Describing Transferable Skills to Support a Career Transition

When using a transferable skill in a career transition, the degree of specificity used to describe the skill should usually be in proportion to how close the new environment matches the past environment.

For example, "writing lesson plans for a secondary Biology class" is fine for a similar position in Education, but when transferring this skill to a business environment it would usually be better to say "writing presentations for classroom training." We kept the "writing" but described the rest of the skill with terms familiar to those in the new environment.

Moreover, if the new business environment is technology-related, we might add a degree of specificity by saying "writing presentations for classroom training on technical [or scientific] subjects." To take this one step further, if the new business environment was related to the biological sciences, we might want to add a greater degree of specificity: "writing presentations for classroom training on biological subjects."

• Expert Advice on Career Planning & Testing
• Self-Directed Career Planning vs. the Traditional Counseling Model