Understanding your transferable skills is essential to an effective job search strategy and absolutely vital if you are seeking a new direction in your career. All jobs incorporate the use of some transferable skills and the most successful career chameleons recognise this and adapt their resumes to suit.

So what are transferable skills? Essentially they are the skills you offer that you’ve gained through your work, study and personal life that are directly transferable and relevant to the roles you are applying for.

These skills don’t have to have been built only in the workplace, in fact unlike job-related skills they may have been developed through volunteer activities, studies, past projects, even through your hobbies.
Regardless of where you have developed them, knowing what skills employers are looking for in the positions you are applying for and showcasing your skills in these areas is vital to marketing yourself effectively in the career’s marketplace.

When trying to showcase your transferable skills it’s important to understand two things – firstly what the transferable skills are the employer is looking for, and secondly what you have to offer.

To begin this process start by reviewing the position descriptions and advertisements for the positions you are applying for and make a list of the commonly outlined skills they are seeking. Next review your past positions and break them down into the tasks that you performed and the skills you needed to perform them. If these skills can be used in other positions and are relevant to the positions you are applying for, then these are your relevant transferable skills.

When you have done this for past positions, broaden your assessment to others areas of your life such as voluntary work, studies, community activities and even hobbies to further broaden your skills lists. When trying to brainstorm skills consider common transferable skills such as leadership, time management, planning and organising, adaptability, decision-making, team work, relationship development, communication and interpersonal skills, problem solving and critical thinking.

Once you’ve identified your transferable skills you are now able to use these to market yourself to potential employers in your resume, application letter and interview.

With most employers only skimming each resume for up to 15-20 seconds it’s important to realise that simply relying on employers to figure out your transferable skills from your job titles and accountabilities isn’t enough – you need to highlight these skills clearly to employers at the outset of your resume. Consider the front page of your resume as a marketing profile of you. It’s your opportunity to pitch yourself to the employer as skilled and relevant, and highlighting your key transferable skills is an important component of this.

You can do this through a number of ways.

1. Write a career objective that outlines the type of skills you offer and are looking to use.
2. Write an opening profile that describes your key skills.
3. Develop a bulleted list of keywords that describe your core transferable skills or develop a combination resume (chrono-functional resume) that incorporates a description of your key transferable skills and experience on the front page and focuses in the body of the resume more on the skills you offer than just the titles and dates of your past positions.

Finally if you are struggling to present yourself well, consider seeking the support of a professional resume writer. Click here for more information on resumes and Career Edge’s international award winning resume writing services.

“I’ve always been a great communicator – if I can get in front of people, I’ll go well.”

“I haven’t had to interview for a long time, but I’ve always done well in them, in the past.”

“I’ve interviewed a lot of candidates – I don’t need interview coaching.”

Do any of these sound familiar? If you answered yes, you are not alone – many people think this way, and 10 years ago, the chances are you would have been right.

But the Human Resources industry has changed. Never before have selection systems been so process-driven. Interviews today are rarely an informal meeting to get a “feel” for the candidate.

In fact modern systems have been specifically designed to ensure that charm, charisma and communication skills don’t sway the interviewer’s decision. Modern Selection Systems are designed to collect evidence of a candidate’s specific behaviours, skills and motivations relevant to the job. This is sought in a very specific way, and information is collected in a very specific format. Then it becomes a numbers game. You will be given a score in each dimension, and compared with other candidates.

Consider this scenario…

Daryl has gone into the interview with brash confidence, backing his interpersonal skills to see him through as they always have done in the past. But the questions are not how Daryl remembers them. He tries to answer as best he can, but the interviewer keeps pulling him up, trying to redirect him to answer in a different way. Daryl sensed the interviewer was getting frustrated.

Dora has done some investigating on interviews on the internet and found some information on “Great Answers to 50 Commonly Asked Interview Questions”. The interview explores precisely none of these, and the questions don’t even sound close in format and structure to what Dora was expecting and her nerves start to show. She would have done well if it was 1985! The internet and business-section bookshelves abound with outdated resources in this field.

Finally, your turn. You invested a small amount of money and a few hours for coaching to gain an understanding of these modern systems. You’re confident and know what to expect. You understand what the interviewer is looking for and how they want your answers. Responding this way makes the interviewer’s job easy. 55 minutes passes quickly and easily, and you feel confident you have done well.

The likely result is pretty obvious.

The take-home messages are clear:

• The more prepared you are, for what you are actually likely to face in an interview, the better you will do; and 
•  Do your homework in sourcing an interview coach. Find someone that has been involved in selection systems either within your targeted industry, or across a range of industries. Make sure their experience is recent and current.

The good news is that these systems are predictable, and armed with a simple strategy for answering in the right format, you can easily place yourself in the very top handful of candidates. For more help with interview coaching

In the current economic environment, with more candidates lining up for fewer jobs, do yourself a favour, and give yourself an unfair advantage.

Looking for some more tips to build your personal brand. Don’t miss my podcast on Personal Branding for the CBS business site BNET.com. You can listen to it here.

It’s the toughest question of all. The white elephant lurking in the interview room. Your silent stalker.

“So why are you looking for a new position?”

It’s the question most people affected by redundancy fear in an interview and also the most common stumbling block. With a look of resignation most people answer -

“I was made redundant”.

Sure, it’s the truth isn’t it?

The answer is an absolute 100% resounding no! Why, because you weren’t made redundant – your position was. In today’s economy, retrenchments are generally caused by economic circumstance and business downsizing and not because of individual performance.

If it was a performance issue you would have been fired for cause. You weren’t, your position was made redundant, and yet almost universally people feel the need to step up and shoulder the blame for ‘losing’ their job. It’s healthy to self-examine, it’s not healthy to assume blame where there was no need to. At the moment redundancy has little to do with the individual and mostly to do with the bottom line, and this mindset of fault and blame will only hurt your chances when looking for your next position.

Personal Branding Strategist Gillian Kelly says “How you perceive and present yourself to your network, recruiters and potential employers is how they are going to see you and as soon as you start to wear the redundancy brand it will stick.”

Instead, focus on what you want you want to be known for – what you want your personal brand to be. When asked by employers, friends, family or others in your network why you left your last job, explain that the organisation was downsizing or undergoing change and that due to this certain positions in the company were no longer needed. Then refocus on the positive. Talk with confidence and enthusiasm about your enjoyment in your past role and your time with the company in general. Hone in on the contributions you offered.  Use this as an opportunity to bring to the attention of others the value you have offered in the past and potentially offer new employers in the future.  

In essence brand yourself for the future not by your past.  

Contact Gillian Kelly for more information on outplacement services or visit the personal branding section of Six Figures Resources section. 

Everyone hates spam but now for job seekers there is an even greater down side as candidates find their resumes ending up, not on the employer’s lap, but instead caught in the recruiter’s or employer’s spam box. 

In a 2008 survey done by Career Directors International regarding the percentage of résumés received that end up trapped in SPAM filters, 72 percent of recruiters said that less than 5 percent of résumés were caught; 22 percent said that 5-10 percent were caught; and 6 percent said that a whopping 11-25 percent were caught.

For jobseekers this can be devastating as dream jobs pass them by simply because of the inclusion of seemingly innocent words and/or symbols.  Words such as free, specialist (which contains the drug name cialis in the middle), trial, expand, winner and American University honour term ‘magna cum laude’ are all triggers that can cause your resume to spam blocked.

My three top tips to avoid having your resume renegaded to the email spam bin include

1. Avoid words that flag your resume as a risk to spam blocking technology or utilise a content checking technology such as the  free service “Lyris Content Checker” http://www.lyris. com/resources/contentchecker before sending it out. Alternatively contact a resume writer to check it for you.

2. If you send your resume as an attachment, word your subject line carefully. Alternatively cut and paste your resume in the body of the email.

3. Send a back up copy of your resume via the mail to ensure your resume is received and/or follow up via telephone. If you are concerned have the company white-list your email address.

Remember forewarned is forearmed, so take steps today to protect yourself.

I just heard about this super cool application, Wordle, from an industry colleugue, and I immediately loved it. Basically it gives you a ‘visual wordmap’ or ‘word cloud’ of a document or text by analysing the most common words. Of course I immediately wanted to see what my personal brand would look like in this format, so I revisted my original personal branding profile complete with my goals, values, vision, passions and atrributes, along with my personal brand story. Click here to see the result Personal Branding by Gillian Kelly.

Try it for yourself.

In the past I have always been wary of job boards and job seekers reliance on them as a significant part of job search strategy.  All too often I’ve heard job seekers complain that they can’t get any decent information on the jobs they are interested in and more often than not they never hear back. Even more worrying, has been the dangers associated with job boards in the past with applicant’s privacy.  

I’m pleased to say that I’ve now seen a job board that has changed my mind.

I came across Six Figures in an industry journal and I was so intrigued by their fresh approach that I picked up the phone and called the Director to find out more about it.  I’m always looking for good resources for my clients and after meeting with the Directors Kelly Magowan and Karen Jenkin, I was even more impressed and I’ll tell you why -

1. This site only offers genuine vacancies. All jobs are vetted to make sure they are real, ensuring candidates aren’t wasting their time.  

2. The site is targeted. Too many sites try to be everything to everyone and just end up failing all round. Six Figures has a clear focus and specialises on six figure appointments.  This focus ensures better matched services for both employers and applicants, enhancing both the employers and candidates experiences.

3. The service understands that  to make a decision on a candidate requires strong information on their skills, values and aspirations. Six Figures realises that both candidates and companies need strong brands for success and offers support and tools to do this.

Since this meeting in 2008, I have since gone on to build a sustained relationship with Kelly and Karen built on my respect for  their skills and our shared vision of the future for career development and job search in Australia. In fact I was so impressed that I agreed for the first time to partner with a ‘job board’ and I now offer Resume Appraisals to members of the Six Figures site. For those of you not familiar with the Six Figures site I encourage you have a look – you are bound to be impressed.

What would you say to an employer if you only had six words. This is the question posed in G.L. Hoffman’s blog. As a resume expert and personal branding specialist I love this concept.

A few quick examples I came up with are -

* For the Project Manager – ‘Project Glue, binding teams, building unity.’
* My own as a Personal Branding Strategist – ‘Branding Specialist, Expert in Marketing You’
*For the Personal Shopper – ‘Fashionista: Reinventing tired fashions’
* For the Mum – ‘Household CEO, where slavery meets leadership’

My challenge to those reading this blog is to try this for yourself. What defines and distingusihes you? Try it today and let me know.

If, as a job seeker, you haven’t been truly active in the job search market for a few years, you probably scarcely recognise it! The speed of change in the job market is accelerating by the minute and job search today is completely different to ten years ago. Paper resumes are now only a small part of the job seekers toolset and both recruiters and applicants have a world of new opportunities to connect in the marketplace.

CHANGES & TRENDS

Job blogging, video resumes, social networking, resume optimisation, web portfolios and behavioural interviewing are just a few of the changes to job search practices that have been introduced over the past ten years and are all strong indicators of why it’s so important to remain abreast of changing job search technologies and employment trends.

Riding on the back of these trends has also been the swelling of awareness for candidates to have strong personal marketing and to be able to specify, quantify, document and articulate their employment value.

In today’s fast-moving employment market it is commonplace for employers to see hundreds if not thousands of resumes pass over their desks or email, and only those that truly showcase the applicant’s unique value and relevance to the employer will gain a second glance. Employers want evidence of success and quantifiable outcomes included in resumes to ensure they are making the right choice. This evidenced-based selection approach has also extended to the interviewing process with behavioural interviewing becoming one of the most common interview tools.

TECHNOLOGY IMAPCTS

Technology has also brought new challenges in the presentation of resumes and other application materials. Resumes now need to be designed so that they are scanner-friendly and optimised so that they stand-out when reviewed by the database scanners used by many recruitment agencies and large employers in first round selections. Further issues such as spam filters, recruiters’ use of PDA’s to receive email and online applications have all seen resume formats adjusted to suit these domains. Given this complexity many job seekers are now accepting that investment in professional career marketing and advice is a must.

The most significant change to job search has definitely been the explosion of online networking. In the Career Directors International 2006-2007 Research Report “Career Industry Mega Trends” they stated that over 50% of recruiters surveyed said that they either currently use in some capacity or intended in the future to use Social Online Networking as a method of recruiting candidates. Forums like LinkedIn, Facebook and Myspace have seen traditional networking move online and have dramatically increased opportunities for job seekers to contact and link with job search targets but also pose significant risk if used inappropriately.  According to recent research in the US up to 35 percent of hiring managers use Google to do online background checks on job candidates, and over 20 percent look people up on social networking sites. Job seekers, need to be aware that the transparency of information on the internet allows employers to view them from all angles, and should ensure that anything posted will not hurt future job search activities. Even if you have had limited involvement on the internet, this “self-googling” is also vital to ensure there isn’t anyone else with the same name as you on the internet that may pose a risk to your job search credibility. On the flipside of these negativities, smart jobseekers are now using the internet through job blogging to position themselves as an expert in their field, leading employers and recruiters to them, rather than the other way around.

JOB SEARCH IN THE FUTURE

With changing technology it’s hard to imagine exactly what the face of job-hunting will look like in ten years time. Many career coaches particularly in the United States are already embracing the advances of online communication such as video resumes and web portfolios to deliver more impact to application presentations.  Whilst in Australia uptake and acceptance of these newer methods of resume delivery is slow, as Australia commonly follows US trends, it would be wise for Jobseekers and employers alike to consider these forums as potential opportunities for recruitment.

THRIVING & SURVING IN THE NEW WORLD OF JOB SEARCH

Regardless of how the job search is conducted, one thing is for certain, social networking, technology and personal marketing will continue to remain the key axis of an effective job search strategy.  Regardless of the medium, the fundamentals of marketing yourself competitively remain paramount. Know the employer and understand what they want; identify, evidence and document your unique value in terms of these dimensions; and develop skills to articulate this in person both in social networking forums and formal interviews. Finally seek solid advice from career specialists to ensure you leverage the full advantages of latest job search technologies and also remain abreast of pitfalls of these new arenas.  Doing this will ensure you present well be it in an interview, video resume, or through social networking forums.

With the speed of change in the job market today it is also critical that candidates prepare themselves through a strategic approach to their job search activities. Invest in building effective marketing materials including a resume that is tailored to your job target and presented in a variety of contemporary file types (Word, ASCII, and PDF) so that you are ready for any application forum. Seek out advice and coaching in what form of resume should be used in each forum and familiarise yourself with the current styles of interviewing. In particular understand how to articulate your contributions made to past employers so you can evidence your skills and what you offer employers in the future. Finally make sure you continually stay abreast of, and are open to, newer styles of job search and networking. You will be better positioned for success if you look beyond traditional networking, and consider networking online, or social networking, as a part of your holistic job search campaign.”  

Today’s job market is an increasingly complex arena. Changing technology brings a world of new opportunities and risks to job seekers today.  Online technology allows greater opportunities for visibility by techno-savvy candidates wanting to get employers attention. On the other hand this visibility also means that it’s critical to ensure anything uploaded into this domain is well thought out and highly professional, otherwise your visibility may be your downfall.  However embrace technology, seek solid advice and ensure you are prepared and the world can be your oyster.

Good Luck

Many graduates think that personal branding isn’t for them. They assume just because they don’t have much career experience they have little to sell and so it won’t be worth it. In fact the opposite is true. 

Never is it so competitive to get a job than as a graduate entering the workplace and competing against thousands of other graduates in the same field. This is the time to differentiate yourself! To stand up and showcase what you bring of value to future employers and why they should invest in you over others with the same qualification.

But how do you do this?  Building a personal brand shouldn’t be taken lightly. To do this properly demands that you dedicate time to building insight into your target market (particularly employers in your sector) and then analysing, extracting and honing your key brand attributes that will be relevant to them. Your brand needs to be authentic and based on your true strengths and passions. Faking a brand that isn’t you will never work.

For graduates serious about personal branding you can employ the services of a personal branding strategist or read books on the topic such as Career Distinction by William Arruda and Kirsten Dixon. This will enable you to build a brand that will enhance your competitiveness and set the foundation for your career in years to come.

Once you have your personal brand, its time to communicate this to the world at large. For graduates your resume is a prime place to do this. Build a branded resume. If you can afford it, employ a professional resume writer who can ensure your opening profile in your resume highlights your brand and that your resume then backs this up with evidenced achievements of your accomplishments to-date. Include extracurricular activities, industry experience, internships, anything that reinforces your brand and differentiates you from your peers.

When you have a killer resume re-assess your image and make sure it’s sending the right signals and then start building your network. Effective networking is always the best tool for career marketing.  

Finally remember personal branding doesn’t stop when you get a job. Continue to build your professional brand in the workplace through a consistent professional reputation based on the value you bring to your employers and industry through your unique strengths.

To all graduates out there making the jump to the workforce – good luck!!