The biggest problem some people have is that they do not have any experience. Whether they are a fresh graduate, or a mother hoping to work for the first time in order to add to the household income, there are a number of reasons why some people's resume might run into a blank. But just because you have not done any internship or held any jobs, it does not mean that your resume needs to stay empty. You just need to highlight your transferable skills.
What are Transferable Skills?
Transferable skills are skills you have managed to develop in your life. It is not limited to a job, but encompasses a multitude of areas: positions held in organizations, your hobbies, sports, personal interests, class projects, or even responsibilities at home. Any skill that you have acquired from these familiar tasks that can be applied to a position you are interested in is a transferable skill.
How to Recognize Your Transferable Skills
Everyone has a transferable skill. Think about it: we all enjoy doing something; even the blandest person has a hobby. And no matter how hard we escape it, nearly everyone has chores. By recognizing the roles we have done and breaking them down, we can easily identify which skills we have become “experts” in and how they can translate into personal strengths.
Try looking back to the past four years and inventory your life. To make things easier, divide it into four different sections: academics, extra-curricular activities, personal hobbies and interests, and what you are responsible for at home. List down the different activities that fall under it, why you are good at it, or why you enjoy doing it. Also take note of the success, or goals that you might have for a particular activity.
You skills may sound boring, but they are the backbone for qualities that nearly all jobs look for: organization and analytical skills.
All jobs involve some form of problem solving. Whether you are delivering packages for FedEx or managing a sales team, there will be several instances where your analytical skills will be called upon to produce a viable solution. A physics problem, which combines Mathematics and Logic, requires a great deal of analysis in order to solve. So a background in physics, even if it is just from a high school organization, can increase the value of your resume and boost your employability.
Having good organization skills is also a key ingredient in your resume. Nearly all jobs, starting from an entry level receptionist to a busy CEO, require you organize several items at once. Multi-tasking is not an easy task, but is something that we successfully deal with everyday. Maintaining your weekly budget and juggling school, for example, is quite a challenge. You can try emphasizing your organizational skills by highlighting your success in assisting your mother with the weekly shopping, while at the same time, assisting a busy community club president.
By listing down your activities, and breaking them down into specific tasks, you can identify key skills that can apply to a specific job. One way of knowing is to compare your skill set to that of the ones required for a job. Most companies list down their specific requirements on a job posting, so simply copy them on one column. On the other, write down all the transferable skills that you listed earlier.
If a skill you listed matches a specific job requirement, cross it out. After you are done, run through the remaining entries on your list and check if these skills are really not required to enable you to excel in this position. If it still isn't, then leave it out of your resume. Your employers are only interested in skills that will help you perform this job; anything else is just a distraction.
Remember that just because you are a student or a fresh graduate, it doesn't mean that your resume needs to stay empty. While most employers understand that your experience may be limited, it won't convince them to hire you if they do not know what you are capable of. After all, that is what listing your job experience is all about - illustrating that you can do the job. By emphasizing your transferable skills, you not only provided evidence that you can do the work, but that you may even excel in it.
Transferable skills fresh graduates can capitalize on:
• Ability to meet deadlines, thrive under deadline pressure: Nobody knows what running after a deadline is like more than a college student. With papers, projects, and presentations in a number of subjects, an average student faces more deadlines than an average executive, and all of this done in roughly three months.
• Ability to handle multiple tasks: People often forget what a boiler room college was like. Students nowadays have to juggle the demand of taking multiple subjects, having a social life, and in some cases, cramming in a part time job. This is even more than what an average office worker can handle!
• Ability to achieve goals: Students achieve a number of milestones while they are in school: getting straight A's on a particular subject, honor classes, winning athletics, or even graduating in less than four years. Any goals made in those four years are an example of how employers are picking a winner in you.
• Ability to adapt: This is a typical entry level interview question: tell me of a time where you dealt with something difficult in school, and how did you get around it? School, like the workplace, is an environment that is forever changing, and potential employers need to know that you are able to keep up.
• Writing skills: And you thought that the last time you would write a paper would be in school! Jobs that require a lot of writing are more common than most people think, and can be found in virtually every industry. Whether it's writing reports, handbooks, or manuals, there is always some form of paper work to do. So potential employers try and judge your writing skills even from day one and nothing shows that more than a well written resume and cover letter!
• Research skills: This is one area that recent graduates excel in: Research. Not because the skills they picked up researching papers and projects is still fresh on their minds, but they have the advantage of being on the cutting edge of technology. Very few top level executives are as adept with a computer as a student is, so if they want to keep ahead of the times, they need to employ more young people who are already proficient with the Internet and technology.
Transferable Skills: A Closer Look
When it comes to skills, there are areas that recruiters pay more attention to than others, mostly because they are the ones that are required in several positions. These are in the areas of Communication; Research and Planning; Human Relations; Organization, Management and Leadership; and Work Survival.
These five areas represent skills that you can bring into every possible position, and for virtually any field. Having one or two skills from any of these areas will not only annotate the fact that you do not have an extensive professional experience, but will make you a serious contender with people who have.
The key is to recognize these skills, and working them into your resume. A functional resume, will be an ideal type of resume to use in this case, because it pays more attention to your skills than qualifications and experience.
Many things are at stake in a job interview and sometimes it is your responses that can make you win or lose a job. Certainly we do not want to take job interviews lightly. But at the end of the day, it helps to know that a job interview is very simply a conversation.
A job interview is a dialogue between two parties who are trying to figure out if they can work well together. Your employer wants to know if you are the best person for the job, and you’d like to know if they are the organization you’d want to work with. The only way to accomplish this would be to talk.
Think of it this way: what if you had to entrust your most important possession to a stranger? Whatever this possession is, it is something that is very precious to you and you’ve given it the best care possible. A lot of your time and money are also at stake if this possession isn’t properly attended to. In this case, wouldn’t you want to interview the stranger first before giving them your trust? Wouldn’t you like to find out who they are and be assured that you are choosing the right man/ woman for the job?
The same goes with companies. In a way, a company is like an owner’s/ employer’s most prized possession. It cannot be given to any stranger unless one is sure that the stranger is competent and can be trusted.
Thus the goal of a job interview is (a) for employers to get to know you better and (b) see if you are the best person for the job. Your goal in response is to show off your strengths in the most genuine and honest way--- not to put on a show. You want to help the company understand why you are their best option.
Thinking of a job interview as a conversation can help remove that ‘interrogation’ feel and make you see your interviewer as less of a monster and more like an ordinary person like yourself. Hopefully, this can help you relax more. Besides, the mere fact that the company wishes to interview you is a good sign. It means that they are open to considering you for the position. If they’ve reviewed your resume before inviting you to an interview, then better news! They’ve likely found something in your resume that grabbed their attention.
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