Dancer Wants to Transfer Skills to Biology

Wow. You are truly making a dramatic career change, and kudos to you for taking the leap (if you forgive the pun) to follow your passion. And you also deserve credit for realizing that you need to get started now on gaining valuable experience in your new field so that by the time you are finished with your graduate degree you will be an attractive candidate to employers.

Transferable skills are an essential job-hunting concept to master for all job-seekers, but especially for recent college graduates and career-changers. What are transferable skills? Simply put, they are skills you have acquired during any activity in your life — jobs, classes, projects, parenting, hobbies, sports, virtually anything — that are transferable and applicable to what you want to do in your next job or career.

Your first step is identifying the set of skills that employers in conservation biology seek. You can do so by compiling a collection of job postings from various employers — and making a list of the key skills they seek.

Your next step is then looking into your past and present for any experiences where you may have used or mastered those skills.

Your final step is then carefully showcasing those transferable skills in your cover letters, resumes, and interviews.

I think volunteering is a much more likely option for you next summer than internships — because you are still catching up on those core science classes, but don’t rule anything out until you try. I have found that employers often interview (especially for internships and volunteer positions) candidates with diverse backgrounds because they seek a well-rounded staff.

Read more about transferable skills in this section of Quintessential Careers: Transferable Job Skills.