Transferable Skills for Your CV: Tips and Examples

What Are Transferable Skills?

Transferable skills are the universal skills you collect and develop through your career. They are skills that you can apply to almost any job or industry. These skills make you more employable by showing how you fit into a team, adapt to new challenges, respond to pressure and solve problems, enabling you to thrive in almost any environment.

Transferable skills are distinct from technical skills that enable you to do a specific job. While those can be extremely valuable to your career success and progression, they’re often limited in their usefulness outside a narrow band of job roles. In contrast, transferable skills can apply to every situation, equipping you with the tools you need for success regardless of which direction your career takes.

Employers are increasingly drawn to candidates who can show they’ve got a comprehensive and well-developed set of transferable skills. This is because of the changing nature of modern work. As the influence of technology grows (for example, Artificial Intelligence), the technical skills companies require are changing by the day. However, transferable skills remain a constant. A study by LinkedIn found that, of the 10 most in-demand skills globally, seven of these are soft or transferable skills (1).

Top Transferable Skills Employers Look For

The good thing about transferable skills is that the same skills apply to almost all roles. Employers from different industries are likely to value and prioritise similar transferable skills. These are some of the top transferable skills for your CV that employers typically look for: 

Communication Skills

Communication covers a wide range of skills, including verbal and written communication, plus listening skills. These are the skills that help you get your point across to colleagues, as well as to listen and take in other perspectives. Good communication is an essential component of any well-run, successful organisation, so it’s easy to see why many employers value communication as one of their top priorities when hiring new talent. 

Teamwork and Collaboration

Almost all jobs require a degree of teamwork and collaboration. Employers tend to value candidates who can show they work well with other people, contribute towards team activities and work to achieve common goals. You can showcase your teamwork and collaboration skills by demonstrating your ability to build strong working relationships and displaying well-developed personal skills.

Problem-Solving and Critical Thinking

Developing effective solutions to the everyday problems you might encounter shows resilience, determination and ingenuity. Critical thinking also helps you to think creatively and arrive at different approaches to working and overcoming challenges. This ability to not just do what’s expected of you, but to find alternative ways to thrive, will serve you well in any job.

Leadership

Leadership skills aren’t just for managers. Showing leadership can impress recruiters for positions at all levels, and there are plenty of ways to showcase them. Leadership includes the ability to motivate, inspire and guide others. Although leadership and management aren’t the same thing, leadership skills also tend to include management skills. You can be a good manager without necessarily having great leadership skills, but you can’t be a strong leader without the ability to manage.

Adaptability and Flexibility

Similar to problem-solving and critical thinking, adaptability and flexibility are two crucial skills for modern workplaces. The landscape of work and the job market is changing faster than ever, with technological innovations rendering old ways of working less effective, or even redundant. The ability to flex and adapt to changing circumstances is therefore essential if you want to thrive in almost any career. As well as adapting to the big changes, flexibility helps you go about your day-to-day work with minimum fuss.

Technical/Computer Skills

Having a broad set of computer skills is likely to serve you well in most office-based, administrative and professional roles. Studies suggest 92% of jobs now require digital skills of some sort, while a third of workers lack basic computer skills (2). This means that by working on your computer literacy, you’re equipping yourself to get ahead in many different roles and industry sectors.

How to Identify Your Transferable Skills

Identifying your transferable skills requires you to look back over your career to highlight achievements and positive experiences. Don’t just rely on what you think are your best traits, based on what you’ve been told by parents, peers or people from your past. Look at what you’ve achieved and consider what characteristics made those situations a success. You can also draw insights into your transferable skills from the way you handled things that didn’t go so well, so don’t overlook these. You might be surprised by some of the transferable skills you’ve displayed in your career to date.

It’s possible to identify transferable skills from any previous experience. It’s perhaps most likely that previous jobs will offer the best examples of putting your transferable skills to good use. However, don’t rule out transferable skills you’ve picked up from other life events and experiences, such as your education, hobbies, volunteer work and even family life.

How to Showcase Transferable Skills on Your CV

Showcasing your transferable skills on your CV involves more than simply adding them one-by-one into your skills section. You can add transferable skills throughout your CV to show employers how you’ve developed your skills and when and where you’ve put them to good use.

Start by reviewing the job description and identifying the key skills required for the role. These will usually include some transferable skills. Think about which of those skills match your key strengths, and examples of how and when you’ve used them in your career to date. You can then decide where to mention transferable skills in your CV.

If transferable skills are some of your biggest strengths, you can reference them in your CV summary or objective. This will immediately draw attention to the qualities you consider to be your greatest assets. Use the bullet points in your work experience section to outline key achievements in each role, and try to reference a transferable skill in each entry. You can also show your transferable skills in the section for education on your CV, as well as any additional sections. These sections are particularly useful if you don’t have a great depth of work experience on your CV.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

When adding transferable skills to your CV, be aware of these common pitfalls and take steps to ensure you avoid them:

• Being too vague: review the job description for a list of the key transferable skills required for the role, then make sure you name each one explicitly in your CV. ATS systems will scan CVs for these keywords, while more direct, concise language will also make your CV easier to read.
• Using clichés: don’t fall back on clichés and platitudes to promote your skills. Make sure every skill you mention is genuine and provides insight to the employer on your character, personality and strengths.
• Failing to provide evidence: back up every skill with reference to how it’s made an impact and led to success in your career. Link your transferable skills to achievements, with data, evidence and project outcomes for maximum effect.

"The good thing about transferable skills is that the same skills apply to almost all roles. Employers from different industries are likely to value and prioritise similar transferable skills."

Transferable Skills by Industry

Take a look at these lists of key skills for working in different industry sectors:

IT:

• Teamwork
• Communication
• Problem-solving
• Analytical thinking
• Time management

Healthcare:

• Organisation
• Active listening
• Communication
• Attention to detail
• Compassion

Finance:

• Time management
• Attention to detail
• Analytical skills
• Administrative skills
• Relationship building

Education:

• Work ethic
• Teamwork
• Communication
• Flexibility
• Empathy

Marketing and media:

• Project management
• Creativity
• Analytical skills
• Critical thinking
• Communication

Retail:

• Multi-tasking
• Interpersonal skills
• Self-confidence
• Business awareness
• Cultural awareness

Key Takeaways for Transferable Skills on Your CV

Transferable skills are an essential element of any successful CV. Think about your career achievements and how you’ve developed and used transferable skills to make an impact in your previous jobs. Mention transferable skills throughout your CV to make a strong impression on any recruiter or hiring manager. Update your CV using CVwizard’s online CV templates to create a beautiful, professional CV. Sign up today to access CV examples for various industries, to help you craft a winning job application.

Sources:

(1) LinkedIn: The Most In-Demand Skills for 2024

(2) National Skills Coaltion: New Report: 92% of Jobs Require Digital Skills, One-Third of Workers Have Low or No Digital Skills Due to Historic Underinvestment, Structural Inequities