Changing Jobs and Building Confidence Workshop

The Process of Changing Careers

Understanding Transferable Skills /

Core Competencies

View the spreadsheet below as a place to start and highlight your top 3 skills (competencies). You can do more later if you find it useful.

Next, write out each step of the process that you complete when using your competency. What’s the first thing you do? What’s the second? And the third? Use powerful verbs to highlight each of these points. (e.g. create, design, deliver, implement, measure, monitor, check etc.)

Then, think of examples you can use to outline when you have used these competencies and what the end result was.

Finally, practice saying all of this out loud and record yourself with your smartphone - this will provide very accurate and free feedback.

List of Transferable Skills / Competencies

Administration

Client Relationship Management
Sales and Customer Success
Marketing and Public Relations
Event Management
Merchandising and Promotions
Project Coordination/Management
Operations Coordination/Management
Communications Coordination/Management
Research and Analysis
Design and Development

Managing and Developing Staff

Stakeholder Engagement
Financial Management and Reporting
Coaching, Training and Mentoring
Data Analytics
Product Management
Leadership and Business Development
Business and Strategy Development
User Interface / Experience Design
IT Project Management
Software development / Programming

Transferable Skills Exercise

Creating a Professional Profile

“You need to sell yourself more“ is a phrase you’ve probably heard one hundred times or more. But the chances are that you don’t like the idea of selling yourself at all. Something about it seems awful, or disingenuous. But, never the less, we need to be able to do it - especially if we’re competing against others who are selling themselves really well. Below are some points you can use to sell yourself well and to talk about yourself in interviews. The idea is that you don’t sell yourself as more than you are, but not less than you are, just exactly as you are, and honestly. That way, you’ll have no trouble backing up what you’ve said and it will give you more confidence when describing your career.

Detailed experience (in years) encompassing the top three competencies that you’ve done
Proudest achievement to date (ideally professionally) - try to add metrics to give it extra weight
Biggest responsibility so far - make this a soft skill if the ‘achievement’ (above) is a technical accomplishment
Specialist knowledge in a particular area that’s ideally related to the role you’re going for
Education - a summary relevant to the role. Not every single detail.
Proven ability - relate this to anything else that you’d like to mention that you haven’t covered yet. If you’re struggling with this, you can talk about problem-solving, working with stakeholders or delivering projects on time etc.
Transferable skills - connect this to soft skills such as communication, influencing, conflict resolution etc.
IT Expertise/Proficiency - outline this more or less depending on it’s value to the role you’re interested in

Here are some sample bullet points that you can use and adjust:

Professional with 5 years experience in customer service, project management and business development.

Professional manager with a degree in business and experience working in large and small teams.
Degree qualified and masters/diploma/certificate in XYZ
Successfully designed a process that allowed businesses to market and sell products globally
Excellent project management, organisation and relationship building skills.
Self-starter with a passion for creativity, innovation and business.
Proven ability to work in a customer-facing role and influence customers and colleagues using data.
Strong communicator with the ability to build and maintain relationships with key stakeholders.
Extensive project management experience in relation to people management, training, and team-leading.
Responsible for building and developing relationships with internal and external stakeholders.
Specialist knowledge of economic and social issues with vast experience in client relationship management.
Consistently deliver projects to tight deadlines while working as part of a cross-functional team.