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How Can Graduates Attain Transferable Skills?

• August 11, 2021

As a new graduate you may not have experience in your desired field.

This may initially feel like a huge setback for a graduate; however, any experience is worthwhile to an employer. Most experience is universal and can be transferred to any workplace.

Whether you have experience from another job in a different field or whether you have experience from your time throughout university. All of these will be adaptable to use in workplaces.

Maybe you have spent some time doing Bar Work or in a café/restaurant?

When doing a job like one of these, you are bound to have busier shifts wherein you must do all your duties whilst being put under a lot more pressure. Situations like these alone gives you multiple skills any workplace should desire, including:

- Work Well Under Pressure, to navigate a busy bar or café can put a lot of pressure on an individual, so making sure you are adaptable when needed is a very sought-after trait. An employer will see this and think about how you would consequently be able to efficiently handle anything new that might be thrown your way.

- Teamwork, when working in a bar there would be a lot of communication amongst the workers to ensure the customers were getting the most out of their services. Since working alongside other people is key for most workplaces, having harnessed this skill would be very beneficial in a workplace as it would show that you are aiming to work well for the whole company rather than just yourself.

- Retention Skills, remembering orders in a loud, busy place is not easy, so it is a particularly impressive skill and shows you will be able to do this in much less intense situations. Being able to easily retain information would be perfect to an employer as it would show how you are more likely to easily pick up what you have to do as you are can remember everything you need to quite quickly.

Maybe you have experience in being a Shop Assistant?

Working in a shop means you gain a specific set of skills, be it improving your social skills with the number of customers you would interact with or if the skills were more physical due to looking over a shop all day long. Over the time working at a shop, you might develop skills such as:

- Organisation, you would ensure everything is orderly and that the stock is regularly put out for customers to be aware of. This level of organisation might be perfect for your new profession, you can show how prepared you are, avoiding a messy work

environment that might distract you from performing your best at your job and the ability to know exactly where something is that might be needed.

- Customer Service, you would encounter numerous people in a day who you would have to give a tailored experience to, to ensure that they get what they needed from their shop. A lot of job positions would want you to interact with people in a similar way, be it possible customers or people from different departments, where the ability to understand what different individuals want from a situation would be favourable to an employer.

- Problem Solving, you may have had to think on your feet depending on a customer’s question as there would be an array of unique questions that you would not have answered previously. This would be advantageous in a workplace as you never know what might happen so the ability to effectively be able to resolve a problem is extremely useful.

Maybe you chose to focus more on Uni Work over getting a part time job?

Throughout your time at university, you would have developed countless skills that could very easily be transferred over to a workplace. You would have had to balance uni life, possibly work life and a social life all whilst maintaining your grades.

- Analytical Thinking, this is a key skill graduates would particularly have honed in on, no matter their degree. This skill would be used across all assessments, essays, exams, or practical tasks. Possessing this skill will make you appear advantageous to employers as it will show your ability to think of the best way to solve a problem.

- Adaptability, as a university wants its students to excel in multiple areas and so test them in more than one way, graduates will develop the ability to be adaptable. This is highly desired in a workplace as an employer would actively look for somebody who would be able to thrive in any situation and would fit in well into the workplace.

- Communication, talking, writing, and listening effectively are vital to any workplace. Employers will be seeking communication skills for a multitude of reasons from benefiting the company financially, for example being able to engage new customers and persuade them to opt for their company over others, or to generally keep work morale, ensuring a positive and happy workplace.

These are just a few skills given as examples, but any skills you may have that are not listed here can be applied to new workplaces in a similar way.

Though serving drinks on a busy Friday night may not sound like something that would help you thrive in an office environment, the skills developed doing this can. And this applies to countless other job sectors too!