On the Other Side of COVID-19: Transferring Skills to New Opportunities

I've written several articles about transferable skills for counselors and clients long before we saw COVID-19 and it's projected consequences. Now, with the pandemic, we face an unprecedented amount of unemployment, and a likelihood that many old jobs will disappear and different jobs will emerge. If you've been laid off or lost your job in a changing workplace, you may never do the same job again. Even if you are working now, when new ways of doing things settle in, there may be less or no need for people to do your current job. 

What this suggests is that having the flexibility to transfer skills to different jobs or careers will take on more importance than ever. It may be the key to competing effectively for new opportunities that emerge.

Just looking for another job that you did before won't suffice. Even if some of the same jobs exist, the job market may be too competitive, or the main skills you used in your current or last job won't apply to the new jobs. Furthermore, the old methods we've had available to help determine the jobs to which your skills transfer will be less useful in uncovering jobs that are new or changed in the skills they require. Those methods are based on requirements of pre-COVID-19 jobs.

With the potential for these big changes on the horizon, this is a good time for most workers to do a deep analysis of their skills, particularly hidden skills. Skills can come from work, volunteer experiences, education/training, or family responsibilities.When using the right tools, I've found that my mid and late career clients can generate 30-40 skills or more. Most are forgotten skills because they haven't been used recently or frequently. Some are truly unknown because they were never realized as skills.

Most people feel very good about themselves after seeing all the unexpected proficiency and knowledge uncovered.  If you're unemployed or laid off, knowing this about yourself can be a confidence builder to counteract the depression and anxiety of losing a job. Better yet, it places you in a position to identify a whole range of strong skills and those you could develop into stronger skills that could be used in jobs other than the one you had. These would be your transferable skills.

I've seen transferable skills applied by teachers who became business owners, lawyers who became teachers, administrative assistants who became project managers, and government benefits specialists who became client representatives at benefits hearings. Some skills can transfer to other jobs requiring no further training. In other cases, use of transferable skills for a new job will require some additional on-the-job training or short-term courses for updating or credentialing (such as certificates or licensing).

Once you are aware of all of your skills, how can you identify alternate jobs that will use them? In fields where jobs have pretty much remained stable, standard pre-COVID-19 methods will still apply. You can try those methods by reading my blog article about doing your own transferable skills analysis.

Unfortunately, we don't know exactly what the post COVID-19 economy will look like. Yet there are resources that will be able to approximately connect your best skills to the emerging occupations and jobs. For example, in the past, I've usually recommended against using job boards for finding jobs, mainly because of their low efficiency in getting interviews and offers compared to other methods. There may be a multitude of applicants for each job and only one person hired. However, when assessing the jobs to which your skills will transfer in a new economy, sites such as Indeed, Monster, ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor, and LinkedIn will be quite valuable for understanding the changing labor market. You will be able to see the new jobs employers are listing and their skill requirements.

When you see the types of jobs consistent with your best skills, you can then focus a targeted hidden job search to find  those types of jobs. A targeted, hidden job search is important because it gives you an edge in a highly competitive job market. It also focuses your efforts in places where you would be most comfortable working and where managers would be most likely to appreciate your skills.

Start your targeted search by locating employers who will likely be a good fit for you and who have the types of jobs you are targeting. Then focus your employment search on listed or hidden jobs in those organizations. This is where your best new opportunities will lie. For details and resources for conducting a successful targeted hidden job search see Chapter 13 in my book RELAUNCH! Stagnation, Change, and Renewal in Mid-Career and Beyond. The accompanying workbook will take you through the hidden skills and best-fit environment assessments that will move you effectively through the process of finding a hidden job.

Finally, as employers continue to open for business, older workers and others with risk-laden disabilities may permanently lose their jobs if, because of virus exposure risk, they choose not to come back to work. Thus, if you are over 65 or have underlying health conditions, you may want to use your hidden skills assessment to either temporarily or permanently consider compatible options.  These could include contracting out your services from home, targeting companies and jobs that allow for work-at-home options or safe working environments, or starting a business from home.