{"id":63276,"date":"2015-08-26T20:35:03","date_gmt":"2015-08-27T01:35:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=63276"},"modified":"2015-08-26T20:32:29","modified_gmt":"2015-08-27T01:32:29","slug":"thinking-about-making-a-career-transition-highlight-your-transferable-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=63276","title":{"rendered":"Thinking about making a career transition? Highlight your transferable skills."},"content":{"rendered":"

by Rachael Altman<\/em>
\npreviously published 3\/4\/14<\/p>\n

Thinking about making a career transition? Highlight your transferable skills.<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"rachaelaltman\"<\/a>I enjoy a good challenge and I like to learn something new every day so I recently\u00a0inquired about making a transition from an academic library job to a research position\u00a0in a corporate or legal environment. I received many useful, inspirational, and practical\u00a0responses from colleagues, friends, and new LinkedIn connections.<\/p>\n

The short of it is that librarians hold the necessary skills and knowledge to make a\u00a0smooth transition into the corporate or legal sector.<\/strong> Victor Epstein, research analyst\u00a0at AlphaSights, notes that \u201cthe core skills of research are applicable in most corporate\u00a0or legal sectors and humanities majors and associated personal qualities can be very\u00a0valued in the corporate sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

Librarians have a number of transferable skills<\/a>, traits, and knowledge that are valuable\u00a0inside and outside of the world of libraries. Your greatest strategy for career success\u00a0may be using what you already know.<\/p>\n

What are transferable skills?<\/strong> Transferable skills are innate skills acquired throughout\u00a0life and can be easily applied to a new job or work environment. Take a look at this\u00a0Transferable Skills Checklist<\/a> to help you discover your natural skills and begin to think\u00a0about how these skills can be applied in various occupational fields. While you may need\u00a0to gain hard skills [technical or administrative] or soft skills [communication, teamwork,\u00a0and attitude] in order to shift from one career to another or from one library type to\u00a0another, you can easily build off your strong foundation of core skills, including:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Communication skills, in writing and in person
\n\u2022 Presentation skills
\n\u2022 Critical thinking skills
\n\u2022 Research skills
\n\u2022 Intellectual curiosity
\n\u2022 Knowledge of a variety of subjects
\n\u2022 Partnership, collaboration, and teamwork
\n\u2022 Creativity, curiosity, and open-mindedness
\n\u2022 Integrity<\/p>\n

Here are a few helpful tips that I compiled from librarians and information professionals\u00a0that can help you make the transition into a corporate or legal environment:<\/p>\n

1. Take business classes:<\/strong> financial accounting, introduction to marketing,\u00a0information management, and data mining.<\/p>\n

2. Learn the<\/strong> corporate buzzwords<\/a> and learn to speak and think like someone in the\u00a0business.<\/p>\n

3. Beef up or acquire specific skills:<\/strong> basic statistics, qualitative and quantitative\u00a0analysis, and learn to pick apart a company\u2019s 10-K filing (available via sec.gov<\/a>).<\/p>\n

4. Take advantage of MOOCs and courses through Khan Academy<\/a>.<\/strong> It\u2019s okay to let\u00a0potential employers know that you learned this stuff by taking an odd class or\u00a0going online\u2014lifelong learners make the best candidates.<\/p>\n

5. Get involved with professional organizations<\/strong>\u2014such as, American Library\u00a0Association<\/a>, Special Libraries Association<\/a> (specifically the Competitive\u00a0Intelligence Division<\/a>), and American Law Librarian Association<\/a>. These\u00a0organizations offer a number of professional development opportunities,\u00a0including webinars, courses, and networking opportunities.<\/p>\n

6. Do your homework!<\/strong> Do some really good research on people who have the jobs\u00a0you want to have and companies you\u2019d like to work for.<\/p>\n

Transitions can be terrifying. Shifting careers is often hard to explain. It might be a little\u00a0risky. You might question whether or not you\u2019re really<\/em> qualified. You might fear failure,\u00a0success, or the unknown.<\/p>\n

In the 85 Broads<\/a> article Overcoming Fear and Just Doing It<\/em><\/a>, Farhana Huq drops truth\u00a0bombs<\/a> when she says: \u201cTransition, at some deep level, is about recognizing your fears\u00a0and taking a step towards them.\u201d Be brave, courageous, and accepting of all outcomes.<\/p>\n

\"career-transition\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Taking the leap of faith, and jumping headfirst may be easier said than done, but the\u00a0payoff could be huge.<\/p>\n

Forward movement is essential to all success in life\u2014so, ask\u00a0yourself What\u2019s stopping me?<\/p>\n

Dorie Clark\u2019s article How to Explain Your Career Transition<\/a> notes the importance of\u00a0\u201cidentifying the underlying themes that connect your professional experiences\u201d because<\/p>\n

\u2022 People like stories
\n\u2022 Developing a compelling narrative will help people understand you and your new career path
\n\u2022 It\u2019s helpful to connect the dots\u2014how did you get to where you are now and how will you get to where you want to go?<\/p>\n

In order to be successful on the job hunt, and truly successful in anything you do, you must know your strengths and weaknesses, passions, what you want, and why you\u2019re doing what you do.<\/strong> If you are driven by passion, you will be successful because you\u2019ll be happy with the outcome. Figure out what you love to do and find someone to pay you to do it. It sounds clich\u00e9, but you must know yourself. Keep an open mind. Be flexible, yet strong.\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Rachael Altman previously published 3\/4\/14 Thinking about making a career transition? Highlight your transferable skills. I enjoy a good challenge and I like to learn something new every day so I recently\u00a0inquired about making a transition from an academic library job to a research position\u00a0in a corporate or legal environment. I received many useful,…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":63265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[69,3592,5130,6005,5490,3609,6004,3970,111,4760],"class_list":["post-63276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-career-change","tag-career-change-tips","tag-career-transition","tag-inalj-illinois","tag-inalj-volunteer-coordinator","tag-rachael-altman","tag-tips","tag-transferable-skills"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/rachaelaltman.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-gsA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/63265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}