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Exercise 3. Your Transferable Skills and
Satisfiers Grid

The next key step in creating your career fingerprint is to match your new career to your gifts, transferable skills, and satisfiers. You are unique, and so are your personal preferences. You'll learn about each through the different steps of this exercise.

Transferable Skills

The first part of this exercise focuses on transferable skills. A trans­ferable skill is a skill that can transfer from one job to another. In other words, these are skills you use at your current job that will transfer to whatever profession you choose next. Managing, orga­nizing, and communicating are some of the most common trans­ferable skills because they can be used in such a wide variety of industries and occupations.

Office managers, financial planners, entrepreneurs, and logis­tics directors are examples of just a few of the careers that entail organizational, management, and communication skills. Although the jobs seem quite different at face value, they share a core group of skills.

Understanding your transferable skills will make it easier for you to change occupations. Your skills go with you. Focus on learning what your transferable skills are, for now.

This exercise has three steps:

 

On the following list make a checkmark to the left of any of the transferable skills that you already possess, to whatever degree you know how to do them (you don't have to be an expert).

Then go back through the list and circle the skills you'd actually like to use in the future. It's okay to circle either checked or unchecked items.

Finally, pick six of the circled skills (they don't have to have a checkmark) that you'd really like to use in your next job. Go for it!

Transferable Skills Checklist

	Acting
	Advertising
	Advising
	Aiding
	Analyzing
	Arranging
	Assessing performance
	Assessing progress
	Assessing quality
	Assisting
	Attending to details
	Auditing
	Budgeting
	Building cooperation
	Building credibility
	Building relationships
	Building structures
	Calculating
	Classifying
	Client relations
	Communicating feelings
	Communicating ideas
	Communicating in writing
	Communicating instructions
	Communicating nonverbally
	Communicating verbally
	Computer literate
	Conceptualizing
	Consulting
	Coordinating
	Correcting
	Corresponding
	Counseling
	Customer service
	Dancing
	Data analysis
	Data entry
	Data processing
	Decision making
	Decorating
	Designing
	Developing designs
	Developing systems
	Developing talent
	Diagnosing
	Directing
	Drafting
	Drawing
	Driving
	Editing
	Educating
	Empathizing
	Enforcing
	Engineering
	Evaluating
	Facilitating
	Filing
	Financial planning
	Forecasting
	Formulating
	Fundraising
	Healing
	Helping others
	Imagining
	Implementing
	Influencing
	Initiating
	Intervening
	Intuiting
	Inventing
	Investigating
	Leading people
	Lecturing
	Lifting
	Listening
	Managing tasks
	Marketing
	Marketing and communications
	Massaging
	Motivating
	Multitasking
	Negotiating
	Nurturing
	Observing
	Organizing
	Performing
	Persuading
	Prescribing
	Program managing
	Programming computers
	Project managing
	Promoting
	Public speaking
	Reconstructing
	Recording
	Repairing
	Reporting
	Researching
	Selling and marketing
	Selling
	Servicing
	Servicing customers
	Singing
	Supervising
	Surveying
	Teaching
	Team building
	Team leading
	Telephone skills
	Tending
	Testing
	Tooling
	Training
	Troubleshooting
	Understanding
	Using equipment
	Writing

My six preferred skills that I'd like to use in the future are:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.      

We'll use this list in conjunction with the next part of this exercise, which is deciding other important career choice factors, which I call your satisfiers--that is, the aspects of a job that make it emotionally appealing.

Below is a list of satisfiers. You may find that many or all of these things are important to you; however, I'd like you to careful­ly focus on the meaning of each of these satisfiers and how they will affect your life both in and out of the work setting.

Each of them may sound appealing; however, in this assign­ment your task is to reflect on which six are the most important to you and are the satisfiers that you'd like to have in your next career.

Which of these satisfiers rate as your top six? (Please circle only your top six satisfiers.)

A company that is charitable to the community

A job that will accommodate my disability

A wide range of benefits and/or perks

Ample promotion opportunities

Beautiful and pleasing surroundings

Challenging responsibilities

Easy commute

Emotional fulfillment

Excitement

Flexible hours

Extremely high income

Friendly and respectful colleagues

Independence

Intellectual challenge

Lots of leisure time with family, friends, hobbies, and travel

Low stress

Possibility for very high earnings and/or commissions and bonuses

Power, influence, and authority

Routine

Spiritual satisfaction

Steady income

My top six satisfiers:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

The Transferable Skills and Satisifiers Grid - In the next step in this exercise, you'll combine the information you have gathered so far. It's called the "transferable skills and satisfiers grid." I have adapted it from the work of Howard Figler in the Complete Job Search Handbook.

This assignment is exciting because it synthesizes the qualitative information you've gathered and provides a subjective but quantitative look at how the pieces of your career puzzle fit together.

Finally, you'll have information that can influence your choice of one career over the other two, and a starting point to put every-thing you've learned into action.

1. Make a chart that looks like the one that follows. List your three job titles at the top of the chart. Number the jobs 1, 2, and 3 not in any particular order of preference.

 

	Job 1	Job 2	Job 3
SKILLS
Skill 1
Skill 2
Skill 3
Skill 4
Skill 5
Skill 6
SATISFIERS
Satisfier 1
Satisfier 2
Satisfier 3
Satisfier 4
Satisfier 5
Satisfier 6
GIFTS
Gift
Gift
Gift
Subtotal
INTUITION
TOTAL

Then list all six of your preferred skills from top to bottom.

Next list your six satisfiers.

For each of your preferred skills (for example, manage­ment), ask yourself, "How well will job 1 satisfy my desire to be a manager?" If it will provide you with an opportunity to be a manager, put a checkmark in the corresponding box. If not, leave it blank.

Repeat the same question for each of the other two jobs.

Continue using the same methods for all of your skills and satisfiers. For example, "Will job 2 satisfy my need for eco­nomic security? Prestige?"

Each column should now have several checkmarks. The last step is to look at your gifts.

Because I believe that using your gifts in your career will make you absolutely soar, I'm going to ask that you rate "gifts" on a scale of 1 to 100 for each of the three jobs—for example,

"How well will job 1 allow me to express my gifts?" If you have more than one gift, also list them on the chart and rank them from 1 to 100.

Now, add all of the checkmarks that appear vertically under job 1 and write your total.

Do the same as in step 8 for the other two jobs.

We're not quite finished yet, but stop and take a minute to observe how the totals look. Is one job way ahead? Do others lag behind? Do two or all three have nearly identical scores?

Now, for a final, and most important, indicator, you'll be using your intuition to help you rate these jobs. Please rank each occu­pation on your chart in terms of your intuitive feeling, from 1 to 100. Again, 100 would mean something like "absolutely fantastic," and 1 would be "horrifying."

What does "intuitive feeling" mean? To some, it may literally be a feeling in the gut, chest, or stomach. Others internally sense some sort of feeling of right or wrong. Others may feel that one choice is simply more clear or rings more true.

This exercise allows you to observe a lot of information at once. Carefully reflect on it. The numbers themselves do not have to decide your career for you, but they are a good indicator of how well you believe a certain occupation will fulfill many of your needs. The chart is only a tool. You must base your decision on what seems best to you. After all, it will be you doing the job, not someone else—not your parents, your spouse, your friend, or me.