Identifying and Articulating Your Transferable Skills

What are Transferable Skills?

Transferable skills are abilities and attributes that can be used across a variety of careers and environments. Skills developed through your teaching as a graduate student can set you up for success in traditional academic careers (e.g., tenure track faculty), other roles in higher education (e.g., educational development, instructional design, etc.), and positions outside of the academy (e.g., within industry, government, or non-profit settings). Identifying transferable skills allows you to highlight a wide range of relevant qualifications. Clearly explaining these qualifications and connecting them to specific experiences and accomplishments can improve your ability to succeed in the job search process. In this workbook, we follow a three-step framework to help you identify and articulate the value of your teaching-related transferable skills.  

Step 1: Categorize your transferable skills

The figure below provides examples of categories you might use to identify and organize your transferable skills. Can you think of any additional categories that are relevant to your own skills and experience? Use the empty boxes to record your reflections.

Circle with list of transferrable skills linked out.

The following lists examples of transferable skills within each category. Which of the provided examples best reflect your own work? Can you think of others that further illustrate your experience?

  • Developing collaborative relationships with peers and colleagues from diverse backgrounds
  • Eliciting input and providing feedback
  • Active listening
  • Participating in shared decision making

My teamwork and collaboration examples:

  • Explaining complex or theoretical concepts using understandable terms and language
  • Presenting logical arguments with supporting evidence
  • Effectively facilitating group discussions
  • Writing clearly and concisely

My communication examples:

  • Synthesizing information and evidence
  • Assessing the credibility of existing evidence and resources
  • Dealing with ambiguity
  • Solving complex problems and generating innovative solutions

My critical thinking and problem-solving examples:

  • Setting and achieving goals
  • Session planning
  • Identifying areas for improvement
  • Navigating dynamic and complex environments

My leadership and project management examples:

  • Following relevant standards and guidelines
  • Setting and meeting deadlines
  • Seeking opportunities for professional growth
  • Accepting responsibility

My professionalism and work ethic examples:

  • Engaging with individuals from diverse backgrounds with respect, openness, and sensitivity
  • Identifying personal values, biases, and experiences, and assessing how these may influence interactions with others
  • Identifying and challenging culturally or socially embedded practices that generate inequities across diverse groups

My diversity, equity, and inclusion examples:

Table and figure adapted from: Ph.D. Transferable Skills Self-Assessment, Centre for Career Development, Princeton University.

Step 2: Communicate Your Transferable Skills Using Action Verbs

To demonstrate the transferability of your experience on a resume, in a cover letter, or in a job interview, use action verbs to describe both what you did and the result or impact of that action. The following table provides examples of action verbs for each skill category. Which verbs best describe your own skills and experiences? Can you think of others? Use the spaces provided to develop your personalized list of action verbs.

Action Verbs:
assist
collaborate
contribute
cooperate
mediate
participate
partner
support

My teamwork and collaboration action verbs:

Action Verbs:
address
apprise
arbitrate
author
clarify
communicate
compose
convince
correspond
draft
edit
explain
inform
instruct
interpret
justify
lecture
listen
market
negotiate
persuade
present
promote
publicize
query
report
speak
summarize
teach
translate
write

My communication action verbs:

Action Verbs:
analyze
assess
brainstorm
conceptualize
conclude
construct
critique
debug
deliberate
determine
design
diagnose
envision
estimate
evaluate
examine
illustrate
innovate
integrate
investigate
pioneer
reform
research
shape
synthesize
supplement
transform
visualize

My critical thinking and problem-solving action verbs:

Action Verbs:
accommodate
administer
advise
assign
authorize
coordinate
coach
decide
delegate
develop
direct
enhance
establish
evaluate
execute
facilitate
guide
implement
incorporate
influence
initiate
instruct
lead
moderate
manage
mentor
monitor
organize
plan
prioritize
recommend
reconcile
review
schedule
supervise
train

My leadership and project management action verbs:

Action Verbs:
accommodate
address
collaborate
cope
demonstrate
develop
evolve
focus
follow up
follow through
grow
improve
listen
meet
network
provide
set goals
take initiative

My professionalism and work ethic action verbs:

Action Verbs:
acknowledge
address
advocate
alleviate
anticipate
answer
assess
assist
build
challenge
design
educate
encourage
engage
evolve
foster
guide
help
identify
influence
interact
learn
listen
mitigate
motivate
prevent
provide
reconcile
refer
reflect
relieve
represent
respect
revise
serve
support
treat
volunteer

My diversity, equity, and inclusion action verbs:

Action Verbs:
apply
assemble
calculate
compute
debug
demonstrate
design
develop
engineer
fabricate
install
introduce
maintain
operate
program
rectify
regulate
remodel
repair
restore
specialize
test
troubleshoot
upgrade

My digital technology action verbs:

Step 3: Link Your transferable Skills and Action Verbs with Specific Experiences

In this section, we model three strategies to help you think through the connections between your transferable skills, action verbs, and concrete teaching-related experiences. Use the techniques and examples provided as a starting point to reflect on your own teaching, what you accomplished, how this relates to a prospective career, and how you can communicate this information to a potential employer. Blank spaces are provided at the end of each table to record your reflections.

Strategy 1: Make a Master List

Building a living document that notes the responsibilities, outcomes, and associated skills for each position you have held or currently hold can provide a strong foundation for future job applications. You can selectively use content from your master list to write a resume or cover letter that is tailored to the position for which you are applying, allowing you to demonstrate the specific competencies required in a job advertisement. Review the sets of examples below and complete the final page of the chart to begin developing your own master list.

Role/Experience: Example – Peer Mentor in the Department of English

  • Talked to various peers
  • Listened to their needs and referred them to supports and resources
  • Developed mentoring materials
  • Briefed mentees on strategies for success
  • I met with 65 individual graduate students in 12 months
  • I was able to refer students to relevant resources in almost all my appointments
  • Students consistently said how helpful I was at the end of our appointments
  • I enhanced the process for the intake of mentees
  • I developed a new resource for effective referrals
  • Mentoring
  • Analyzing complex situations
  • Diagnosing problems
  • Actively listening
  • Leading people
  • Motivating people
  • Planning and organizing time and processes
  • Scheduling
  • Emotional intelligence

Role/Experience: Example – Teaching Assistant in the Department of Biology

  • Developed written lab materials
  • Facilitated lab sessions
  • Graded assignments and exams following a rubric
  • Maintained a database of student grades
  • I revised two lab manuals and co-designed 12 weekly lesson plans with a team of three teaching assistants
  • I led 12 two-hour lab sessions, conducting equipment demonstrations and Q&A periods, and supervising the experiments of 25 students
  • I provided prompt, consistent written feedback on 75 lab reports ranging in length from 8-10 pages, emphasizing strengths and areas for improvement
  • I was rated as “very good” or “excellent” by 96% of students in a departmental evaluation, earning high scores for preparation and clarity (4.9/5)
  • I managed a database of student grades on the Quercus platform
  • Writing clearly
  • Collaborating with others
  • Planning and managing time
  • Making presentations and speaking in public
  • Demonstrating the use of equipment
  • Providing constructive feedback
  • Meeting deadlines for returning work
  • Calculating numbers
  • Attending to detail in record keeping
  • Handling data ethically

Role/Experience: Example – Course Instructor in the Department of Sociology

  • Created a syllabus
  • Researched, wrote, and delivered hybrid lectures
  • Arranged experiential learning opportunities
  • Designed a series of assignments
  • Supervised a team of teaching assistants
  • Invited and responded to student feedback
  • I planned and executed a 10-week course, delivering weekly three-hour lectures to 60 fourth-year students online and in-person
  • I connected learners with five community organizations and mentored students in conducting research projects relevant to these groups’ needs
  • I prioritized accessibility and growth through a choice of scaffolded assessments to ensure key learning outcomes were met
  • I supervised a team of three teaching assistants and organized two grading benchmarking sessions
  • I designed a mid-course survey and used students’ feedback to inform my subsequent lectures
  • My responsiveness and commitment to experiential learning were valued in course evaluations
  • Project management
  • Extracting, analyzing, and synthesizing information
  • Translating knowledge and speaking in public
  • Teaching with technology
  • Collaboration and community engagement
  • Creativity and innovation
  • Mentoring
  • Growth mindset
  • Training and managing people
  • Delegating responsibilities
  • Listening to others and perceiving their feelings
  • Defining problems and identifying solutions
  • Adaptability

Strategy 2: Write Accomplishment Statements

An effective resume or cover letter does more than recount previous responsibilities; rather, it conveys the actions you have taken and the impacts that have resulted from those actions. How accomplishment statements are framed will depend on your audience. In an academic setting, conveying information about the subject matter, course context, or learning outcomes may be relevant to your application. When writing for audiences outside of higher education, demonstrating the transferability of your actions and their impacts by linking them to the responsibilities that may be required in the position for which you are applying can be valuable. Review the example below and use the blank space provided to draft your own accomplishment statement.

Experience Example – Designing a lab manual for a chemistry course

Action Verb: Designed

What I Did: A web-based interactive lab manual for a chemistry course

Purpose/Impact: Utilized in a large introductory course of 800 students

Statement for an academic audience:

  • Designed a web-based, interactive lab manual that is currently in use in a large first-year chemistry course to facilitate lab completion

Statement for a non-academic audience:

  • Designed a web-based, interactive manual for a large group of diverse learners to enhance training in the use of specific procedures and specialized tools

Strategy 3: Use the STAR Method to Prepare for and Answer Interview Questions

During an interview, you are often asked to describe a time when you demonstrated a particular competency. The STAR method – Situation, Task, Action, and Result – is an effective way to ensure you include all the relevant details in your answer. Review the examples below and use the blank space on the final page to identify and prepare for an interview question of your choice. Remember, most of your answer should focus on the actions you took and the results that followed.

Example: Tell me about a time when you were working on a teaching team, and you encountered a challenge. How did you respond? What were the results?

I was working as a Teaching Assistant in the Political Science Department at the University of Toronto as part of three-person teaching team.

We were exploring strategies to analyze election results in electoral districts of Canada. We were having difficulty reaching a consensus on the best teaching method.

  • I recommended we should individually consider the various methods and meet in a few days to share our ideas and the reasoning behind them
  • We met again and openly and respectfully discussed the methods, noting the strengths and weaknesses of each
  • Over two meetings, we brainstormed how to blend the valuable parts of each method and negotiated a new strategy which was an amalgamation of the methods proposed
  • Prevented inconsistencies across tutorials
  • Maintained a collegial working relationship with team members
  • Arrived at a new teaching method that was superior to ones initially proposed

Example: Describe a time when you created a sense of community for learners while working remotely. How did you achieve this?

I was working as a Course Instructor in the Human Geography department at the University of Toronto Scarborough during the COVID-19 pandemic. I was teaching online.

I wanted to build connections and trust among students in an introductory online course, while also piquing their interest in the subject materials.

  • Before the first class, facilitated a discussion board activity that invited students to introduce themselves, describe a location that holds meaning to them, share one piece of media (e.g., picture, video, audio clip, etc.) that relates to this location, and respond to two posts from their peers
  • As the term progressed, I used students’ own examples to ground my lectures on various geographical concepts (e.g., space, place, scale, and globalization)
  • I also guided students through co-creating a community agreement, identifying our shared expectations and needs
  • I used the community agreement to structure subsequent lectures, frame the ground rules for group work, and govern how I graded student participation
  • Participation in class discussions, along with the quality of contributions, increased relative to previous years despite delivering the course remotely
  • Students commented that my use of their original examples, alongside the community agreement, “made them feel heard” and “part of a team”

Strategies adapted from: Work Study Professional Development Workbook, University of Toronto.

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