Job-Hunting Advice For Career Changers -- Talking About Transferable Skills

I'm mentoring a student worker as she searches for jobs after finishing her graduate degree at our university. She came to graduate school full-time to learn skills in a new field, which means she has recently learned a number of new programming languages in an academic setting, rather than on the job. Unsure how to keep recruiters on the phone and find some way to make her several years of work experience before and during graduate school "count" towards a job using these programming languages, she asked me if I had any advice. Here are some tips I gave her.

• The written job description is gold to you.
  • The bottom half usually describes the technical skills you're afraid of seeming too new at. Don't get too wrapped up in it.
  • The top half usually describes the job itself. It's where a career-changer like you will find the most "source material" for talking about why you're qualified to do the job.
    • You wish they would "give you a chance" to "learn on the job," right?
      • Well, they won't. Not if you put it like that.
      • But if you point out how you've done things just like that, only different, but pretty much the same, and HERE'S HOW -- well, now you sound like someone ready to "jump into the deep end of the pool," don't you?
        Welcome to the world of "selling your transferable skills."
    • The "what this position does" "top half" of a job description is where you find out exactly what you need to say your prior experience is "just like," and where you'll figure out the difference between your prior experience and the future job (so that you can explain what other transferable skills you have that address the difference).
  • If you don't have a written job description because a recruiter is summarizing a job orally and focuses on the "bottom half," confidently direct them to tell you about about the "top half" so you can direct the rest of the phone call from a position of strength.
    • Example: "Ah, yes, I have worked with those technologies in my graduate coursework, and I spent a year at ___ and three years at ___ doing related work with [related technology or transferable experience/skills] -- that might be a good fit. Can you tell me more about the job responsibilities and day-to-day work?"
• Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Practice makes perfect.
  • Treat this like you would ask a child to treat a role in a "school play."
    1. Memorize the lines
    2. Look in the mirror and practice the lines -- master your projection of confidence and your ability to remember your lines while looking someone in the eyes / get over any sense of disgust at watching yourself.
    3. If you have time, look in the mirror again and practice making your lines your own -- practice being easy and relaxed and you while delivering them.
• Of course, you have to write your own lines -- you're the playwright as well. But you already know what the play is going to be about -- it's going to be about the job in the advertisement and about you! So write that script!
  • Print a copy of the job description and a copy of your resume. Maybe grab some spare paper if there isn't a lot of room in the margins.
  • Look through the "job duties" and TRANSLATE them from the way they're written to "something your grandmother would understand when she asks what you do for a living."
  • Look through the "job duties" and find the IMPLIED job duties. (For example, if you have to "deliver" something, implied transferable skills & experiences might be "ahead of schedule" or "to very important people." Another example -- if it talks about "different" people you'll be working with ... implied is, "You'll be pulled in a million different directions and need to be able to handle it politely." If you've done that before ... yay, you have experience in something they need!)
  • Now, for all the plain-English and implied real job duties, figure out what you've already done, at school or at work, and write notes to yourself.
  • Finally, go through your notes and put together little stories about how great at the job you'd be, mentioning that you see they need the position to do ____, and how that sounds like the time in ____ when you _____ed.
    • Repeat until you're out of such stories -- then start this process over for the next job advertisement!
    • You might want to have a few different versions of any story that's too technical -- the "highly technical" (but still 60 seconds or less) version and the "explain it to a 6-year-old in 15 seconds or less" version. Always start by sharing the "explain it to a 6-year-old, 15 seconds or less" version of a story, only going into the "highly technical" version if pressed for more details.
    • When talking about how you have ___ experience on the job and ___ experience at school, don't leave it to the interviewer to infer that the two can be added together into a competence. This is YOUR JOB and is why you're rehearsing. If you'd like, you can start with phrases like, "In my experience" or "Given my experiences on the job and in my coursework," which have 3 advantages:
      1. You don't have to worry about seeming like you're being contradictory -- it's just your opinion. So it's polite / deferential.
      2. It's hard for someone to challenge the accuracy of. It's just your opinion. So it's confident (because it's hard to challenge).
      3. It brings attention to the fact that you have experience and that you can put all of your experience together into one big package that's useful to them.
• This same process can also be used when deciding what to write in a cover letter -- only you have to be much, much more concise and not tell as many stories.
• Finally, if you're worried about professional "word choice" when answering difficult questions, read Alison Green's 'Ask A Manger' advice blog religiously. Eventually, you'll pick up on her style, which I think is excellent.

Good luck!