How to Identify Your Transferable Skills for Your Next Career Change

Beloved, I'm gonna hold your hand when I say this because it might make you a little uncomfortable. When you say you have "no experience" for a role, you're lying to yourself. And that lie is costing you thousands of dollars a year.

I know this because I've coached over 1,000+ professionals through career transitions, and I hear the same limiting belief every single time we work with someone new.

"I don't have experience in this field, so why would anyone hire me?"

But not having the job title they're looking for is not the same as having no experience.

When I was making $23,000 a year as a receptionist, I convinced myself I had no experience that would help me qualify for anything better. I thought my only options were to stay stuck or go back to school to get a new degree.

I'm happy to say I was completely wrong. And if you're reading this and thinking the same thing about yourself, please know that you're wrong too.

The corporate hiring manager looking at your resume doesn't actually care if you were a teacher or a retail manager. What they care about is whether you can manage stakeholders and communicate across teams. They want to know that you can solve complex problems with limited resources. They want proof that you can learn new systems quickly and lead projects from start to finish.

And guess what? You've been doing all of that. You just haven't been calling it by the right name.

The Real Problem Isn't Your Experience. It's Your Framing.

The professionals who successfully transition careers aren't the ones with the most experience. They're just the ones that know how to translate their skillset into the language that resonates most with hiring managers and recruiters in their target industries.

Confused? Think of it this way instead ...

If you only speak Spanish and you're applying for jobs in France, you're not going to get hired, even if you're saying all the right things. You need to speak French. The same concept applies to career transitions. You need to speak the language of your target industry.

My clients have collectively earned over $3 million in salary increases by learning how to translate what they've done into what employers need to hear. Let me show you how to do it too.

What Transferable Skills Actually Are (And Why They Matter More Than You Think)

But before we get into the how, let's talk about the what. Transferable skills are the things you do and have gotten really good at on a daily basis that can be applied to a completely different context. They're portable skills that you can take anywhere. For example, if you've managed a team in a retail setting, you can manage a team in corporate setting as well. The setting and company may have changed but the core skill hasn't.

There are three categories of transferrable skills that you should know about. These are hard skills, soft skills, and industry knowledge. Hard Skills are technical and measurable. They're the skills like project management, data analysis, and software proficiency (think Excel, CRM systems, project management tools, etc.).

Soft Skills are interpersonal and behavioral skills that you'd think everyone should have (but often don't). These are things like the ability to communicate (in both written and verbal formats), problem-solving, critical thinking, conflict resolution, and even time management.

Industry Knowledge is the context you bring from one field to the next. Things like training and development, experience with fast-paced environments, and even your understanding of customer behavior. Now these aren't exhaustive lists so make sure to leverage AI to figure out what skills transfer from your current career into the one you're interested in getting into. We actually have a custom made GPT that we give out during our workshops that you can use as well. Just make sure to attend our next one and stick with us until the end so that you can get access to it.

Why Employers Actually Value Career Changers

When everyone on a team has the same background, they often think the same way. For that reason alone, employers often hire career changers for certain roles because they bring fresh perspectives and diverse problem-solving approaches to the team.

Yes, you bring something different to the table and that's valuable. But you have to help them see that value first. You can't assume they'll connect the dots between your retail management experience and their operations role. Here's how to make that happen.

Step 1: Stop Thinking in Tasks. Start Thinking in Outcomes.

Most people describe their job by listing tasks on their resumes (answered phones, helped customers, taught classes, filed paperwork, etc.). But hiring managers aren’t looking for people who can check boxes. They want to know what you achieved, improved, or made easier.

Because tasks describe what you did. Outcomes describe why it mattered.

So, if you're in an admin or customer service role, instead of saying you "answered customer phone calls" I want you to say you "managed inbound customer inquiries with a 95% resolution rate and a 4.8/5 satisfaction rating.” Need another example? For my teachers out there, I want you to stop saying you "created lesson plans" and instead say you "designed curriculum for 150+ students that improved standardized test scores by 18%."

It's quite literally the same work but those revised sentences show a completely different level of impact. And impact? That's what actually gets you interviews.

Step 2: Identify the Core Skill Behind Every Task

Every task you’ve ever done required an underlying skill. When people overlook this step, they undersell themselves. Take something as simple as managing an executive’s calendar. People usually write that they "scheduled meetings." But the skills required to facilitate that one task include prioritization, stakeholder management, problem-solving, and attention to detail (to name just a few).

Stop focusing on just the end result. You’re not just "scheduling meetings." In fact, if you're in charge of a schedule of more than two people you're actually orchestrating complex, multi-stakeholder logistics (as any stay-at-home mom juggling three different after school schedules can tell you). The tasks ultimately haven't changed but the way you understand them and frame them did.

Step 3: Match Your Skills to the Language of Your Target Role

This is the step most people skip, and it’s exactly why their resume doesn’t resonate with hiring managers and recruiters. Before you apply for your next job, pull up 5–7 job descriptions for roles you’re targeting. As you read through them, you’ll start to notice a set of repeated patterns popping up. The same skills will show up again and again. The same keywords will be woven throughout each listing. The same success metrics will be highlighted. You'll even notice the same tools and systems being mentioned repeatedly. Make note of these patterns and words because they'll become your translation guide. They show you the exact language the industry uses to describe the work you’ve already been doing, and those repeated words become the keywords your resume needs. When you communicate your experience using the language that employers expect, you'll immediately signal that you're the right fit for the role. And who wouldn't want to look like they belong in that position before even interviewing?

The Universal Transferable Skills (No Matter Your Background)

If you've been working for any length of time, you probably already have seven skills that literally every corporate role values. These include communication, problem-solving, managing your time and priorities, being adaptable, collaborating with others, focusing on results, and being comfortable with technology. Even if your past jobs weren’t in an office, you’ve likely been using these skills whenever you worked with people, handled multiple tasks, learned new tools, or helped your team succeed. The important thing to remember is that you don’t need to be an expert in all seven to be a strong candidate. If you have two or three of these skills and can show how you’ve applied them, you’re already more qualified than you realize. The key is recognizing these skills in your own experience and clearly communicating them because that’s what employers are really looking for when they review resumes and interview new candidates.

Your Next Steps: Identify Your Transferable Skills

If you want to put this framework to work and actually see real results, start by doing a quick brain dump. Write down every task, project, and achievement you’ve had in your past roles. Then, for a few of those items, ask yourself what skills they required, what outcomes they produced, and what problems they solved. This simple exercise will help you see your experience in a new light.

Next, look at three job descriptions for roles you want to land and highlight the key skills, tools, and phrases that keep popping up. Compare those to your list and find where your experience matches what employers are asking for. Finally, try rewriting one bullet point on your resume using this approach. Focus on the skill, the outcome, and, if possible, add a number or metric to show your impact.

By spending just 30 minutes on these steps, you’ll start to see your skills in a way that makes you stand out to hiring managers. Start small, be consistent, and watch how quickly your experience begins to fit the roles you want.

Ready to Accelerate Your Career Transition?

And look, you can absolutely do this work on your own. This guide gives you the framework and action plan to make it happen. But if you want some extra guidance and a faster timeline? Join our next free workshop where I'll help you pinpoint exactly what roles you should be targeting based on your background. This is a workshop full of hands-on strategy you can implement immediately. Spots are limited so don't wait to grab your spot here.

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The Bottom Line

You don't have "no experience." You just have experience that hasn't been translated into the right language yet. The difference between staying stuck at $25K-$50K and landing a role at $80K-$120K isn't years of additional schooling or starting completely over. It's learning to see what you already have through a different lens and communicating it in language that resonates with your target industry. I went from $23K receptionist to $145K at Google by mastering this skill. My clients regularly land $10K+ salary increases using this skill. Are you ready for it to be your turn?