If you’ve ever found yourself wondering, “What is the best job for my skillset?” — you’re not alone.

There’s a time and place for doing a deep dive into figuring out your dream job – but this isn’t that place. Because sometimes, all we want (or need!) is to know what skills we have and where else they might apply in the job market. 

If lately, you’ve been wanting to make a change but find yourself thinking things like…

• I know I have great skills, but I’m not sure where to apply them.
• I don’t know what my transferable skills are or what industries would be a good fit.
• I’ve spent so many years in one role or industry that I’m worried I’m unqualified for anything else.

Then read on!

In this article, I’ll be walking you through how to identify the best job for your skills, from taking stock of what your transferable skills are to connecting those skills with real-world industries and jobs. 

Let’s dive in and discover how to find a new job that fits your existing skillset.

And, if you want to dive deeper than just this article, I invite you to take my FREE Quiz: What’s Blocking Your Dream Career?, where you’ll uncover what’s holding you back and how to move forward.

Step 1: Identify Your TOP TRANSFERABLE Skills

The first step to finding the best job for your skills is to assess your skillset honestly.

What are transferable skills?

Don’t get overwhelmed or overthink the term transferable here when it comes to skills. Transferable skills are any abilities or expertise that can be used across industries or jobs. Because most skills apply across different industries, transferable skills will typically make up most of the skills you possess.

How do you know what your transferable skills are?

Go through your past work experience, and for each job, write out what you would do on a typical day or week. You will also want to include the individual activities you performed for specific projects.

From there, either with a friend, the help of a professional, or an AI assistant such as ChatGPT, pull out the transferable skills you were using.

For example, let’s say your most recent role was as an Operations Manager, and this is your typical day description:

A typical day would start with reviewing emails and performance metrics, followed by team check-ins to address daily goals and challenges. Throughout the day, I would monitor workflows, solve problems, and make quick decisions to ensure smooth operations across departments. I would collaborate with teams like HR, finance, and production to align strategies, manage resources effectively, and ensure productivity. The afternoon often involved strategic planning, budgeting, and reporting to senior management. As the day ended, I would review progress, address any urgent issues, and prepare for the next day’s priorities.

Your transferable skills from this role would be:

• Collaboration
• Problem-solving
• Managing a team
• Leadership
• Strategic planning
• Budgeting
• Written communication
• Relationship management
• Reporting
• Prioritization
• Resource management
• Project management
• Crisis management
• Delegation

These skills are highly transferable across various industries and roles.

How do you pinpoint which transferable skills you should use in your job search?

You don’t want to use ALL of your skills to help you determine your next job fit — it’s likely that will make things too overwhelming and complicated. Instead, you want to narrow down the list to your top 6 skills, based on what you are the most competent in, combined with the skills you enjoy using the most. 

Make a spreadsheet with your list of transferable skills in the left column. In the first column to the right of each skill, rate on a scale of 1-10 how competent you are at that skill. In the column next to that, rate on a scale of 1-10 how much you enjoy that skill.

Those you rate the highest are the skills you should be focused on when it comes to finding a job that matches your skills. Make a note of your top 6 skills, and we’ll revisit them in step 3.

Step 2: Choose the industry where you want to apply your skills and make an impact

Once you’ve identified your top skills, it might be tempting to jump straight to asking what jobs align with those skills. However, by first identifying potential industries for your next career move, you’ll be better equipped to find the jobs best suited to you.

The goal here is to identify three potential industries.

Start by narrowing down your interests! Answer the following:

• Where do you have previous knowledge or experience?
• What type of content do you consume day-to-day, and on what topics? What podcasts, YouTube channels, blogs, books, or email newsletters do you subscribe to?
• What do you love doing, just for fun?

From here, focus on the interests in which you have the most knowledge, and find industries that align with those interests.

For example, let’s say you love all things video games. You might think, “But I don’t want to be a video game developer.” And guess what? There are *so* many other opportunities in the video game sector—as well as in almost any other area of interest.

Uncover the not-so-obvious industries related to your interests

Let me show you how to discover “hidden” industries related to your interests, continuing with the example of video games:

• Go onto LinkedIn, and in the search bar, type “video games.”
• Filter your search for “Companies” to see what types of organizations exist in the video game industry.
• You can also filter for companies in specific locations to see what’s available near you.

I did a quick search like this and found a research institute studying video games’ impact on society, a nonprofit providing video games to children experiencing homelessness, and a marketing agency specializing in video games.

As you can see, with any area of interest, there will likely be many more possibilities than we initially think of!

Identify your top three industries of interest and move on to step 3.

Don’t forget, if you want to dive deeper than just this article, take my FREE Quiz: What’s Blocking Your Dream Career?, where you’ll uncover in more detail what’s holding you back and how to move forward.

Step 3: Connect Your Skills to Real-World Jobs

What I want you to do here is a little less conventional—and a lot more helpful—than simply looking at your transferable skills and asking, “What job can I do with these?”

The old way of finding a job for your skills vs. now

Conventional wisdom teaches us that the order of finding a job that aligns with our skills should look like this:

1. Identify your transferable skills
2. Find jobs that align with those skills
3. Select an industry
4. Find companies within that industry

I suggest scrapping this old model in favor of the new model, which looks like this:

1. Identify your transferable skills
2. Select an industry
3. Find companies within that industry
4. Find jobs within those companies that align with your transferable skills

What is the step-by-step of finding real-world jobs for your skills?

This is why I now want you to:

• Go back to those three industries of interest you selected.
• Spend some time finding companies within those industries that you’re excited about.
• On the pages of those companies, look up people who work there and the various jobs they hold.
• Jot down the job titles that align most with your top transferable skills, according to your best estimation.

To further clarify this, let’s return to the example of video games.

While you might love video games as a personal interest, you might not have an interest in being a video game developer. Most people will take this to immediately mean that exploring the video game industry for their next job is pointless. But remember, ALL companies need people in ALL KINDS of roles—sales, marketing, HR, accounting, business strategy, operations, leadership development… the list goes on!

So, for this step, you would go to the company page of a video game-related organization with at least 50 employees. Let’s say you visit “Kabam,” a game development company in Vancouver, BC. Once on the company page, click on the “People” tab and scroll through the profiles of employees at Kabam. Don’t be afraid to use the search bar for efficiency, typing in keywords related to your top skills.

Identify people with job titles that likely involve your top transferable skills from Step 1. Write down the job titles that interest you most at Kabam. 

Do this at different companies of interest until you’ve identified your top 3 job titles in your top 3 industries. Now, you’ve got a list of job titles that are a fit for your skills in an industry you know about and would love to work in!

This is the information you’ll need to successfully complete the next and final step.

Step 4: Test Your Assumptions and Take Action

The final step in finding the best job for your skill set is to check your assumptions about what the jobs you listed in Step 3 actually entail.

This step will help you answer important questions, such as:

• Does this job truly align with my skill set?
• Am I qualified for this job?
• Are there jobs available, and is this a viable option in my local job market?

There are various ways to determine the answer to these questions.

Ways to determine if a job truly aligns with your skillset and if it’s viable in your local job market

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Attend local industry events and talk to people.
• Set up one-on-one conversations with people working in the types of jobs you’re interested in, in your desired industry, or at your target companies.
• Take on a volunteer or part-time role to get hands-on experience and see if a career path suits your skills.
• Follow industry leaders and join LinkedIn groups related to your career of interest.
• Check out day-in-the-life videos on YouTube or job-specific subreddits on Reddit.

Taking small steps will help you assess if a job matches your skill set. If one path doesn’t feel right, you can pivot to another without major risk.

Embrace Your Unique Career Path

Finding the best job for your skills is a journey, not a destination. It’s about experimenting, learning, and staying open to new opportunities. Remember, your career path won’t always be linear, and that’s okay.

Stay curious, keep exploring, and continue refining your understanding of what “fit” means to you.

The best job for your skills is out there—it just takes some time, effort, and reflection to find it. By identifying your top transferable skills and pinpointing where else those skills can be applied, you’re taking the first step toward new possibilities for your career.

If you’ve found this article helpful, there are a couple of next steps you can take:

1. Take my FREE Quiz: What’s Blocking Your Dream Career?, where you’ll uncover in more depth what’s holding you back and how to move forward.
2. Sign up for a complimentary, 30-minute Career Transformation Consultation, where we can explore if working together is a good fit.

Here’s to a career you love,

Rebecca