WorkWise: Transferring old skills to new job

By Mildred L. Culp
culp@workwise.net

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Today's groaning companies and industries are causing so much frustration among job seekers that you may have to scrap conventional thinking about background to prepare for something new. Duncan Mathison of San Diego's Duncan Mathison & Associates bases this statement on 19 years of experience in the field of career transition: "It's common to look at your own industry or professional marketplace . . . and realize there are not a lot of options." Searching for something new can lead to a different job in either the same or a new industry. It can also result in a new job in a new industry. The last is a double whammy, difficult to accomplish, but possible.

The main challenge you face is daunting: identifying skills you've used, packaging them in the language of the new industry and persuading an employer to hire you rather than someone with a more traditional background. Knowing what skills to emphasize, how to fill critical gaps and how to convince an employer to hire you are essential to finding work in new environments.

Transferable skills

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Although many people bandy about the term "transferable skills," you might be confused about what they are. Eileen Sharaga of New York City reports that the concept behind this phrase came from Howard Fiegler and Richard Bolles in the late 80s to refer to skills that you could take into a new job, industry, profession or career. Sharaga has adapted the concept to include these transferable skills, all with multiple applications:

• communication skills;

• research skills;

• creative skills;

• organizing skills;

• analytical skills;

• problem-solving skills; and

• synthesizing skills.

"They are apt to have shown up early in life and are source of our success," she says. "These help you make a radical transition or move your career to the left or right."

Deborah Bailey, president of DBC Communications L.L.C., in Piscataway, N.J., mentions that you're not just transferring skills. You're also transferring "aptitude, which can be applied to something else."

Gaps

Mathison sees an incredibly important "perception gap," which occurs when a new field uses different language from yours, obscuring the relevance of your background, even when you list transferable skills. When writing or speaking, you must use the language the new field uses or you'll be perceived to be overwhelmingly and unchangingly an outsider.

Of course, even as you're couching results in your previous experience in the new language, you still have to know how to sell your difference from competitors who've already worked in the industry or occupation. Take heart, Bailey suggests, because "people with that same skill set may not have the experience or results or culture of the company that could be hiring you." Mathison would agree, pointing out that if they "hire the same ol' same ol', they'll not get your energy and outside perspective."

He further advocates doing research about a job. "That's basic," he remarks. "The other level makes the difference -- fit, motivation, a different perspective or new way of solving old problems." He advises asking employers what differentiates their top 10 percent of employees in terms of "quality, skills and competencies" versus the acceptable or mediocre ones. He adds another important step -- getting the person to tell you what critical issues the industry or profession is facing. Knowing where people are struggling will give you many clues to where you might contribute.

Finally, as BJ Gallagher writes in "It's Never Too Late To Be What You Might Have Been," listening rather than tearing around in your job search will give you clues about where you should be going (Viva, $15.95). Then, she writes, "The best jobs are those that are a little too big for you. They force you to stretch and grow."