Many job seekers undersell themselves because they think their experience does not "count." Maybe your work history is in a different field than the one you are applying to. Maybe most of your experience came from volunteering, caregiving, or school rather than a paycheck. Maybe there is a gap on your resume that makes you nervous. In almost every one of these cases, the problem is not a lack of skills—it is that the skills you already have have not been named, translated, and presented in a way an employer can recognize. Those portable abilities are called transferable skills, and learning to showcase them is one of the highest-leverage things you can do in a job search.
At Innovative Placements of WNY, this is one of the first things we work on with candidates, especially those changing careers or returning to work after time away. The skills are usually already there. This guide walks you through how to find them, translate them to the role you want, and prove them on your resume and in the interview.
What Transferable Skills Are (and Why They Matter)
Transferable skills are abilities that stay useful no matter what job, industry, or setting you are in. Unlike a technical skill that applies to one specific role—operating a particular machine, using one company's software—transferable skills move with you. Communication, problem-solving, organization, reliability, teamwork, and customer service are all transferable. They are the reason a person can succeed in a role that looks, on paper, nothing like what they have done before.
They matter most for the people who most often doubt themselves:
- Career changers, whose past job title does not match the new field but whose underlying skills do.
- People returning to work after a gap for health, caregiving, or any other reason—skills do not expire during time off.
- People whose experience came from non-traditional settings—volunteering, caregiving for a family member, running a household, school projects, or community involvement all build real, nameable skills.
- First-time job seekers, who have more skills than they realize once they look beyond paid employment.
Where to Find Your Transferable Skills
The most common mistake is looking only at past job titles. Your skills are hiding in everything you have done, not just the things that came with a paycheck. Go through each of these sources and write down what you actually did—the tasks, not the titles:
- Paid work, including part-time, seasonal, and short jobs. What were you trusted to handle?
- Volunteering and community roles. Organizing an event, leading a group, or handling donations are all real skills.
- Caregiving and managing a household. Scheduling, budgeting, advocating, and staying calm in a crisis are skills employers pay for.
- School and training. Group projects, deadlines, presentations, and research all build transferable abilities.
- Hobbies and personal projects. Anything you taught yourself or stuck with shows initiative and follow-through.
For each thing you have done, finish this sentence: "I was responsible for ___, which means I can ___." For example: "I was responsible for the closing count at the register, which means I can handle money accurately and follow a careful process." That second half is the transferable skill—say it out loud and write it down.
Translate Them Into the Language of the Job You Want
Identifying a skill is only half the work. The other half is translation—describing it in the words the employer uses. A hiring manager scanning resumes is matching what they read against the job description, so your job is to connect your experience to their language. Reading the posting closely is the key; if you want help decoding one, see our guide on understanding job descriptions.
A few examples of the same experience, translated:
- Warehouse work → attention to detail, reliability, ability to follow safety procedures, physical stamina, working accurately under time pressure.
- Caregiving for a family member → scheduling and coordination, patience and empathy, advocacy, staying calm in high-stress situations, managing medications and appointments.
- Retail or food service → customer service, cash handling, conflict resolution, teamwork during busy periods, multitasking.
- Volunteer coordinating → leadership, organization, communication with different kinds of people, project management.
Employers do not hire job titles—they hire the ability to do the work in front of them. When you translate "I was a caregiver" into "I coordinated complex schedules and stayed calm under pressure," you let a hiring manager picture you succeeding in their role, even if your background looks different from the usual candidate.
Showcase Them on Your Resume
A list of adjectives—"hardworking, organized, team player"—is the weakest way to present skills, because anyone can claim them. The strongest way is to pair each skill with evidence and, when you can, a result. The pattern is simple: skill + what you did + what happened.
- Weak: "Good with customers."
- Strong: "Handled 50+ customer interactions per shift and resolved complaints without escalating to a manager."
- Weak: "Organized and reliable."
- Strong: "Managed the schedule and medications for a family member across multiple providers for three years."
Evidence beats adjectives every time. A short, specific example of a skill in action is far more convincing to a hiring manager than a string of buzzwords—and it gives them a concrete reason to call you in. For more on structuring this, see our guide on resume tips that help you stand out.
Showcase Them in the Interview
Interviews are where transferable skills come to life, because you can tell the story behind them. Pick three or four core skills the role clearly needs, and prepare one short, true example for each. A simple structure keeps you focused: briefly describe the situation, what you did, and how it turned out.
- Choose examples that match the job. If the role is customer-facing, lead with a customer story. If it values reliability, tell the story that proves it.
- Name the skill, then prove it. "One of my strengths is staying calm under pressure—for example, when..." gives the interviewer both the label and the evidence.
- Connect it back to their role. End with a sentence that ties the example to the job: "...and that is the same kind of pressure I would expect in this position."
If You're Changing Fields or Returning to Work
If your experience does not look like a straight line, transferable skills are your bridge. A career change is really just an argument that the skills you built in one place will work in another—so make that argument directly. In a cover letter or interview, it is completely reasonable to say, "My background is in a different field, but the skills that made me successful there—X, Y, and Z—are exactly what this role needs."
Gaps in your work history do not erase your skills, and time spent caregiving, recovering, or learning is not empty time. The candidates we coach who reframe those periods around what they built—rather than apologizing for them—consistently present more confidently and get better responses. A job coach can help you take an honest inventory of your skills, match them to the right roles, and practice telling those stories until they feel natural.
Innovative Placements of WNY offers job placement, job coaching, résumé help, interview preparation, and accommodation planning at no cost to eligible job seekers. We collaborate with ACCES-VR and other agencies and focus every day on inclusive hiring and disability employment in Western New York.
Call us at (716) 566-0251 or email andreatodaro@ipswny.com to connect with our team. Visit innovativeplacementswny.com to learn more about our services.