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When you're moving on to a new job or career, bring your portable skills!
Time to leave your current employer, job, industry -- career? As you're packing your briefcase, family photos and awards, don't forget your transferable skills. You'll need those to land that next work opportunity.
Transferable or portable skills are the things you have learned as a result of living or working that you can carry to your next position. Examples of such transferable skills include diplomacy, leadership, efficiency, sales ability, decision-making, project-managing, writing and oral presentation.
"Think of portable skills as assets that are yours. You own them and can take them with you wherever you go to create value for yourself and your next employer," said Gayle Oliver, president of Execume, an Atlanta-based resume-writing and career management company.
"Transferable skills weren't an issue a decade or two ago, when people kept their jobs for long periods of time. Now that more people are being laid off, downsized or outsourced, it's important that they know they're not leaving empty-handed. They'll carry with them a portfolio of transferable skills," she said.
Career coaches often see mature workers who have been let go after 20 to 30 years and need to find new work. Of the average number of people unemployed in 2005 -- 1.86 million -- 617,000 of them were older than 45, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"They all ask the same question: 'Am I marketable?'" Oliver said. "When they learn how to identify their transferable skills and translate them to a different environment, their attitude totally changes. They see new horizons and are able to look at the market with new confidence."
Your ability to identify and make the most of your skills can mean the difference between success and failure in a job search or in the achievement of career goals.
In 1999, Donna Lynes-Miller left a position as a senior vice president with AFC Enterprises, a multibrand food-service organization (then the parent company of Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits and Church's Chicken) to launch GourmetStation, which ships international, multicourse meals to customers nationwide.
Lynes-Miller had created the idea as part of AFC's "Year of Pioneering" in 1997. "About half a dozen executives were given the opportunity and resources to work on concept development for creative food-service projects," she said. "After I created the project, the company decided not to fund it. They were getting ready to do an IPO [initial public offering], and offering fancy gourmet food through the mail wasn't part of their core business."
Lynes-Miller decided that it was a business she could run, bought the rights and left AFC on good terms in 1999.
"When you reach a point where you've got the big salary and the big office, but there's something missing in your heart, then it's time to take a risk," she said.
She had the desire to do more with her career and to be creative, but, at 50, Lynes-Miller didn't make the jump without careful thought. Having worked in the food industry since the 1970s, she knew food and had other valuable skills that would help her launch her business.
"I understood supply chain, which is a fancy word for purchasing and distribution, and I had experience with product research and development," she said. "I had knowledge of packaging -- that was key, because there's a lot of engineering behind shipping food at the right temperature and having it arrive in good shape."
She had been involved with contract negotiations and distribution -- knowledge that, along with her management and leadership skills, she knew she would need.
She took a year to develop a Web site, menus and packaging and to test products with three separate focus groups before launching GourmetStation in 2000.
"I was targeting people like my husband and myself, who were too busy to cook but wanted a fine dining experience in the home," she said. "I believed and continue to believe that there are others out there like me, who want good food without having to think about it or work too hard at it."
Lynes-Miller also knew where there were gaps in her skills set. She got professional help for her company Web site and taught herself the financial end of business ownership. "I had to force myself to do monthly balance sheets and taxes, but I'm a much better manager now because of it," she said.
She's proud that the company weathered the recession in 2001 and is growing. She has shipped Tuscan, French, Cajun and fusion four-course meals to all 50 states and Puerto Rico. Her menus have become a popular gift item between families separated by distance.
"I get a kick out of families connecting with food -- that's a real rewarding part of what I do," she said.
She knows that her skills helped her beat the odds in a highly competitive industry.
"A lot of individuals have developed a [valuable] product or service, but they lack the management skills to bring it to life in a functioning, profitable business," she said. "You have to think beyond the development process and be able to flip the idea into a successful business model. I was fortunate in my past work experience to see how that worked."
Know yourself, your skills
In order to make the most of your transferable skills, "you need to know who you are and where you want to go," said Debbie Brown, career and executive coach and owner of D & B Consulting, an Atlanta company that specializes in career planning and transitions.
Before you can change careers, advance in your industry or start your own company, "you have to do a thorough self-assessment and be brutally honest about your strengths and weaknesses," she said. Personality and career tests and consultants can help.
Same skills in new job
One of Brown's clients got a law degree, but she found working in a law firm to be isolating and unfulfilling.
"She discovered that she's really a blocked creative," Brown said. "She's smart, did theater in her undergraduate days, likes to read and write, and is an innovative problem-solver."
All those skills and interests make teaching, with a future goal of administration, a better fit, and she can get a job without a lot of retraining.
"Transferable skills can help you do something else, without having to start over at the bottom of a new career," Brown said. "They can be definite resume-builders; the challenge is to present those skills in such a way as to convince someone in another industry that he could use them. Employers need to see that you are serious about making the change."
Earning a certification, taking a course or joining a professional organization can show initiative.
When Brown, who was a licensed clinical social worker, decided that she wanted to become a stockbroker, she started dressing the part.
"I read books and talked to managers of brokerage houses. I even did cold-calling of clients for brokers on my own time, and I got hired by Dean Witter," she said. Later, she earned her MBA from Georgia Tech and started her career consulting firm in 1993.
She successfully transferred her listening and counseling skills from social work -- and her financial and business expertise -- into career coaching.
"Everyone needs to re-evaluate her career every six to 12 months to see what they've accomplished, what skills they want to develop and what experiences they need to get the next promotion," Brown said.
Bill Waldorf, a licensed professional counselor and owner of Path Unfolding in Alpharetta, suggests that his clients keep folders of all of the specific ways that they use their transferable skills -- such as analyzing, negotiating, communicating and solving problems -- and update their folders every few months.
"In this job market of rapid career change, everyone needs to have an updated resume and some work stories they can use in their back pocket," he said.
"It's not enough to list your transferable skills on a resume or cover letter; you have to back them up with specific accomplishments," Waldorf said. "You can say you're a team player -- one of the hot skills in today's market -- but what does that mean, and how do you prove it?"
Listing a specific problem you solved or project you completed within a team environment will better convince an employer.
Listing skills and accomplishments also may help you break down a general transferable skill into your real strengths.
If you're good at sales, it may be because you have the drive to find new clients, you have unusual persuasive abilities or you're a good closer, for example.
"Sometimes we don't even recognize our greatest skills, because they come so easy to us. You may think anyone can grapple with big ideas and make them understandable, when really only a few have that skill," he said.
He advises clients to emphasize on their resumes the skills they enjoy and want to use in their next jobs. That way they stand a better chance of finding work that's a good fit.
