Transferable Skills: an Introduction

What are they?

During your postgraduate/post-doctoral research, one of your main aims will be to further your knowledge and expertise in your chosen field. But while you are carrying out your research, you'll also be involved in various tasks that help you to develop a wider range of skills that will be useful to you as you progress through your career to more senior positions. Many of these skills will be useful to you whether you choose to purse a career within or outside of academia. Skills that apply to many different kinds of roles are known as 'transferable', or sometimes 'soft' skills.

Think about some tasks which occur on a typical working day. You might have presented your research to a roomful of peers at a conference thus honing your communication skills. Or perhaps you developed your writing and negotiating skills by working on a research funding application.

Transferable skills can also be developed outside of an academic setting. Think about some of the activities you get involved with in your spare time. Has rowing or football helped to develop your team mentality? Are you organising social events within your Department or the University? Or perhaps you are mentoring someone within your College? Involvement in these types of activities also develop your transferable skills.

What are the benefits?

For some careers, especially if you are thinking of moving out of the academic environment where you work is less likely to be well-known, transferable skills can become even more important to the success of your application. Trained researchers are increasingly valued by many different employers for their intellectual capacity, logical and analytical thinking and problem solving abilities, but in addition to your hard knowledge, employers also expect you to demonstrate many of the following:

• Teamworking
• Motivation, enthusiasm and drive
• Interpersonal and communication skills
• Commercial awareness

Think about the kinds of responsibilities that people in more senior positions have - both in academic environment and non-academic roles - tasks such as managing staff, obtaining funding or budget approval, developing relationships with outside contacts, and so on. These all require certain levels of these so-called transferable skills.

When you are planning to make your next career move, not only will you have to convince potential employers that you have these transferable skills, you will also have to employ these skills on a daily basis in order to succeed in your chosen career.

What is expected from you?

Postgraduate researchers are encouraged to dedicate about 10 days per year to developing transferable skills. It is useful to keep a log of training courses you attend to support you in your personal development planning. Your Department can advise you further about the use of such personal development logs.

While it is essential that you take responsibility for your own skill development, the School and your Department will do all they can to support your training and development needs.