Changing jobs
Map your transferable skills
A simple exercise to see what you're good at beyond your job title, and where else it could take you
List what you do well regardless of role, with a real example of each, then note where else each skill could be useful.
- 30 minutes
- Just you
- Once
- Worksheet
Why this can work
Skills are easiest to use when you can name them, and hardest to name from inside one role. Writing each one in plain words, with a real example of when you used it, pulls it out of your current job's jargon and shows where else it applies. It's also the raw material for a resume, an interview or a conversation about an internal move.
Read moreHow to identify your transferable skills
You’ll come away with a short list of skills in plain words, each with a real example and somewhere new it could apply.
- Think back over your last few roles.
Projects you're proud of, problems you solved, things people came to you for. Include work outside your job, like volunteering, running a club or organizing a family through a hard year. Skills don't check where you learned them.
- List five skills, each with an example and one other place it applies.
Write each skill as something you do, in plain words: calming upset customers, turning messy data into decisions, getting people who disagree to a plan. Add one real example with its result, and one other role or field where it would matter. Short answers.
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- Strip out the jargon.
Read each one as if you were explaining it to someone in a different industry. If it only makes sense inside your company, reword it until it doesn't.
- Check your list against a few job postings.
Pick two or three roles you're curious about, inside or outside your company, and look for your skills in their words. Where you match, you've found a bridge; where you don't, you've found something to learn.
- Ask someone what they'd add.
A colleague or friend who knows your work will often name a skill you take for granted.
You“If you had to describe what I'm good at to someone who's never worked with me, what would you say?”
Good times to repeat it: before a job search or internal moveonce a year, alongside your reviewafter a big new project
Making it work for you
Every workplace is different. Here’s what to think about before you start, and what might get in the way.
Things to think about
Deep knowledge of one company's systems is valuable where you are and less so elsewhere. Sort out which strengths go with you and which stay.
What might make this harder
Ask what people come to you for. Skills that feel ordinary are often the ones that come easily to you, and they're rarely ordinary to others.
Questions people ask
What are transferable skills?
Skills you can use in many roles, not only the one you have now, like explaining complex ideas, organizing projects, handling difficult conversations or analyzing data. They're what you take with you when you change jobs or fields.
How do I identify my transferable skills?
Look back at projects you're proud of and what people come to you for, write each skill in plain words, and add one real example with its result. Then check the list against job postings in fields you're curious about.
How do I show transferable skills on a resume?
Describe each one in plain words with a specific result, rather than listing traits. A short example of what you did and what changed is more convincing than any adjective.
Why this works, and where it comes from
After a while in one kind of job, it's easy to start describing yourself in its terms: your title, your tools, your company's acronyms. That works until you want to go somewhere else, and suddenly nothing you know how to do seems to translate. Most of what you're good at was never really about your job title. It's things like getting people to agree, making messy information clear, or keeping a project from falling apart, and those travel.
The examples are the part that matters most. A list of skills without stories reads like a horoscope; anyone could claim it. One real example with a result makes the skill concrete, for a reader and for you. It's much easier to believe you could do something new when you can see, specifically, what you've already done.
It helps to picture the other side of the table. Whoever reads your resume or interviews you is trying to imagine you solving their problems, often in a field they know better than yours. Your job is to make that picture easy: their words, your examples, clear results. Job postings in the fields you're curious about are a free guide to which words matter there.
Don't start here if you're still unsure what you want. Mapping skills tells you what you could do, not what you'd enjoy, and people sometimes talk themselves into a path simply because they're qualified for it. If that's where you are, begin with what gives you energy, and come back to this once you have a direction to map toward.
Other simple things to consider
What to do next
More in Changing jobs
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An exercise written by Truest, based on our experience. Last updated September 25, 2026. We sell a career membership; where that’s relevant above, we say so.