Think of transferable skills as your portable skills; skills you can take with you from volunteering, your previous career, or as a stay-at-home-mom or caregiver, and then use in your next career.

Often, stay-at-home-moms also volunteer in the classroom & the PTA, manage school and community activities, develop community relations, and fundraise. They use skills that are highly valued in the workplace.

Transferable skills include life skills that we naturally gain as mothers.  We quickly learn to empathize with our children’s feelings, put their needs before ours, understand their motivations, negotiate and facilitate difficult situations, organize our day around their schedules, etc. These are valuable skills acquired from life experiences that are easily transferrable from motherhood to the workplace, in managing projects, leading teams, motivating employees, negotiating deals and more.

Transferable skills are important to highlight as part of the experience you have gained while out of the paid workforce. Relevant volunteer experience should be added to your resume to fill in gaps in paid work experience.

List your transferable skills:

Write down the different roles you performed/positions you have held and list what you did as part of it. For example:

PTA member

Organized and facilitated events to enrich the children’s educational experiences and build a stronger community.

Head of Cultural Committee

Organized events for x amount of people managing funds and coordinated between members.

Stay-at-home-mom

Managed conflict to reconcile differences; developed and managed a budget to save/stretch resources; Exercised leadership to bring about change; Prioritized, structured, and scheduled to meet varying needs. Multi-tasked to effectively manage a variety of tasks and projects simultaneously

After listing all these skills, it is important to look at the job descriptions of positions you are applying for. Identify the required and desired skills and match them with yours. Include in your resume the ones that are relevant to that position. Use the STAR method to prepare to talk about your skills and experience in the job interview.

Miki Feldman Simon, Founder & CEO IamBackatWork