Portable Skills Employers Want You to Have
What if you start looking for a new career but you don’t have any previous or direct work experience in any particular role?
Many of the attributes that employers want from their staff come from sports, hobbies, and pastimes, or even voluntary work.
What’s more, you can usually take a set of valued work skills (e.g. the power of influencing) from one job to the next.
Thus, when you know what skills employers want the most, you will be able to emphasise them in a Curriculum Vitae (CV) – as well as any upcoming job applications.
Being Adaptable
Workers with adaptability tend to respond well to changing ideas, expectations, and responsibilities. Moreover, a potential employer will see flexibility from someone who is eager to learn.
Interviewing a job applicant who has an adaptable mind will matter a lot to someone who will be starting a new employee.
In a nutshell, adaptability is an essential tool to help workers navigate the modern world we live in. Remember – we don’t use yesterday’s solutions to solve tomorrow’s problems.
Displaying Creativity
It’s not easy to come up with the next big thing or invent a new idea. Furthermore, finding solutions to difficult problems is for those who excel in creativity.
Even so, job interviewers will see applicants who can ‘think outside the box’ as employees who can make a real difference in the workplace.
Note: The main section contains more information about the different sectors and companies that are recruiting and ready to interview right now.
Leading with Purpose
Having the skill set to coach and empower those you work with is an invaluable asset to have in a workplace. So, no matter how often you change jobs, leading with purpose gets the best out of an entire team.
People Management
Customer service work, human resource management, and sales jobs need workers who can listen well and then influence others.
As a rule, having people management as a transferable skill means you are good at motivating those around you and engaging with other employees.
Masters of Time Management
You could call it a ‘timeless skill’. But, employees and employers who can master time management will keep this level of professionalism for the rest of their career.
Hence, monitoring workloads and meeting deadlines are vital talents for all jobs. Generally, people with this skill set accomplish more in shorter time frames and get the most out of the time spent at work.
Tip: Before you start looking for a new job, make a list of your transferable skills. Explaining how you used them in your job application could help you find a new career sooner than you think.
Searching for Jobs: Critical Industries
This is a good time to apply for a job in one of the critical industries in the United Kingdom. Because most offer on-the-job training, many of the vacancies require no (or very little) experience, including:
- Adult Social Care
- Agriculture
- Food retail
- Transport and Logistics
Using LinkedIn’s community and resources can help you join their free learning paths for top jobs. Some of the relevant skills for jobs in high demand, include:
- Customer representatives
- Design
- IT support
- Programmers
Note: The Google Digital Garage can help you learn digital skills with free training to develop career skills, CV writing, and project management.
You might also consider using The Skills Toolkit to participate in one of the free courses that will help you learn new skills, such as:
- Business and finance
- Computer essentials
- Computer science and coding
- Digital design and marketing
- Personal growth and wellbeing
- Practical mathematics
- Professional development
Related Articles and Help Guides
- Develop your digital skills offering
- Give your skills a health check
- 5 classic CV mistakes – and how to avoid them
Note: This short video presented by the National Careers Service highlights some personal qualities that you may already have and the benefits of moving them to a new job.