How to Identify Your Transferable Skills: A Complete Guide

When you’re contemplating a career change or exploring new opportunities, one question tends to surface repeatedly: “What skills do I actually have that matter?” The answer lies in understanding your transferable skills, those valuable abilities that travel with you from role to role, industry to industry, regardless of your job title.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re starting from scratch when considering a new career path, you’re not alone. Many professionals underestimate the breadth of skills they’ve accumulated over the years. The truth is, you’ve been building a toolkit far more versatile than you probably realise.

Let’s explore how to uncover these hidden gems in your professional repertoire.

Understanding Transferable Skills and Why They Matter

Transferable skills are abilities and competencies you can apply across different jobs, roles, and industries. Unlike technical skills that are specific to particular professions, transferable skills are not dependent on the specific function you perform but are instead more deeply ingrained, often refined over the course of your career.

Think of them as your professional currency. Whilst your job title might be “Marketing Manager,” the skills underneath that label, such as project management, persuasive communication, data analysis, and team leadership, can serve you brilliantly in roles ranging from operations to consultancy.

Nearly every job requires candidates to work with others, making collaboration skills valuable regardless of industry. The beauty of these skills is their versatility. Whether you’re moving from teaching to corporate training, from retail to customer success management, or from nursing to healthcare administration, your transferable skills form the bridge between where you are and where you want to be.

Recent research reveals that necessary employee skills for an average job have changed by 25% since 2015, and 87% of hirers agree that skills will become more and more important to the future of hiring. This shift towards skills-based hiring means identifying and articulating your transferable skills has never been more crucial.

How to Identify Your Transferable Skills Through Self-Assessment

The journey to discovering your transferable skills begins with honest self-reflection. Here are several proven methods to uncover what you’re truly capable of.

The Job Analysis Method

Working backwards from what you’ve done can help work out what you’re good at. This reverse engineering approach is particularly effective for people who struggle to list their skills on the spot.

Here’s how to conduct your own job analysis:

• Take a separate sheet of paper for each position you’ve held
• Write the job title at the top and divide the page into two columns
• In the first column, brainstorm every task the role involved, including unofficial duties
• Break down broad responsibilities into specific steps (for instance, instead of “produced monthly newsletter,” list: wrote articles, sourced images, liaised with design team, coordinated with print services)
• In the second column, identify the skills each task required

This exercise reveals skills you might not have considered. Perhaps you assumed everyone can manage competing deadlines, mediate conflicts, or simplify complex information, but these are actually valuable transferable skills.

The Accomplishment Inventory Approach

Another powerful technique involves reflecting on your proudest achievements. Describing your top accomplishments of which you’re most proud can help identify specific transferable skills and articulate their use in past experiences.

For each accomplishment, ask yourself:

• What was the situation or challenge?
• What specific actions did you take?
• What skills did you employ?
• What was the measurable outcome?
• What did you learn from the experience?

This approach naturally reveals both your strongest skills and the contexts where you shine brightest.

The Skills Categorisation Framework

Breaking down skills into categories can simplify identifying transferable skills, with many career experts agreeing there are six categories: basic skills, people skills, management skills, organisational skills, technical skills, and creative skills.

Basic Skills include fundamental abilities essential for virtually every role:

• Communication (written and verbal)
• Numeracy and data handling
• Digital literacy
• Problem-solving
• Critical thinking

People Skills encompass interpersonal abilities:

• Teamwork and collaboration
• Customer service
• Conflict resolution
• Empathy and emotional intelligence
• Networking

Management Skills demonstrate leadership capacity:

• Project coordination
• Delegation
• Strategic planning
• Decision-making
• Performance coaching

Organisational Skills show your ability to create structure:

• Time management
• Resource allocation
• Prioritisation
• Attention to detail
• Process optimisation

Technical Skills include industry-relevant knowledge:

• Software proficiency
• Data analysis
• Research methodologies
• Technical writing
• Quality assurance

Creative Skills highlight innovation:

• Design thinking
• Content creation
• Strategic ideation
• Visual communication
• Brand development

Rating Your Skills Honestly

Once you’ve identified potential transferable skills, rate each skill on a scale of 10 based on how proficient you are and how well you can utilise them professionally, with low-scoring skills representing areas where major upskilling needs to happen.

Be brutally honest during this assessment. Rating yourself accurately helps you understand which skills form your core strengths and which require development. Rather than using arbitrary numbers, define what moving up a notch on the scale would actually look like for you. For instance, if you rate your leadership skills as a six, what specific behaviours or outcomes would indicate a seven?

Practical Exercises to Uncover Hidden Transferable Skills

Beyond formal assessments, several hands-on exercises can reveal skills you’ve overlooked.

The Life Experience Audit

Your transferable skills aren’t confined to your professional experience. A personal skills audit of what you’ve done outside of work can be very revealing, helping you value skills gained from all areas of your life.

Consider activities like:

• Volunteering: Coordinating charity events develops project management, fundraising, and stakeholder engagement skills
• Sports coaching: Leading a local team demonstrates motivation, training, and performance management abilities
• Community involvement: Serving on committees builds governance, strategic planning, and consensus-building skills
• Personal projects: Running a blog, managing household finances, or organising family events all require genuine skills

The parent who manages multiple schedules, budgets household expenses, and negotiates with everyone from toddlers to teenagers possesses formidable skills in time management, financial planning, and diplomacy.

The Peer Feedback Exercise

Sometimes we’re too close to our own abilities to see them clearly. Asking managers, mentors, or co-workers for input on your strengths and areas for growth can help identify which transferable skills to focus on.

Reach out to colleagues, supervisors, or collaborators and ask:

• What do you think I’m particularly good at?
• When have you seen me handle a challenging situation effectively?
• What skills do I demonstrate that you value most?
• Where do you think I could develop further?

External perspectives often illuminate blind spots and validate strengths you’ve taken for granted.

The Job Description Comparison Method

Finding a few job postings that interest you, even if they’re in a different field, and searching for skill-matching tools can help recognise your strengths and how they align with different roles.

Gather job descriptions for roles you’re interested in and:

1. Highlight skills and requirements that appear repeatedly across listings
2. Match these requirements against your own skills inventory
3. Identify gaps between what employers seek and what you currently offer
4. Note skills you possess that weren’t initially obvious matches

This exercise provides a reality check about your readiness for target roles whilst revealing powerful opportunities for repositioning your existing skills.

How to Identify Your Transferable Skills Using Online Tools

Technology offers numerous resources to streamline skills identification.

Professional Assessment Platforms

Several online platforms provide structured transferable skills assessments:

• LinkedIn Skills Assessment: Validates proficiency in specific skills through short tests
• CareerOneStop Skills Matcher: A free U.S. Department of Labour tool that identifies occupations matching your skills
• SkillScan: A comprehensive transferable skills assessment system
• O*NET Interest Profiler: Connects your interests to relevant skills and careers

LinkedIn’s Career Explorer tool helps use transferable skills and LinkedIn’s skills genome data to uncover how those skills match up to real job titles, automatically finding skills commonly listed by professionals with your job title.

Skills Matching and Gap Analysis Tools

Beyond basic assessments, sophisticated tools can map your skills to potential career paths:

• Enter your current job title to see which skills professionals in similar roles typically list
• Explore roles in different industries with high skill similarity ratings
• Identify which skills overlap and which are unique to your target role
• Discover which skills you might need to develop

The O*NET system is regularly updated with information on occupational characteristics and worker requirements, describing occupations in terms of knowledge, skills, and abilities required.

Common Categories of Transferable Skills Employers Value

Understanding which transferable skills employers prioritise can help you focus your identification efforts.

Communication Skills

Communication skills are one of the most important transferable skills, as every job requires some level of communication, whether written or verbal.

These include:

• Writing reports, documentation, and proposals
• Presenting to diverse audiences
• Active listening
• Negotiation and persuasion
• Cross-cultural communication
• Simplifying complex information

Problem-Solving and Analytical Skills

Critical thinking is the ability to evaluate, synthesise, and analyse information in an objective manner to produce an original insight or judgement.

Valuable problem-solving skills include:

• Data analysis and interpretation
• Root cause identification
• Solution development
• Strategic thinking
• Risk assessment
• Troubleshooting

Adaptability and Learning Agility

Adaptability skills enable employees to stay focused and productive even as teams, projects, management, or products change, with employers valuing flexible candidates who can quickly learn new skills.

Demonstrate adaptability through:

• Learning new technologies rapidly
• Pivoting strategies when circumstances change
• Remaining calm under pressure
• Embracing ambiguity
• Continuously updating skills

Leadership and Influence

Leadership skills include traits like strong communication, relationship building, and dependability, transferable to many industries because employers value people who can organise teams to reach shared goals.

Leadership manifests in various ways:

• Motivating team members
• Delegating effectively
• Making sound decisions
• Mentoring and coaching
• Building consensus
• Managing conflict

Table: Transferable Skills by Category and Industry Value

Showcasing Your Transferable Skills Effectively

Identifying your skills is only half the battle. You must also communicate them compellingly.

On Your CV and Cover Letter

You need to include transferable skills in your work experience section, using them in work achievements with real numbers to show how you used those abilities to generate value.

Instead of simply listing responsibilities, quantify your impact:

• “Reorganised office communication processes, eliminating 20% of wasteful communication and reducing time on task by 10%”
• “Identified redundancies in client onboarding processes and designed new systems that improved onboard speed by 35%”
• “Built and led a 30-person team that successfully implemented a merger, achieving alignment goals three weeks before deadline and 30% under budget”

LinkedIn summaries and cover letters should be customised to directly connect your transferable skills to specific job responsibilities, focusing on quantifiable results and adaptability.

During Interviews

When preparing for interviews, it’s helpful to use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to frame your experiences, allowing you to showcase how you’ve used transferable skills to solve problems or drive success.

Structure your responses to demonstrate concrete examples:

• Situation: “In my previous role as a retail associate…”
• Task: “…I needed to improve customer satisfaction scores which had declined…”
• Action: “…I developed a new approach to customer problem-solving that involved active listening and creative solutions…”
• Result: “…resulting in a 25% increase in satisfaction ratings over three months.”

On LinkedIn and Professional Profiles

Make sure you display all transferable skills you’ve identified in your LinkedIn profile, where you can add up to 50 skills, with endorsements from first-degree connections being extremely valuable.

Optimise your profile by:

• Adding skills throughout your profile, not just in the skills section
• Requesting endorsements from colleagues who’ve witnessed these skills in action
• Writing accomplishment-focused descriptions that naturally incorporate key skills
• Engaging with content related to your target skills to demonstrate ongoing expertise development

Developing Transferable Skills You’re Missing

After identifying your current skills and comparing them against target roles, you’ll likely notice gaps.

Strategic Skill Development

Like any skill, transferable skills improve with consistent use, so look for chances to practise skills like active listening, conflict resolution, or adaptability in both professional and personal settings.

Prioritise development based on:

• Immediate job requirements: Skills essential for your current or next role
• Industry trends: Emerging capabilities increasingly valued in your field
• Personal interest: Skills you’re genuinely motivated to develop
• Opportunity cost: The time and resources required versus potential return

Practical Development Strategies

Formal Learning:

• Online courses (Coursera, LinkedIn Learning, Udemy)
• Professional certifications
• Workshops and seminars
• Industry conferences

On-the-Job Development:

• Volunteer for projects requiring target skills
• Shadow colleagues who excel in desired areas
• Request stretch assignments
• Seek mentorship from experts

Informal Learning:

• Join professional associations
• Participate in online communities
• Read industry publications
• Listen to relevant podcasts

Real-World Practice:

• Take on leadership roles in volunteer organisations
• Freelance or consult in areas you’re developing
• Start side projects that require new skills
• Teach others what you’re learning

Mistakes to Avoid When Identifying Transferable Skills

Understanding common pitfalls helps you approach skills identification more effectively.

Undervaluing Your Experience

Many professionals dismiss their skills as “just part of the job” or assume everyone can do what they do. If you can coordinate multiple stakeholders, manage complex projects, or simplify technical concepts for diverse audiences, these aren’t universal abilities. They’re valuable transferable skills.

Focusing Only on Job Titles

People look at roles instead of skills and experiences, but you need to reverse engineer that by looking at the skills you’ve got before thinking about what you want to do going forward.

Your job title doesn’t define your skills. A “receptionist” might possess exceptional crisis management, customer service, and administrative coordination skills that translate brilliantly into office management, operations, or executive assistance roles.

Ignoring Soft Skills

Whilst technical skills often seem more tangible, soft skills are very easily transferable but are much more difficult to demonstrate to potential employers, with soft skills in high demand including leadership, interpersonal abilities, communication, time management, and prioritisation.

Don’t overlook abilities like empathy, resilience, or relationship building. These human skills often differentiate candidates with similar technical qualifications.

Being Too Modest

This isn’t the time for British understatement. If you’ve successfully done something, you possess the skills that enabled that success. Document your accomplishments with specificity and own your capabilities.

Neglecting to Update Your Skills Inventory

With tech advancements happening faster than the speed of light, you should identify skills that would increase your job security by considering industry trends.

Skills inventories aren’t static documents. Review and update yours regularly as you gain new experiences, complete projects, or develop capabilities.

Building Confidence in Your Transferable Skills

Identifying your skills is as much about building confidence as creating a comprehensive list.

Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

Many professionals struggle to believe their skills are genuinely valuable, particularly when changing careers. Remember that most job seekers think the skills they use for their current job only translate for that particular job title or industry, but the basics for operating in most functions are pretty universal.

Combat self-doubt by:

• Collecting evidence of your accomplishments
• Requesting feedback that validates your strengths
• Connecting with others who’ve successfully changed careers
• Focusing on transferable outcomes rather than industry-specific tasks

Reframing Your Experience

The narrative you construct around your skills matters enormously. If both your previous career and your new one complement each other well, that may be a significant selling point, such as how persuasive skills developed in sales provide perspective for selling new recruits on working for a company in HR.

Find the through-line connecting your past experience to future aspirations. The teacher moving into corporate learning and development isn’t abandoning education but expanding their impact. The nurse transitioning to healthcare administration isn’t leaving patient care but addressing it strategically.

Moving Forward With Your Transferable Skills

Understanding your transferable skills transforms how you approach your career. Instead of feeling locked into a particular path, you recognise the flexibility and options available to you.

Everyone has transferable skills and should be aware of what they are, as you never know when you’ll need to leverage them for a project, stretch assignment, or unexpected opportunity that crosses your path.

Whether you’re actively seeking a career change, exploring internal opportunities, or simply want to understand your professional value better, identifying your transferable skills provides clarity and confidence.

Start with one method from this guide. Conduct a job analysis, complete a skills audit, or simply list your accomplishments and extract the skills they represent. The act of documenting what you’re capable of is powerful in itself.

Your skills are your currency in the professional world. The better you understand what you have to offer, the more effectively you can navigate your career journey, negotiate your worth, and seize opportunities that align with both your capabilities and aspirations.

The skills you’ve developed aren’t confined to your current role or industry. They’re portable, valuable assets that travel with you throughout your career. Recognising them is the first step towards using them strategically.

Read also: The Ultimate Guide to Future Jobs in Demand in the UK by 2030

About the Author

This guide draws on extensive research into career development, skills assessment methodologies, and insights from career counselling professionals working with individuals navigating career transitions.