Transfer Old Job Skills to a New Career

6 Ways to Transfer Job Skills to a New Career

1. Find Your Existing Skills
   In the course of your workday, you automatically apply many skills to perform your job. Think about them and write down the top 10 skills that you use to do your job. This will give you a good starting point to identify your strengths. You will find that your skills can, in fact, be used to carry out the duties of a new career.
2. What New Job Do You Want?
   Here are two ways to go about finding a new job.
   
   
   • The most satisfying outcome for most people would be to choose a fulfilling, high paying job that they will enjoy. Statistically this would limit your choices of new careers since you are eliminating a variety of easily attainable and readily available career categories.
   • Do you feel as though you will accept any job simply because you have been out of work and need income? If you are open-minded, you will increase your options since you are willing to accept more positions.
   
   Either way, you need to find a few interesting positions and then look at their job descriptions. You can find the job descriptions in the help wanted ads posted by employers. Here, you will find which skills are required. If you know someone who already holds this position, you can ask them about the skills required. Besides, the internet is also a great resource for researching job requirements.
3. Obtain New Skills to Fill in the “Holes”
   
   If the job you desire requires more skills than you currently possess, you can enroll in courses at a local college or technical school to obtain them. However, going to school and earning a degree is not the only way to enhance your abilities. Volunteering at an organization or getting an internship where your duties would include learning these skills are two other ways to obtain the required training. Often the organization you intern for will teach you to perform your tasks.
4. Find Some Job Prospects
   Now that you have identified and adjusted your skill set, it is time to decide on a few jobs for which you would like to apply. Visit our resources to help yourself with this process.
5. Write Your Resume Using New Skills
   At this point, you need to update and optimize your resume to include your new skill set. Incorporate these new skills properly to target jobs you wish to acquire. You will need to use keywords taken from the job description to tailor your resume for the new job. An article in our Career Help Center about how to fix employment gaps can apply to this situation too. There are many helpful tips on how to address an imperfect job history, surviving a career transition or even dealing with a layoff.
6. Retire Early
   Maybe the proper course of action for you is to retire early. Now obviously this choice isn't one that is easy to make, some issues that will affect the rest of your life need long-term solutions. Consulting a financial planner to pour over your finances to see if you have saved what you need to retire is a wise move.
   
   Not everyone has the option of retiring early available to them. You may be too young, but others may be approaching retirement age. For them, it might be the way to go rather than having to endure the whole retraining process. To accelerate your retirement date, you will need to assess your finances to determine if you are in a strong financial position ready to retire.
   
   With the help of a financial planner, you can sit down to determine your future income needs. They are the professionals who are best qualified to help you make that decision.