Transferable skills are skills you can use across different jobs, industries, professions, or countries. You can use these skills or “transfer” them from one context to another. These are skills such as time management, communication, and teamwork.
You develop these skills through various work related experiences such as volunteer work, jobs, education or in everyday life (everyday chores).
For example, if you know how to organise your time in order to manage multiple deadlines as a student, you will be able to use these same skills in other environments - such as in a fast-paced office environment.
If you travel, volunteer or intern abroad, you can develop some of the global citizenship skills; you can then use these skills if working in international working environments. These skills are, for example, looking at global and local issues as interconnected or having a common sense of human values.
Interning abroad also builds skills such as critical cross-cultural communication, adaptability, and problem-solving skills.
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The most popular transferable skills are communication, time management, teamwork, problem-solving, technical literacy, creativity, emotional intelligence, adaptability, leadership, but also green skills. Developing some of these skills early makes you “employable”, meaning these are skills employers seek.
Transferable skills are skills that are often, traditionally, secondary to technical skills, and are less easy to identify and highlight.
Still, these skills are important to showcase in job applications, or even internship applications in your resume, cover letter, and interviews.
Make sure to mention all your experiences to help them speak for you. Even if you think these experiences don’t bring particular value to a job position application, they speak about your commitment, work ethic, and values.
The trick is to identify your own transferable skills that best match the position.
Include your most valuable and relevant transferable skills right at the top of your resume.
Highlight results - what you did and which transferable skills you used.
Focus on one or two transferable skills that are mentioned in the job description. Use the letter to highlight how you’ve applied these skills.
Some require being more specific. Here is an engineering internship cover letter example:
Mention your transferable skills, and back them by evidence.
Tasks: write for a newspaper, edit, make sure the paper gets published on time, work with other journalists
Skills developed:
“This internship brought me a lot, both professionally and personally. I was able to improve my English skills by interacting daily with the local team and other volunteers. On the technical side, I discovered new construction methods adapted to the resources and constraints of a developing country. This experience helped me better understand the challenges of the sector and gain adaptability when faced with working conditions different from those I was used to.”
Construction internship in Nepal.
“This project has been extremely enriching for my development, both on a personal level, through the unique connections I made with international volunteers sharing the same interests as me, as well as with the passionate staff on site. But also on a professional level, I gained extensive knowledge, both scientifically by learning to master species names and their behaviour, and practically through various trainings on group management and risk assessment.”
Environmental internship in Costa Rica.
These skills go beyond knowing facts or theories. These skills enable students to apply knowledge in real-world situations, communicate effectively and work in a team.
There is no consensus, but communication and teamwork are among the top cited skills.
Learn more here.
As this is happening, many young people question how AI tools will affect their employability. Students who study and work to become professionals and career-ready are now facing both positive and negative impacts of AI on employability - such as:
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