Sometimes, being stuck with the way we used to do things stands in our way of securing our desired employment. Many job seekers in the category of fresh graduates, people out of job and unhappy workers sometimes find it difficult to get jobs because they lack the confidence to promote themselves effectively to employers when seeking job, perhaps as a result of being ignorant of the skills they have.

Our inability to see things from the perspective of the recruiter is also another factor responsible for not securing our desired job. Do you know that employers think that if you are able to use a particular skill in one situation, you should be able to use that skill in another job, even if the work appears to be unrelated to your past employment or educational experience?

Let me explain this. Every individual possesses two levels of skills, soft and hard skills. The soft skills are those skills that are not job specific. They include skills (some of which are based on the personality of the individual) such as organisation, problem solving, negotiating, communication, attention to details, leadership, interpersonal relations, information management, creativity, supervisory, Analytical, Time management etc. One good thing about them is that they are readily transferable from one job to the other.

The hard skills are those that are job specific. For instance, bridge construction skill, surgical operations skill, barbing skill, accounting skill etc. They are not transferable or easily transferable across jobs.

Your transferable skills are often more important than your job-related skills. This is especially true if you are changing careers or making the transition from school to work. Those soft skills come very handy when you are selling yourself to your prospective employer. It is however not that simple to land a job simply because you have transferable skills.

Two things must be present for you to leverage your transferable skills to land a job;
1. Proper evaluation of your skills
2. Proper communication of the skills to potential employer

Failure to properly evaluate your skills causes you to undervalue yourself in the marketplace, prevents you from effectively selling yourself and end up in your not getting an offer. When you are evaluating your skills, you are doing the following;

- Asking yourself what are the transferable skills you have
- Which of them is readily transferable to you desired job
- Where have you deployed them before? School, previous place of work, during internship, club or association, voluntary work etc
- What was the result that came from deploying the skill?
- Is there a causal relationship between the skill and the result?
- How do I tell my story plausibly to depict the causal relationship and also let them know how relevant the skill is to the prospective job?

In identifying your transferable skills, do not overlook the skills you have gained from everyday living. Most job seekers fail to see this potential.

These skills can help you meet an employer’s expectations.

I have provided an example below on how to do your skill mapping for that job you desire. This example is on how to transfer your current skills to a marketing role, say a Teacher for instance.

1) Draw a “T” table, on the left side, list all the skills that you currently have and on the right side, list all the skills required for the marketing role (always make sure that the skills you are listing are those required by your employer). Another way to do this is to make a list of all your achievement in life and ask yourself what are the skills that you deployed in achieving those feats. This is working from the end forward. Those skills you identified as responsible for your achievement will now be listed on the left side of your “T” table.

2) Check out for the skills on the left side that are also listed on the right side of your table.

3) Identify how the use of these skills translate into success in your current role or in your past engagement. In the achievement approach, you need to establish a causal relationship between the skill and your achievement.

4) Relate this to how you can use the same skill to solve the problems of your prospective employer.
If for instance you have listed communication skill on the left side of the table, for you to be able to impact your students, you must communicate enthusiastically. Your prospective employer would require someone that communicates enthusiastically because words don’t sell, but energy and enthusiasm you put behind it do.

If your experience as a teacher was that you were able to help your students develop their minds with clear results to show for it, it may imply you can help your clients see the benefits of what you are proposing to them. Tell your prospective employer that is one of the reasons they need you.

Transferable skills are impactful when communicated verbally to the recruiter. You should create an opportunity to meet with your prospective employer who is able to experience you live and decide if you have what it takes to work in the organisation or not.

http://jobskills.dynabergconsulting.com/how-to-secure-a-job-without-previous-job-related-experience

*drinks paracetamol*

chai, i just com here com carry headache, mtchew..

*wears peter cech's helmet and walks slowly out of thread*