Guest Author - Ogo Ogbata

I'm sure you've heard the saying 'nobody's perfect' and it's true... we all make mistakes from time to time. However, if you're a computer professional who's serious about your career, there's one blunder you really can't afford to make - and that's failing to develop transferable skills.

So what are transferable skills? As the name suggests, transferable skills are those abilities or expertise that are useful in a wide variety of career opportunities. Knowledge of a complex programming language is a job specific skill, an expertise that is only useful for the performance of a specific job role, whereas sales and customer service skills are generally in demand. Transferable skills can be acquired at work and at play; through formal learning or practical experience. Highly coveted transferable skills are organisational skills, people skills and communication skills.

So many computer professionals take their transferable skills for granted. Sandra, a software programmer and mother of two young children aged 3 and 5 makes use of organisational and multi-tasking skills on a daily basis. However, when Sandra applied for a senior position at the LLC, her resume did not highlight those precious skills. "I didn't get the interview because allegedly someone else had better experience." She said, "I failed to realise that everyday tasks like planning family events, de-cluttering the basement or teaching the kids about different types of vegetables whilst cooking dinner, requires tons of organisational and multi-tasking skills. I kind of looked down on those skills because they weren't necessarily job related skills. In hindsight they might have given my resume a boost..."

The good news is that employers find transferable skills attractive whether they are job related or not. As a matter of fact, computer professionals who include relevant extra curricular activities on their resume tend to shatter the geeky stereotype and stand out from the crowd. Personally, when I conduct interviews, I tend to look for more than just competence - equally important are passion, amiability, versatility (which is a great indicator of adaptability) and bags of personality.

What transferable skills have you got? What are you passionate about outside of work? Take time to think about these. Write them down and begin to refine those skills through study and practice. By so doing, you will increase your career options considerably.