Career Change? Find Transferable Skills to Scale Your Career

In the modern and evolving job market, changing careers isn’t just common, but an essential move for professional growth, job security, and personal fulfillment. Whether seeking better work-life balance, higher compensation, or stability, understanding transferable skills is key to a successful career change.

The World Economic Forum’s “Future of Jobs Report 2025” highlights that by 2030, automation is expected to displace 92 million jobs, and 170 million new roles will emerge, resulting in a net growth of 78 million jobs globally. According to this report, the top fastest growing jobs will be found in Big Data Specialists, FinTech Engineers, AI and Machine Learning Specialists, Software Application Developers, and Security Management Specialists all with a growth of over 45%. So it’s recommended to upskill, reskill, and look into various industries.

The job market and it’s rapid technological advancements create a growing demand for highly specialized skills. It is easy to see where a skill gap may be. Upskilling and reskilling in these gaps are essential to obtain job security.

How do you evaluate your skills? What are your skills, and what will be needed for future markets? Explore an opportunity to reassess your capabilities and find new career paths.

Understanding Your Skills

When starting a career transition, you must evaluate your existing skill set. This will help you identify strengths, recognize gaps, and align your strengths with market demands. Individuals don’t realize the extent of their skills built through years of work, personal projects, and life experiences.

Remember to look back on performance reviews; colleagues often point out strengths you didn’t realize were there. You’ll find out what your natural abilities & skills are through this; these are your greatest assets and easiest to grow.

Questions to Consider When Looking at Your Skills

What programs are you familiar with?
Have you led a successful project? How, what did you do?
Did you resolve a conflict between team members?
What was your demeanor while working on specific projects?
What technical things were you the least fond of?

Sometimes taking a step back and realizing what parts of you didn’t click will help you determine what’s best. It’s all about perspective and taking a different approach. This will narrow your work style and make you realize what you enjoy most!

Hard Skills

Hard skills are tangible, technical abilities that can be quantified and measured. These technical abilities create the foundation of your professional capability. These skills are often used within other industries and transfer well if demonstrated correctly.

Document all of your certifications, licenses, and specific technical proficiencies, this will help you see what industry you can go into, as well as visualize the skill gap for any industries you’re specifically interested in.

Hard Skills Might Include:

Software: QuickBooks, Salesforce, AutoCAD, Adobe Suite, etc.
Certifications and Licenses: PMP, CPA, PE, ITIL certifications, etc.
Process Management Skills: Six Sigma, Agile, Lean, Scrum, Waterfall, etc.
Design Tools: Figma, Canva, etc.
Programming Languages: Python, Java, C, SQL, etc.
Other Hard Skills: Technical Writing and Documentation, Data Analysis and Interpretation, Financial Management and Accounting

Many times these skills are transferable in the sense of adaptability. For example, if you’re familiar with one CRM software then you can probably get the hang of another. Adaptability is key when changing careers and looking for the right transferable skills. When applying to positions recruiters usually accept a good 80% match on skills for the job, considering transferable skills.

Soft Skills

Soft skills are universally valuable across industries, and this sets the tone for where you’ll succeed. These interpersonal and behavioral are personal attributes that enable effective communication, collaboration, and problem solving, they help determine long term career success.

Soft Skills Might Include:

Management: Leadership, Time Management, Coordination, Strategic Planning, Performance Evaluation, etc.
Communication: Public Speaking, Collaborating with Cross-functional Teams, Written and Verbal Articulation, etc.
Emotional Intelligence: Problem Solving, Critical Thinking, Conflict Resolution, Adaptability, etc.

When analyzing these skills you’ll learn what your strong suit is and what job titles would best suit your abilities. Here people often realize that they’re capable of managing teams effectively, and have demonstrated the ability to be hired for higher leading positions.

Identifying Transferable Skills for Your Career Change

What are Transferable Skills?

Transferable skills are skills that maintain their value across different roles, industries, and career paths. Often, they include both hard and soft skills. When dealing with hard skills, for example when knowing one design tool, it’s pretty easy to adapt to a new software. Soft skills are much easier to identify as transferable and show your adaptability and potential to succeed in different environments.

In recent workforce studies, it was found that two-thirds of employers prioritize skills when hiring candidates. Leveraging transferable skills can lead to quicker job placements and higher salaries during career transitions. Consider the adaptability of knowing one software and the ability to quickly learn new ones, or even when you have adapted to unexpected situations in previous experience.

How to Spot Transferable Skills

Finding transferable skills comes in hand with finding out what industry you’re interested in, and what job titles fit your goals. There are some skills you’ll have higher success with when transferring them when changing careers or industries. You must look back to your professional history and ask yourself a few things:

Which abilities have you been recognized for?
What tasks do you naturally gravitate towards?
What skills would you like to keep using?
How familiar are you with current software and how quickly can you adapt?
What universal skills, do you have? (Communication, leadership, project management, etc. )

Tip: Understand your adaptability and get comfortable showing you’re flexible, and a quick learner.

Market Research and Industry Analysis

Industries on the Rise

As mentioned previously, many industries are projected to experience significant growth by 2030. You must find an industry where you can find long term stability. While many industries have stood alone for years, it’s becoming more common for industries to adapt and merge with technology. Here you can find industries of the future as well as figure out what you can narrow down your niche in.

Adapting quickly to artificial intelligence and technology is necessary for the future. There will be skills set as standard for these advances, and with this many industries and jobs will fall in the process.

Top Industries by 2030

Technology: AI and Machine Learning, Automation, Cloud Computing, Cyber Security, Data Analysis, Robotics, etc.
Healthcare: Telemedicine. Biotechnology, etc.
Renewable Energy & Sustainability: Environmental consulting, sustainable technology, etc.

Other notable industries include digital services, social media, and virtual learning.

How to Identify Transferable Skills in a New Industry

Analyze job descriptions, this will directly show you what skills you need and the standard for the roles.
Network with industry professionals, they can help guide and mentor.
Diversifying job titles will broaden the search since the same skills can be found across different titles.
Attend industry webinars to understand the industries you’re interested in.
Use skill evaluating tools and career matching tools to help you expand or start the process with skill mapping.

Skill Gaps

Filling a skill gap can be the game changer you need for a salary increase when changing careers. You can steer your career in other directions or even niche down into your current career. The value of reskilling and upskilling is immense, courses and certifications are the easiest ways to help these gaps. Additionally, there are other ways to help develop what you need from mentorship programs to professional development workshops.

Skills in High Demand by 2030

Future-proofing your career should be part of your goal going through a career change. Investing into courses or certifications within these skills will help your career stay relevant with the job market trends.

Key Skills:

Digital Literacy
Data Literacy
Cybersecurity awareness
UX/UI Design
Digital Marketing
Creativity
Emotional Intelligence

Exploring Career Options Based on Your Skills

Career Matching Tools

Skill assessment tools to help you figure out what direction to go in. If you’re unsure about your goals or strengths, these tools can help you clarify and shape your ideas. These career matching assessments and quizzes help guide all professionals from seniors to even those just enrolling in college.

Industry Crossovers

Career changes and job transitions can do a world of wonders for many. Many teachers can find their way into corporate training, or even sales professionals transitioning into account management. A career change doesn’t have to be a completely different course. It can be finding a skill gap and blending something into your current skill set.

Finding a niche that’s here to stay can also help many find stability like biotech and medical coding.

Positive Outcomes of a Career Change

Benefits of Career Changes

Staying in an industry or job role for too long can be highly damaging, as time goes on your skill set can become stale, and interests can change too so it’s essential to find a career that changes and adapts in the way we do. There are many benefits to having a career change. Changing industries can create a higher earning range as well as job security. Diversifying your experiences and bringing in fresh perspectives also gives you a higher market value.

Other benefits also include a work life balance, finding the right environment for work is helpful for mental health and different lifestyle needs.

Salary Optimization

Make the most of your career earnings by following these strategies and guidelines.

Negotiate with your unique skills in mind
Obtain industry specific certifications
Consider a performance based compensation
Compare and analyze the value of skills across different industries
Consider the compensation package as a whole

Get the compensation and salary you deserve!

Things to Keep In Mind

Stay up to date on trends and news in your current field.
Consider salary expectations based on location
Consider other benefits that add value like equity, retirement plans, insurance, etc.
Consider positions that are open for growth and advancement within the company or industry.

How to Showcase Your Transferable Skills

Resume Tips

Having a clean resume, and to the point resume will not only help you get through the picky ATS but also help you stand out to the recruiter and hiring manager. Keeping this concise in a resume will keep the hiring manager interested, efficiency is always key!

Tailor your resume to the role and if possible, to the job description.
Utilize industry specific and relevant keywords.
Focus your work experience summary into achievement focused bullet points.
- Example:
  - “Increased sales by 25%”
  - “Reduced costs by $50,000″

Interview Preparation

Preparing for an interview is always needed. Even if you interview people as part of your work, you still need to prepare for the interview. Learn the job description, and get a feel for the company you’re interviewing for, all of this is needed for an interview.

Interview Tips for a Career Change

Be prepared to demonstrate your adaptability and problem-solving, through examples and previous experience.
Confidence is key when going into an interview, you need to convince the recruiter or hiring manager of your skills.
Show the hiring manager your interest in the industry you’re transitioning to.
Address the career change directly, think thoroughly about why you’re focused on changing careers, and demonstrate the benefits you bring to the company.

Take Control of Your Career

Why change careers? For many it’s going to be a necessity with the landscape of the job market and mass layoffs, for others, it could be finding a better suited career and a more fitting salary. Career change is everywhere, even college students who are undecided about their degree or realize they’re pursuing a degree that doesn’t align with their ambitions. Whichever it may be, learning how to change careers and understanding the skills you have will always benefit you.

Successfully navigating through a career transition requires understanding, developing, and effectively presenting these skills. It’s important to find some level of satisfaction through your work since it’s an essential part of your daily life.

Remember career changes and job hopping are a common and normal part of career development so take those key steps; identify your skills, research growing industries, identify skill gaps, and take action!