Life Lessons from Career Transitions
Food Service, Retail Management, Youth Services Programming, Nonprofit Program Management, Higher Education Administration.
Across the course of my adulthood I’ve probably had 20 jobs in 5+ industries. My friends often joked that I couldn’t keep a job because I was switching it up so often.
What they didn’t know was that I was intentional about building transferable skills, so that once I mastered a skill set or got bored (whichever came first), I often had the skills to slide into another industry. Also, there are some baseline skills across many industries that if you position correctly can really set you apart in a crowded job market.
Below I outline three baseline skills and how to position them across industries.
DATA ENTRY
Data entry is often considered a mundane task. However, if you can copy, paste and merge Excel cells in your sleep, know that this is a valuable skill that is important as you move from entry-level to high-level jobs. Consider the type of data you’re working with and whether you know how to manipulate and present the data to stakeholders. If so, when discussing this skill, talk about your ability to compile and present data to support organizational priorities or changes. If you’ve ever had the opportunity to present or share this data with anyone, you can also speak to your ability to leverage data to make organizational improvements and demonstrate complex ideas.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
“Hi, how can I help you?” Seems like we’ve all had jobs where we were responsible for basic customer service tasks whether it was in retail or food service. These types of jobs provide great transferable skills related to proactively serving customers/clients, fulfilling orders, helping customers navigate store or menu options, making recommendations on look, fit or taste, and defusing and resolving customer concerns. If you’ve done this type of task, make sure you speak to the speed and efficiency of work you conducted. Speak to the volume you served and the relationship/rapport you were able to build with customers.
SUPERVISING STUDENTS/VOLUNTEERS/MEMBERS
Leading people is a big task, but often new and mid-level professionals don’t have experience leading other professional staff. Don’t forget the work that you’ve done with volunteers, students, or other members of an organization. If you’ve led a small group facilitation or coordinated volunteer programs in your job or community, that counts. Be sure to quantify the number of people you worked with and how you led and trained them to achieve a goal aligned with the priorities of the organization.