Make the most of your experience
It's likely that you'll have built up lots of skills over your working life. If you jot down all the roles and responsibilities you've had over the years, and the tasks you've carried out, both in work and in your personal life, you may find you've got more skills than you realise.
It's easy to undervalue skills you use every day and that come as second nature to you. If you gather together all the skills you've developed you'll see just how much you have to offer.
Why not carry out our skills and interests assessment and see where your strengths lie?
Transferable skills
These are general skills you can use in many different jobs, including your next job. So even if you've worked in one type of job for a while, you can still use these skills in a new area of work.
Examples of transferable skills are:
- problem solving
- organising
- communicating
- working to deadlines
- negotiating
- motivating people
- making decisions.
You can develop transferable skills by work experience, studying a course, volunteering or from leisure interests. Our careers coaches can help you identify which skills you've already got, which you'd like to develop, and how you can develop them. Call 08080 100 333 from 8am to 10pm seven days a week.
You can also carry out the transferable skills exercise on the Fifty Forward website.
Selling yourself on your CV
Many employers don't ask for specific qualifications to get into jobs because they value experience just as highly. When it comes to selling yourself on your CV, your work experience will be a great asset. You can choose a CV format that shows off your experience to the full. For example, a 'targeted' CV, which draws attention to your best selling points, will wow employers with the range of relevant skills you've already got. A 'performance' CV, which pushes your achievements, will highlight your career progression.
You can get more advice about CVs from our pages on how to write a CV. Our careers coaches can also give you feedback on your CV. They can help you with wording, presentation and format. Call 08080 100 333 from 8am to 10pm any day of the week and a careers coach will tell you more about our CV feedback service.
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