We Asked You About Transferable Skills And You Convinced Us
Transferable skills are key nowadays. It’s not even about the skills anymore, but about how adaptable and fast you are, as everything is changing. See what our community of digital creatives said about it.
Transferable skills… one of those deep subjects in the world of business. Is it better to specialize or accrue a number of transferable skills? Is it better to go for one career path or constantly find yourself pivoting?
There is no right answer, but there is the question.
And so we asked out community of digital creatives to weigh in on the subject. It’s one of those things that only a crowd can make sense out of.
And this is what you guys said…
Do you think your job is going to exist in five years? Does anyone’s? The world is changing faster than static skills can keep up, so you either have transferable ones, or you’re wealthy enough not to need to work… — Kirsten Zerbinis
Ouch, Kirsten has a good point there.
Everything is changing so fast — what with robots doing our jobs and self-driving cars, we’d be lucky to get to pick a career path and stick to it. Even engineers, who have been lucky to make the big money and be in demand, have had to learn new programming languages to stay on top.
Nobody’s immune to change. It swipes everything away like a tornado and you’re either flexible enough to build yourself some sort of super-parachute while spinning in the air, or you’re, well, not.
Transferable skills are the most valuable form of currency in the new world of work. Even if the skill itself is not used, the lessons that come with it will be invaluable. — MacKenzie Clench
Now that’s another way to look at it!
Think of all those stories you’ve been reading on top of magazines and Medium lately — what I learned from… fill in the blank. People are extracting an inordinate amount of lessons from failing, from selling out, and even from working on the wrong thing for two years.
Everything carries a lesson, including skills or the lack thereof. We’re lucky that we can learn anything nowadays for free on the Internet. Then again, I have witnessed non-digital natives try, and have been shocked by the lack of trying. They would just say things like: “it wasn’t like this in my time”, “I can’t do it at my age” and “it’s too late to change anything”.
But I don’t buy it because I have seen others succeed and reap the rewards.
So it’s not even about the skills anymore, it’s about the willingness to adapt.
Just like Josh Kinal (another member) says:
All skills are transferable. You just have to understand how the context has changed. Maybe, I should say, all skills are adaptable.
So the key lesson here is to keep learning and foster your flexibility and will power, rather than focus on skills, which can be acquired easily.
I’ve jumped from one industry to another and without transferable skills I would have nothing to show for. — Aurelie Chazal
Today’s work climate allows for more jumps — from job to job, from industry to industry, and from lifestyle to lifestyle.
This is great news for me (who is a multipotentialite), but maybe not so much for the kind of rare unicorns who knew what they wanted to be from an early age, became it, and now could think of doing nothing else.
In my own answer on Somewhere, I said that “transferable skills help people who change careers a lot” because we have been somewhat on the rise. And by this I don’t mean we’re popular (because solid expertise has always been more valuable to society), but there are definitely more of us.
There are “full stack marketers” and “full stack designers” and if I dig a little more, I’m sure I’ll find more full-stack people around.
Make no mistake, being full-stack doesn’t mean you’re less qualified or easily distracted. It just means you’re more adaptable, and surely any team needs people like you. Otherwise, there would be no progress.
Each skill I accumulated through the years prepared me for my next career move. Working as a day camp dance counselor prepared me to become an aerobics instructor. Learning to ski evolved to ski writing… — Lisa Mary Mercer
And this is exactly why most people answered:
Every skill is transferable.
At first I didn’t understand it — how can something like skiing can be a transferable skill? Where else would I use skiing as a skill? Well, it turns out, you can transfer and take it with you, just like Lisa did.
If you think about every skill as transferable, a) you realize “transferable (like “remote”) is a state of mind” and b) you can take on any challenge as long as you have faith that one great thing will lead you to the next. And this knowledge is truly a weapon you can carry and use in today’s changing climate. This knowledge will keep you in business forever.
What Freddie said.
Seriously, I want you to play this song right now and feel it. I am literally singing out loud and going crazy in my room. If you’re in an office, just close the door or invite your colleagues to join your win dance.
It feels great to be a champion, doesn’t it? Someone who adapts to the new working climate and who has the confidence to jump from one thing to another without losing time or energy.
Thanks for reading! Now join our community of champions.
