the transferrable skills game.

Match your skills with those required in the job description to win the transferrable skills game.

If you’ve been considering a career change for awhile, you’ve probably heard of transferable skills.

Skills are those behaviors and abilities you’ve learned throughout your life and work.  Transferable skills are the ones you have developed in one setting or type of work that will transfer to another setting or employer.

The important thing is to match your skills with those required by the employer before you write your resume. The best way to do this is to collect three job descriptions of positions for which you would like to apply. The jobs must be very similar to your focused target.

Compile a list of the main skills required in the job descriptions.

On your resume, give your best example of each of these skills.  Quantify your experience as much as possible. For example, if the job descriptions focus on sales skills, be sure to give an example of your sales experience that includes the dollar amount or percentage of an annual sales increase, a Top Performer Award, or some other evidence of your high level of performance in that role.

Do the same for each of the other major skills required by the job descriptions. This practice fills your resume with real-life evidence of the level of your performance.

 

If writing your career change resume isn’t your favorite thing to do, contact me today to talk about  how I can help you present your transferable skills to your target employers.

 

Related

Changing Careers: When NOT to change your career

Changing Careers: How to decide if a career change is for you

Changing Careers: What do you want?

Changing Careers: Choosing a target

 

Comments

  1. Jeri,
    Great advice. Matching your skill set to the perceived needs of the employer is critical to getting noticed. A word cloud of the employer job description and one for each similar job description will aid in focusing in on key words.

    Steve

Leave a Reply to Steven Rusch