Do I have transferable skills?
Do I have transferable skills?
Do I have transferable skills?
Student affairs professionals are called to do many things in many different areas. They must review policy; they must communicate intelligently; and they have to interpret institutional missions in order to best serve their students.
However, not all student affair professionals will continue to work in student affairs. Most will inevitably leave the field to work outside of student affairs, higher education, or for an entirely different industry.
That’s when building, developing, and communicating your transferable skills becomes a priority. Transferable skills are the competencies that student affairs professionals build in their internships, assistantships, committee work, and professional experience. Transferable skills are what make it possible for professionals to work in fields wider than just student affairs.
But what are transferable skills? How does a student affairs professional identify those skills? How are those skills communicated to hiring managers in other industries outside of student affairs?
This article will define transferable skills as well as their importance for professional development. How to use transferable skills as well as how to apply them in different functional areas will be covered. A list of student affairs transferable skills will be provided as well as how to write and articulate them for use in your application materials such as your resume and cover letter.
What are transferable skills?
Transferable skills are one of the most important assets that you’ll develop during your career. Transferable skills are competencies that professionals will learn, hone, and apply throughout their experiences. However, not many student affairs professionals can name the transferable skills that they have.
This is often an issue for those who are interested in working in other areas of higher education or are considering leaving the field all together.
So what exactly are transferable skills? Transferable skills are skills and abilities that are relevant and helpful in their application to multiple areas. These can be in social situations, professional positions, or in academia. Student affairs professionals acquire and develop their transferable skills during their internships, education, and work experience.
Most importantly, these transferable skills are not industry specific. Transferable skills are abilities and competencies that can be applied in multiple different functional areas and in different industries. That’s because these skills cover wider swaths of professional development such as communication, adaptability, collaboration, and teamwork.
Sometimes these skills are called “portable skills” for their ability to be used in multiple different contexts, positions, and circumstances.
For example, some of the most applicable transferable skills include communication: the ability for professionals to connect and communicate with colleagues, clients, stakeholders, and management. This is a skill needed in most professional roles. In addition, personal management skills such as time management and task management are often required of professionals to better manage their own workflow and priorities.
Perhaps the hardest part of addressing transferable skills is how they are used and applied outside of your particular professional role. Additionally, hiring mangers want to see how that skill could be used to serve their individual need, function, and intended outcomes.
Transferable skills are often developed early on. For student affairs professionals they often start with undergraduate experiences, internships, assistantships, and professional experiences. Your past positions don’t dictate your next job. Instead, rely on competencies built on your transferable skills that will help get you to where you want to go.
Importance of transferable skills
So what is it about transferable skills that makes them so important? The answer is flexibility. Transferable skills are assets of your career that you can take and apply in other areas that are important for your job.
Hiring managers want employees who can perform exemplary work for them. Sometimes that means hiring someone in the same industry and functional area will serve them well. Sometimes that means bringing in someone from another field who can do the work as well as provide a new perspective. Your ability to do that work lies in your transferable skills.
Someone that can come from outside of the functional area or industry also provides new experiences and applications for their knowledge. Diversifying fields is important for representation and inclusion. However, there is also a clear market advantage for companies that can capitalize on how your knowledge of education, administration, learning, and development apply to areas out outside of student affairs.
These transferable skills are what make you a competitive candidate in a wide variety of industries and roles. This makes you more employable. The more refined and effective your skills are, the more likely you are to find success in other areas outside your degree, experience, or functional area.
You should stay competitive throughout their career. That means that whatever you learn in one position should help you move onto the next one. This portability of your skills makes it so that your current employer doesn’t have the monopoly on your knowledge and experience. You can take what you’ve learned from your current role and apply it to wherever you want to go next. That’s the importance of transferable skills.
How to use transferable skills
It’s critical to know how to use your transferable skills given their importance. The first time this comes up for most professionals is when considering a new opportunity. This could be from one functional area of student affairs to the next one; from one institution to another; or outside of higher education all together.
You can always rely on your transferable skills when making this move. Some skills may be more refined compared to others. But you’ll need to focus on what is necessary and what counts for your next position in order to be considered the best candidate.
If you’re not interested in moving to a new job completely then you should concentrate on developing the skills that you already have. This professional investment will help you provide more value in your current position as well as offer you outlets and opportunities to move on should the opportunity present itself.
It’s important to carefully review the job description of a position you’re considering and determine what the core responsibilities are for the role and how your transferable skills address them. You can even be proactive and begin looking at job postings for positions that you’re interested in to determine what is necessary to take on that role. Focusing on developing those transferable skills NOW will help you take the steps necessary to make the leap when the time comes.
Develop these skills now and learn how to articulate using these skills in different contexts. That’s because sometimes our position may be cut; our department closed; or the institution administers a series of layoff’s. If that’s the case then you’ll need to take steps to leverage your transferable skills for positions that may be outside of your typical career ladder.
Applying transferable skills
Transferable skills are what make and shape your career. However, applying them can be difficult. This is especially true for student affairs professionals who are used to working within a very specific framework in higher education. Often student affairs work is very impactful for students and professionals. That impact can have lasting ramifications throughout our careers.
That is a positive and not a negative aspect the work. It’s because most professionals will experience at least three different careers throughout their working lives. So applying what you’ve learned in one position to another definitely helps you in the long run.
The application of these transferable skills is most relevant when making the move from one functional area to another or from one industry to another. These skills help demonstrate to the hiring manager exactly what you bring to the position. That means that transferable skills serves you as an asset for you in your next job, as well as selling points of your experience to help you land your next role.
Because of this, it’s important to continually utilize, refine, and improve your transferable skills no matter what functional area you work in. This is important to do in order to stay relevant in the field as well as make sure that your competencies accurately reflect what you bring to the table.
List of transferable skills
A top list for student affairs professionals relatable and transferable skills include: clerical skills; communication; creative thinking; critical thinking; data analysis; delegation; leadership; listening; management; organization; planning; problem solving; research & analytics; teamwork; technology and time management.
Clerical skills are the base level of skills necessary for working in the modern office. These include working with a computer; phone; and (sometimes) fax machines. Clerical skills indicate that you can copy, collate, and file important information effectively and timely. Most student affairs professionals will develop these skills earlier in their careers through work study positions; internships; assistantships; and other entry level work. These are expected competencies for student affairs professionals in any position requiring office work.
Communication skills cover a wide swath of different forums. These could include public speaking; speech writing; presentations; email; and social media. Being an effective communicator requires that student affairs professionals communicate the message, intent, and intended action quickly and succinctly. Professionals with competencies in communication will work effectively to communicate their own as well as the department’s and institution’s messages.
Creative thinking skills require student affairs professionals to indicate how different experiences, domains, and disciplines affect and influence problem solving. Many student affairs professionals will need to work with limited resources in order to solve an issue. In that case, the ability to think and act creatively is critical for solving problems that cannot be answered with data and analytics alone.
Critical thinking skills on the other hand require individuals to take into account their own professional experience as well as history and data in solving complex and ambiguous problems. Critical thinking is one of the hallmarks of a liberal arts education; so applying it in the student affairs field and beyond is important and critical in order to remain an impactful and competitive professional.
Data analysis normally isn’t thought of as a transferable skill for student affairs professionals. However, this is a highly sought after competency. Data analysis influences how critical thinking is done and applied in student affairs roles. Data analysis entails how someone interprets large and disparate sources of data. This could come from surveys, reports, interviews, statistical information, and financial statements. Student affairs professionals can apply data analysis skill sets outside of the field in roles that require action based on analyzing and decoding information in its raw forms.
Delegation and delegating isn’t often seen as something that is a necessary skill set. That’s because early in most student affairs professionals’ careers, individuals act as “doers” and not necessarily delegators. However, delegating becomes an increasingly necessary part of professional life as individuals may no longer be the best person to accomplish a particular task. Instead, that responsibility belongs to someone who may be better suited, more specialized, or (most importantly) has the time and capacity to work on something when you don’t.
Leadership is a concept that is often covered in higher education and student affairs graduate programs. However, the term can be a little bit nebulous. One particularly succinct way of explaining leadership is that it’s about “…uncovering and revealing the brilliance of others.” This is closely related transferable skill to delegation as leadership is often determining a direction and unifying an effort to meet a common goal or objective. You can certainly be a doer. You can certainly be well accomplished. But at one point in your career, you’ll have to put aside what YOU can do and instead focus on what EVERYONE SHOULD be doing right now. That’s a critical conclusion for student affairs work and one that can be applied outside of the field.
Listening is often talked about as a competency related to communication skills. However, listening can often be more important than just saying your piece. Listening skills require you to be observant as well as attentive on what is happening on your team, your office, your institution, and the field as a whole. Listening is about being attentive enough to gather all of the information that you need to review (data analysis) so that you can make an informed decision (leadership).
Management often is grouped with leadership; but they usually require two different kinds of skill sets. Leadership is much more conceptually focused and can be applied in different contexts and industries. Whereas management is about the nuts and bolts of business, institutional, and office processes. Skilled managers can replicate established processes to provide predictable outcomes. Excellent managers can tweak and change these processes in order to take into account different policy considerations and applications.
Organization is often a misunderstood transferable skill as it requires a good deal of personal input and application. Organization is the ability to articulate and segment your own thoughts, processes, priorities in a way that is actionable by you and others. Being organized isn’t merely about putting all of emails in the right folder. It’s more about the ability to think and act quickly and expediently because what you need is where you need it.
Planning is a transferable skill that spans different fields and industries. Student affairs work is no stranger to planning. However, planning does require the input and application of a few other transferable skills (i.e. data analysis; communication; leadership; management etc…) While plans might often fall apart when structures and outcomes change; the act of planning is an invaluable transferable skill to have.
Problem solving is a transferable skill that becomes more and more complex as your career progresses. Problem solving requires professionals to think creatively with available date and then resolve problems based on what they know and what their team can do. Problem solving is often sought after by other industries because skilled professionals with this transferable skill can act despite incomplete information in order to resolve an issue.
Research and analytics requires more than just parsing and reviewing data. Instead, research and analytics requires professionals to acquire their information and knowledge for use and application in areas of their position. This requires the individual to also determine and verify the legitimacy and veracity of information to establish if it’s worth basing policy decisions, actions, or strategic goals on.
Teamwork is often the flip side of leadership and management. Leadership requires professionals to lead a team of their peers. Management focuses on repeatable, scalable, and predictable practices. Teamwork is about working with others in order to accomplish both. Often this doesn’t involve leading or directing others; but rather about the synergy that comes from working with other professionals who are skilled and experienced in their own domains and fields. Teamwork is about identifying where everyone can contribute most meaningfully and then focusing efforts there.
Technology skills require that student affairs professionals be competent in different technology applications and platforms. Sometimes, these could overlap with other clerical skills such as using platforms like email effectively. It could also include communications skills with the ability to communicate effectively via a particular medium. Technology skills also require student affairs professionals demonstrate competency in specific software platforms as student information systems (SIS); learning management systems (LMS); and other software-as-service platforms (SAS).
Time management will be a requirement for all professionals no matter what field or industry they work in. Student affairs professionals are no different. Here; individuals must learn to use and manage their time wisely by delegating responsibilities to those that are empowered or best suited to accomplish them. In additional, individuals organize their priorities and responsibilities around the amount of time, focus, and energy they have in order to produce the most amount of good given their limited resources.
Transferable skills on your resume and cover letter
Some might just be starting out in their student affairs career. Some might be interested in moving into a different functional area. Others still might want to transition out of the field all together. No matter the reason, it’s important to illustrate and emphasize your transferable skills on your resume.
You want to be both strategic and tactical about this. Strategy around placing your transferable skills on your resume requires that you conduct a review around what you already know and are comfortable demonstrating to other employers. You can do this most prominently in your summary section of your resume. This area describes your background, professional, philosophies, and main competencies.
Adding your transferable skills here in addition to further emphasizing them in your past position descriptions can significantly improve your chances of moving towards the interview stage. This is all the more critical when applying for work outside of student affairs or higher education. Hiring managers will want to see a candidate’s background in addition to how their transferable skills would provide value to the new position.
You can lead up to this value by proving a brief summary of your most significant and important “wins” in your cover letter. This is where you can illustrate and describe how your communication skills were used in a large alumni focused marketing campaign; how you spearheaded a new campus initiative; or how you managed paraprofessional student staff.
Takeaways
This article defined transferable skills as well as described their importance for professional development. How to use transferable skills were covered in addition to how to apply them to different functional areas. A list of student affairs transferable skills was provided as well as how to write and articulate them in your resume and cover letter.
I hope that you found this article useful! If you need some additional help on your student affairs job search, then check out the eBook The Student Affairs Job Search: A Comprehensive Guide available here.
Happy searching,
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Cite this Article
Eng, D. (2020, September 8). Do I have transferable skills? Retrieved MONTH DATE, YEAR, from https://www.jobhakr.com/blog-1/2020/9/8/do-i-have-transferable-skills
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