Non-Chronological Transferable Skills

After eight months of passing out the same resume, I still did not have a job. Although acquaintances who read my resume sometimes made suggestions, I received enough positive feedback from prospective employers to make me feel as though my resume was as good as it was going to get.

Typical responses included: “Excellent resume!” “Strong cv!” “Great experience!” “You are certainly qualified—perhaps overqualified!”

Then why wasn’t anyone hiring me? I thought I had a great resume—other people had told me so. I was famous—yet, I still could not land a job.

Paloma was insistent. “Your resume needs to stand out. You need to do something different. You have to write a non-chronological resume and you need to base it on your transferable skills.”

Transferable skills made some sense to me. Those were the skills I could apply to a variety of tasks, jobs and environments. But a non-chronological resume? Wasn’t my resume supposed to be a sequential, orderly documentation of my work experience? What use could there be in writing a non-chronological resume? What would a potential employer think if they received one?

I was hesitant, but I was also intrigued.

“Forget about the chronological order of your jobs,” Paloma explained. “Concentrate on your transferable skills and remember the mantra: I can make you money. I can save you money. I can solve your problems.”

Paloma had shown herself to be sensible with the advice she had given me so far, so I figured, what have I got to lose? Obviously, whatever I was doing was not working. I had everything going for me—a degree from MIT in Management Science, world-class work experience in business development, commercial and investment banking and more international publicity than money could buy. Yet I had been unemployed for eight months—and two months had passed since I had been gifted with my publicity.

At Paloma’s behest, I agreed to reassess my experience and rewrite my resume. I spent several tortuous days working on the new format and even more importantly, working on myself.

Once I got past the initial angst, writing a non-chronological transferable skills resume released me from a lifetime of constraints. It allowed me to consider and include all my skills and experiences, not just the skills that were most obvious from the jobs and tasks I had performed. I was able to include in my resume the skills from my education, hobbies and life experience—the skills that set me apart, defined my individuality and emphasized my greatest accomplishments—the skills that could help me land a new job.

The results were startling and transformational. Instead of having a dry, chronological resume which listed job titles and job descriptions in a standard format with monotone content, I was able to clearly express the breadth of my skill set and achievements and the depth of my personality and capabilities. It was my land-in-Oz-and-everything-turns-to-color moment. Instead of merely citing my job experiences and education, I was able to express my capacity for experience and learning.

As a result of my efforts and self-evaluation, I produced a non-chronological transferable skills resume containing examples under each skill category demonstrating how I had used my talents to make money, save money and solve problems.

My new resume could even be used as a master list template from which to create an endless variety of job-specific resumes and targeted cover letters. It also included a personal touch, my photograph—a simple but wonderful improvement.

Comments

[employment genius]

Good article! hanks for sharing this. In a cover letter to an employment agency or executive search firm, you should always mention your current or most recent salary, as well as your willingness to relocate for a position.