“Can’t find talent, hire people with transferrable skills.”  Need to staff an entire department fast, leverage transferrable skills.”  Identifying and hiring individuals who have transferable skills sounds like a great idea and seems like it would be a great strategy. After all, everyone brings life experience and both hard and soft skills to the table.  It’s just a matter of identifying how those skills could work for you, right?

The reality is that most recruiters and hiring managers are under extreme pressure to fill open jobs and do not have the bandwidth or time to consider how transferable skills could impact their ability to fill open requisitions with top talent. The other side of this equation are candidates who are unaware of how to showcase their transferable skills and abilities through their resume, CV, or LinkedIn Profile.

If you’re serious about being open to presenting candidates with transferable skills to fill jobs faster with the best talent, here are some specific pros and cons to consider.

PRO: Recruiters are often the first to identify the benefits of hiring candidates with transferable skills

CON:  Without the buy-in of 100% of the individuals involved in the Hiring Process,

qualified candidates with transferable skills will be screened out

SOLUTION:

Set up meetings between recruiting and your clients | hiring managers to explain how they will benefit by embracing transferable soft skills.  

• Larger candidate pool
• Candidate will become engaged and retained 
• Learning new industry/profession
• Professional development
• Increase marketability
• Understand performance objectives

PRO: Every candidate has transferable talents and abilities (hard and soft skills) that can be utilized in many different jobs and career paths

CON: While hard skills are easy to identify and qualify, there is no formal classification

System to grade proficiency levels of soft skills

SOLUTION:

Quantify hard and soft skills on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being the highest

PRO:  Removes the importance and focus of specific job titles

CON:  Job titles vary greatly from industry to industry which can be misleading

SOLUTION:

Recruiters and hiring managers must break down the job to identify core hard and soft skills needed to perform the job and achieve performance objectives.

PRO:  Transferrable skills can be identified by utilizing assessment tools

CON:  Assessment tools are a cost factor and can delay the hiring decision

SOLUTION:

Identify assessment tools that can identify both soft and hard skills.  Practical skill assessment tests are the most effective for hard skills.  Skill assessment tests also allow candidates to demonstrate they can perform specific tasks.

Personality assessments are excellent for identifying soft skills.  We have utilized the DiSC assessment tool for years when hiring recruiters.  We have proven that individuals who score a high “I” influencer, have become our most successful team members.

PRO:  Veterans have incredible transferable skills that would benefit your company

CON: It takes time to understand transferable skills, but if hiring Military is part of your company culture and core values, it is well worth the time.

SOLUTION:

There are great tools that translate codes from the Military into skills and responsibilities in the private sector.  Bookmark these tools to understand how military experience translates into transferable skills you can utilize.

Some examples of the resources include Military Skills Translator (military.com), Military Skills Translator (VA.gov), Military to Civilian Occupation Translator (careeronestop.com) or Crosswalk that translates codes from military into skills and responsibilities.

PRO:  Candidates from the same industry/profession will have specific industry knowledge and it’s easier to identify their transferable skills into another role.

CON: You greatly limit your candidate pool if you only consider hiring someone with

transferable skills from your same industry

SOLUTION:

With the exception of highly skilled specific Scientific, IT or Engineering roles, most job requirements can be met in the transferrable skills of candidates from other industries. If you hire from your industry, candidates know your industry jargon and you will save some time training the new hire.  

However, there is probably fierce competition to hire from the same talent pool as competitors.  Your clients won’t be faced with the need to match a counteroffer, which increases their cost of hiring.  Hiring from outside of a specific industry can provide you with candidates who are more diverse, creative and innovative because they do not fit the specific profile of past hires.   

When you weigh the pros and cons of transferable skills, it becomes very apparent that you and your company will benefit greatly by making the changes necessary to identify and hire qualified candidates who possess transferable skills.

Here is a link to a Podcast I know you will enjoy that provides great insights into the topic of Transferrable skills.  https://topsourcetalentllc.com/turning-transferable-skills-into-career-assets-with-barbara-bruno/