9 Assignment Guidelines: Transferable Skills Exercise

Guidelines for Transferable Skills Exercise

Part I: Conduct Transferable Skills Research & Analysis

1. Find a job posting related to your field of study that includes responsibilities for evaluating information, thinking analytically, and/or reflecting on professional practice.

1. Go to https://www.indeed.com/ (or another job site), and search for a job related to your field of study. If you are already aware of job titles in your field, you can use them as your key words, or you can use the name of your field (human services, business management, criminal justice, etc.).
2. Review the postings until you find one that a) lists the evaluation of information, analytical thinking, or reflective professional practice as needed for the job and b) lists the specific responsibilities.  Note: For the purposes of this assignment, you can consider “critical thinking” the same as “analytical thinking.”

2. Compare the skills and responsibilities in the job posting with the following list of CRIT 602 transferable skills:

• Determine the information needed.
• Evaluate information and its sources using validity criteria.
• Access and use information ethically and legally.
• Analyze concepts or evidence.
• Question assumptions.
• Identify relevant context.
• Draw logical conclusions based on information.
• Identify consequences and implications.
• Reflect on your experiences and learn from them.
• Use feedback to improve your performance.

Note: If you need more information about each transferable skill listed above, scroll down to the orange-shaded section below.

3. Confirm that one (or more) of the skills and responsibilities in the job posting aligns with one (or more) of the transferable skills on the above list.

Part II: Create a Transferable Skills Document

1. Create a document in your word processing program.

2. Copy-and-paste the job posting into your document.

3. Use the comments feature in your word processing program to annotate one (or more) of the skills and responsibilities of the job posting with one (or more) of the transferable skills from the above list. For examples and more details about this, please click on the examples in the purple box below. In Microsoft Word, for example, you can open a new document and click on the Review tab at the top to add a new comment.

Part III: Create a Discussion Post

Respond to the following scenario and attach your transferable skills document to your post.

Write a cover letter addressed to the hiring committee that focuses on transferable skills. Imagine that you are applying for the position, and the hiring committee just doesn’t get the connection between academics and employment. What specific example from either your own academic experience or a hypothetical academic experience could you provide to the committee to make this connection clear to them? Your post should discuss the connection between the job description and the transferable skills listed in Part I of this assignment.  Be thorough and specific as if you are actually preparing for an interview. The goal of the assignment is to highlight transferable skills, so the cover letter does not have to follow all of the typical conventions of an official cover letter, but should focus on making connections between academic experience and employment skills.

Part IV: Respond to at Least One Post

In your response, indicate whether your classmate makes the connection between academic skills and the skills required for the job clear enough to get an interview? If not, what revisions would you recommend to make the connection more clear? If so, what follow-up question would you anticipate that the hiring committee would ask your classmate in the interview?