How to identify and recruit transferable skills

Many recruiters are looking for candidates with relevant experience in their specific industry. However, if you focus only on individuals owning experience in a certain branch, you risk missing out on valuable talent in regard of transferable skills.

Transferable skills are transferable competences that the employee always carries with him or her. These skills are important, not only because they can be used regardless of professional role and branch, but also because they are timeless.

From the recruiter’s perspective, the challenge is to identify these desirable competencies in a potential candidate quickly.

Demand for technology and digital solutions is increasing, which results in a growing need for sort-after skills. Advances in technology require workplaces to constantly develop and thus certain roles become redundant owing to automation and AI. Nowadays a multitude of skills are required to perform a single role. The half-life of a certain type of knowledge can be reduced from 10-15 years to only five years, while in technology a half-life can be cut down to two to three years.

Transferable skills boost employees

Today’s changing labor market creates high demands for talent. Transferable skills help employees stay relevant and recruitable, regardless of kind of industry and profession. Such competencies carry talent from one employer to another. Individuals acquire skills at school, at home and during their upbringing.

Transferable skills help the employee to grow professionally and keep in step with the market. Such competency transforms talent from average to well above average in the employee.

The ability to communicate ideas clearly to others, work well in groups, solve unexpected problems, creative thinking, emotional intelligence and having the aptitude to successfully coach one’s colleagues are all examples of transferable skills.

How do you identify transferable skills?

It is not always easy to identify one’s transferable skills. However, by surveying previous experiences from for example, education, internships, courses and voluntary work, the talent in question can ask itself:

What did the work process look like and what did I contribute?

Who did I work with and what did the collaboration look like?

What knowledge did I contribute during the course of the work and what knowledge did I take with me from there?

Did I get a chance to familiarize myself with a new tool?

How did I contribute to the end result/purpose of the work?

As a recruiter, it is important not to stare blindly at a candidate’s CV, but instead to look ahead. By identifying talents, who may or may not currently own the exact experience required, but own transferable skills that match your needs, you can take your recruitment ability a step further.

Identify and close the skills gap

By using the correct digital tools, your company can identify which transferable skills you own and are of use to the business and which skills you need but currently lack. Once you have answered these questions you can take the right measures to bridge the skills gap.

Cinode’s Skills Management platform is developed in order to strengthen transparency and commitment within your company. This platform assists companies when building a sustainable supply of competence.

Companies need to adapt to digitalisation and new ways of working. This includes adapting supplies of competence based on customer requirements. When you use and make visible all talent skills, including transferable skills, you simultaneously allow employees to actively close the skills gap.