Tool to Find New Occupations to Which Your Job Skills Transfer

In both of my books, RELAUNCH! and The Ultimate Job Finding Solution, I discuss how you can transfer existing skills to new jobs. The great thing about this is that sometimes you can use highly developed knowledge and proficiencies after years of learning and doing, to move to a more satisfactory field or job that uses those skills. That gives you the opportunity to make a desirable change with little or no additional training or preparation. It's not always that simple however. For example, if you have the skills of a nurse assistant or a licensed practical nurse and you want to become a registered nurse, you can transfer some of the skills you have, but you'll still need more education and training. On the other hand, if you are a professional engineer and you want a change, many or all of your skills may transfer to information technology occupations. The same thing is true for transferability among occupations in the business field, and others.

There are numerous ways to assess transferable skills, including using well developed, sophisticated methods. However, an excellent simple free automated tool to try is available through this website. All you do is input a current or prior occupation or job and jobs to which your skills transfer pop up. Not only that, for each job there is a link to job listings in your location, information about wages, and typical education required.

This is a very cool tool, but there are some caveats. The transferable jobs that come up do not consider your unique skills beyond what people in general in your occupation have. Also, depending upon how you actually performed the job you input, you may not have all the skills usually required and thus what pops up may require more skills than you have. Nevertheless, this is a great tool to start a self-directed transferable skills analysis!