Reading through a job posting you may conclude that, although you don’t have some of the required experience, you have many of the skills and experience that are essentially equivalent (i.e. transferable), giving you the confidence to know that you would be a great candidate for the job. Unfortunately, in the hyper competitive job market of 2025 transferable skills in most cases simply aren’t going to be enough to get you considered.

What’s far more important to prospective employers, and what will dramatically up the odds of your being considered, is the degree to which you have made something happen in previous jobs – the degree to which you’ve had an impact, facilitated change, improved processes, etc. So, rather than transferable skills I recommend that you think instead about transferable impact, and the skills that you employed that led to the effect you’ve had. Skills that lend themselves more readily to illustrating impact are, for example:

  1. Leadership
  2. Problem solving
  3. Motivating others
  4. Creativity
  5. Initiative

If you’re applying for a job that demands some of these skills you will of course need to illustrate them on a resume and in an interview with specific examples. But even then employers are generally reluctant to gamble on transfer-ability; they are much more comfortable with direct evidence of skills and accomplishments that have been demonstrated in settings, situations, and applied to problems that are likely to be encountered in the new job. This evidence is very difficult to communicate in a resume.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because YOU know you can do a job that you want to land, an employer can easily be convinced of that if you don’t have very clearly related experience. And even if you do, again impact trumps experience.

If you are not able to cite directly applicable experience it becomes particularly important to use connections who can vouch for your ability to make a difference. Think about the people you’ve worked for and with who are familiar with your accomplishments, and then ask them to introduce you to (ideally) decision makers when it comes to hiring, or at least to people in an organization for which you’re interested in working. Strong personal recommendations will open doors for you that a resume submitted online simply won’t.