Transferable skills: definition and examples

You’re probably familiar with the term ‘transferable skills’. But what exactly does it mean?

In this article, we explain the meaning of transferable skills and why they’re so important. Plus, we’ll give you examples to include on your CV and explain how to mention your transferable skills in an interview scenario.

We’ll cover:

• What are transferable skills?
• Examples of transferable skills
• Why are they important?
• How to identify your transferable skills
• How to include them on your CV
• How to talk about these skills in job interviews

Transferable skills are any abilities, qualities or capabilities you can use in multiple roles. As the name suggests, they’re the skills you transfer from one job to another. You can use the same skills in hugely different roles and fields. For example, excellent communication is important whether you’re a journalist, doctor or an estate agent.

Transferable skills include hard and soft skills. Hard skills are measurable abilities which are usually technical (ie. knowing specialist software, speaking multiple languages or having media skills). It's usually easy to measure hard skills in terms of competency or qualification. Soft skills are harder to measure but they’re just as important. Soft skills include communication, self-management and leadership abilities.

Transferable skills are vital when you want to change industry or role because they mean that you’re capable of doing the job – even without experience in the exact role. Employers value transferable skills as there’s less that they’ll have to teach you, so make sure you include them on your CV.

Looking for examples of transferable skills that employers want? The ones listed below are useful in almost every industry:

• Reliability
• Organisational skills
• Communication skills
• Decision-making skills
• Emotional awareness
• Initiative
• Digital skills and software knowledge
• Problem-solving skills
• Team working
• Innovation
• Adaptability
• Self-management
• Leadership skills
• Project management skills
• Language skills
• Copywriting
• Commercial awareness

Let's look at these skills in more detail and break down the subskills within each category.

If you’re reliable, you’re a dependable employee that your employer can trust to arrive on time and always do your best. What employer wouldn’t want an employee like that?

To master reliability, you’ll need skills such as:

• Punctuality
• Meeting deadlines
• Good work ethic
• Honesty
• Integrity

If you’ve got these qualities, you’ve nailed the all-important basics of what makes a great employee in any role or industry.

Organisational skills help you stay on top of your work tasks. Being organised is vital in a fast-paced environment – whatever the job or sector. It also means having handy systems to keep everything in the right place, so that you (and your colleagues) can easily find things when they need them – whether that’s digital files in the cloud or tools in your workshop.

To be organised, you’ll need skills such as:

• Time management
• Planning
• Self-responsibility
• Attention to detail

Whether written or verbal, being able to confidently share ideas and information with others is important in so many roles.

With effective communication skills, you’ll clearly explain things, avoid misunderstandings and better deal with clients and customers.

Communication skills include:

• Verbal communication (ie. delivering a presentation or having a conversation)
• Non-verbal communication (ie. body language)
• Visual communication (ie. how you use graphs, diagrams and other visuals)
• Writing (ie. your grammar but also the tone you use)
• Listening (ie. active listening)

Having good decision-making means that you analyse possible paths forward and pick the one that you feel will work best. It also means showing confidence with your choices and accepting the consequences of your decisions, especially when they involve other people. Whatever sector you’re interested in, you’ll have to have strong decision-making skills if you want to be a leader.

Decision-making skills include:

• Logical reasoning
• Intuition
• Teamwork
• Conflict resolution
• Emotional intelligence
• Collaboration
• Active listening

Employers value employees with emotional awareness skills as they keep a workplace environment healthier and, therefore, more productive. Empathetic workers are also good at solving problems in a way that suits everyone’s needs. Plus, they naturally build great relationships with clients, customers, suppliers, partners and colleagues. If you’re working with other people in any capacity, emotional awareness will always come in useful.

Emotional awareness qualities include:

• Listening skills
• Curiosity
• Negotiation and mediation
• Being open-minded

Taking the initiative is important, whatever level you’re at in a company. Having the drive to solve problems or complete tasks without supervision is a highly sought-after skill. It shows that you’re committed to your job and have the potential to take on more responsibilities. If you’ve got your eye on climbing up the ladder at your grad role, you want to brush up on your initiative-taking.

Initiative skills include:

• Self-motivation
• Keenness
• Goal setting
• Monitoring your progress
• Creative thinking

We all use our phones every day but are you digitally fluent? With so many roles relying on computers and more advanced technology, employers value tech-savvy employees across the job market.

You’ll need to know how to use the basic computer functions in any office-based or remote role. It also helps if you’re quick to adapt to new technology and programs. Only tech-focused roles will need coding experience, but speedy typing and word processing know-how will come in handy across lots of graduate roles.

Digital skills include:

• User applications
• Troubleshooting
• Website use
• An understanding of basic computer security practices

Whatever sector you go into, there will always be challenges – whether the issues are logistics hiccups, customer complaints or changing deadlines. And wherever there are problems, organisations need employees with problem-solving skills. If you can find solutions, you’ll be highly desirable to employers.

Efficient problem-solving involves figuring out how to overcome issues while keeping the company running smoothly. To do this, you’ll need the following skills:

• Critical thinking
• Analysis
• Resilience
• The ability to keep calm under pressure

Working with others is inevitable in almost every job. Because of this, teamwork is very important. Employers are looking for candidates who communicate well with others and know how to delegate tasks according to people's strengths.

Team working skills include:

• Interpersonal communication
• Strength analysis
• Self-awareness
• Conflict resolution

Innovation is particularly important in any industry where you create anything. So, if you want to go into product design, it goes without saying that you’ll need to be an innovator. However, innovation is a broader skill than you might realise.

Innovating also means coming up with new ways of working, such as changing how you approach tasks to boost productivity. With the right innovations, you can improve everything from daily meetings to large-scale projects. Because of this, employers value innovative thinkers across all sectors. Every organisation needs people who will bring fresh ideas.

Innovation skills include:

• Creative thinking
• Analysis
• Flexibility
• Giving and receiving feedback

Things change. Being able to cope with change will help you deal with whatever work throws at you. Sometimes, goals, deadlines, teams and projects will alter at little notice. Adaptability will make it easier to adjust whenever change happens.

Plus, adaptability is also a useful skill if you want to change to a different type of role or sector. You could say it’s the ultimate transferable skill as it’s the skill you’ll use to make the transfer.

Adaptability skills include:

• Flexibility
• Quick thinking
• Creativity
• Resilience

Employers look for workers who will complete their tasks with minimal management. Independent workers free up team leaders and managers to handle other matters. To be good at self-management, you need to manage your own workload but also know when to ask for support.

Self-management skills include:

• Time management
• Self-assessment
• Confidence
• Self-motivation

Leadership is how you’ll guide your colleagues towards completing projects and meeting goals. It’s one of the most transferable skills for management in any field, as it’s applicable to every industry. However, you don’t have to be a manager to use leadership skills. If you ever take the lead on a task, you’ll need these skills.

Leadership skills include:

• Team building
• Interpersonal communication
• Motivation
• Conflict resolution

While project management and leadership do overlap, there are unique elements to each skill set. Project management is about the implementation and success of a project, not overseeing a team of workers. Focusing on the project requires more planning skills. However, you’ll still find that project management and leadership skills complement each other. If you’ve got both skill sets, employers will want to snap you up for a wide range of roles.

Project management skills include:

• Planning
• Goal setting
• Progress assessment

Speaking multiple languages will be useful in any field where you’ll collaborate with people in different regions. You don’t need to travel to use your languages. You’ll find UK-based roles where you’ll need to use your language skills to communicate with colleagues in other countries via video calls.

Language skills aren’t just about speaking modern foreign languages. If you’re fluent in British Sign Language (BSL), you could use your skills to communicate with deaf customers in a retail job, children in your classroom or colleagues in any sector.

Key language skills include:

• Fluency in multiple languages
• Linguistics
• Sign language

Copywriting is a useful skill to have even if you don’t want to be a copywriter. It means knowing how to write in different styles for different purposes and audiences, tailoring the writing to each one. You could use your copywriting skills to write an internal company email, promote your business online or create training materials.

Copywriting covers different areas, including:

• Writing
• Editing
• Proofreading
• Journalism
• Marketing writing

Having commercial awareness means having an understanding of how industries and businesses operate and having knowledge of wider trends. With commercial awareness, you can analyse how events in the world might impact your sector.

Commercial awareness covers several areas, including general commercial awareness (ie. how clients compare companies and pick where to spend their money). Industry-specific awareness is more in-depth and includes:

• Economic awareness
• Legal knowledge of markets
• Psychology of commerce
• Market analysis

While commercial awareness is heavily associated with banking and financial services roles, it’s also valuable in law and marketing. Whatever sector you’re interested in, knowing about the wider industry is a desirable trait.

Transferable skills are important because you’ll need them for most jobs and educational courses. Just as time management will help you revise for an exam, it’ll help you juggle work projects. Building your transferable skills early is beneficial for your studies and first job applications.

Employers are keen to hire candidates with transferable skills because they’re more likely to get on with basic activities without needing as much training. Don’t worry, employers won’t expect you to know everything – especially if it’s your first job. However, showing that you’ve got the skills you pick up in day-to-day life (like communication and teamwork) will improve your chances of success. Plus, having transferable skills will make it much easier for you to adapt to a new job after uni.

Unsure what transferable skills you have? We know you’ve got plenty even if you don’t realise it yet.

Identifying your skills is a crucial first step. If you don’t know what skills you’ve got, how can you show them off to an employer? Doing a self-assessment will help you work out which skills to add to your CV and highlight in a job interview. It’s also a great confidence booster.

Here are some ways to identify your transferable skills:

Sit down and think about what you do on a weekly or monthly basis and think about what skills you use. Be sure to think outside the box. Remember that you don’t have to have learnt the skill during a job or uni. Consider the skills you’ve developed through hobbies and interests (eg. sports, board games and art).

Whether you’re at uni or working, look up the skills that someone studying your course or doing your job is expected to have. A lot of these skills will apply to you, so it’ll be easier for you to figure out what you’re good at.

We rarely have an accurate image of ourselves. That’s why it’s helpful to ask others what skills they think we’ve got. You'll be surprised by the talents your friends, family, colleagues and coursemates will have noticed.

There are a lot of assessments available online that identify your strengths and weaknesses based on your answers to questions. Doing assessments like that will show you what to put on your CV and tell you where you need to improve.

It's easy to draw a blank if you’re asked to rattle off all your skills. Instead, start with an example list of transferable skills – like ours above – and ask yourself if you’ve got each of those skills. When you go through it, write down something that shows why you’ve got each quality. Doing that will make writing your CV and cover letters a little easier.

Wondering how to write a CV to show off your transferable skills? There are plenty of options to make sure that your transferable skills shine through.

The most obvious way to put transferable skills on your CV is to include them in your skills section, which is usually a bullet-pointed list. Prioritise the skills that the employer is looking for, which you’ll usually find mentioned in the job description.

You should also include skills in your educational and employment histories. It gives your skills a grounding in real-world applications. It’s easy to say you’ve got a skill, but can you prove it? Back up your skills with evidence. So, don’t just say you’re a good leader. Instead, big up the responsibilities of any supervisor shifts you’ve covered.

It's also worth highlighting your most relevant transferable skills in your cover letter.

If your CV’s ticked the right boxes, you’ll be invited to an interview. Now’s your chance to show that you’ve got the skills you’ll need for the role.

Here are our top ways to highlight your transferable skills in an interview situation:

If you've used our tips above, you’ll have identified your skills. That’s a crucial first step. You need to know what skills you’ve got so that you’ll have examples ready to speak about.

You need to be as familiar with what skills the employer is looking for as your own skill set.

Most employers will put a list of desired skills in the job ad. Having a list makes it easy to know what skills to focus on in the interview. If they don't list attributes, read through the job listing and figure out what skills someone would need to be successful at the role. So, if it says you’ll need to collaborate with colleagues, talk about your teamwork.

Don't just say you’ve got a skill and leave it at that. Always back it up with evidence. For example, if you say you’re good at time management, mention how you handled several assignments across multiple modules on top of part-time work. Or to show motivation, talk about how you started a side hustle at uni.

An interviewer probably isn’t going to ask you “What skills do you have?”. So, you need to be creative with how you mention your skills without awkwardly shoehorning them in.

If you’re worried that you haven't had a chance to mention a skill yet, fit it in by thinking about how the questions apply to skills. For example, if the interviewer asks you how you’d tackle a hypothetical project, bring up your experience, the skills you gained and how you’d use them.

Need more interview tips? Check our interview advice for students and graduates.

The meaning of transferable skills refers to hard and soft skills that you’ll use across different jobs – and in life. They’re a mix of soft skills (which are about how you think and interact with others, eg. problem-solving) and hard skills (eg. knowing multiple languages).

Transferable skills are important because they are key career skills that you can apply to almost any role. Candidates with good transferable skills are more likely to attract job offers as they’ve got the skills the employer is looking for – even if they don’t have sector experience. As a recent grad, employers know not everyone will have had the chance to work in their chosen industry yet, so they’ll pay close attention to transferable skills. For some candidates, they’ll be the main way they’ll prove they can do the role.

Whatever experience you’ve had so far, you’ll have transferable skills. You’ll have picked up valuable attributes through school, hobbies, uni, work experience and day-to-day life. It's worth identifying your transferable skills to help you write your CV and showcase the best version of yourself. When you’re applying for a job, it’s also a good idea to think about how you’ll bring them up in a job interview so that you’re as prepared as possible.