Transferable Skills on a Graduate, No Work Experience? No Problem!
New graduates and college students often think they have nothing to include on a resume when carrying out a job search. Apparently for college students’ their work experience is most of the times not related to their job targets, and so the only information left to add is education. However, it simply isn’t so, even though this may seem like the case,
Transferable Skills
One way of approaching a new graduate or college student resume is to focus on transferable skills. These skills are applicable to various situations. Being able to communicate well, for instance, is a skill that is useful in any position or industry. Other transferable skills may include sales skills, the ability to work with numbers, or being able to find solutions to problems by looking at the big picture. These are just some of the examples.
How do you list these skills? There are a numerous ways to include them in your job application, cover letter and resume. The following are some tips for different sections of the resume.
The Profile or Summary
Profiles are in. Objective statements are out. Start with describing your most “sellable” points in a brief introductory paragraph. Briefly list the skills here, or write them in a keyword summary list. A list of keywords: This is exactly as it sounds. employ those that show your transferable skills.
Education
Depending on what you majored in, in college, you likely had to complete projects, write papers or both. What were the results of these? Did you carry out comprehensive research on a topic? Did you come up with an engineering plan? Were these put into use or published? Take advantage of your educational experience and use it as much as possible. You can as well add a summary of coursework, which often demonstrates transferable skills that are used in the world of business and in the educational setting.
Employment History
A number of university or college students have a work history not related to their targeted field. Take heart, If this is true for you. You can add a number of transferable skills on your graduate or college resume. At the most basic, you likely gained professional skills such as working with others, dependability, collaborating on projects, communicating with customers or clients, and much more. At first your work history may seem to be unrelated but that’s not the case.
Additional Information
Any memberships or volunteer work may lead to transferable skills. Volunteer work helps you to learn these skills just as your employment history does. Volunteer work also demonstrates a dedication to helping others. If you’ve fulfilled any roles in a company, this too can demonstrate transferable (and sometimes directly related) skills.
When you take the time to fully review your education, experience and other related activities, you will find many transferable skills. Use these to your advantage! Your cover letter, job application, college application or resume will be much better.