Season 02 Episode 05: Identifying skills

Recovering Academic

You always hear about transferable skills—and how PhDs have them. But how do you identify them? How do you know what skills to develop? In this episode, we discuss how you can identify them and how to develop them.

What’s Your Super Power?

All of us have a tendency to discount things that we find easy. Is it easy for you to pick out grammatical errors? Is it easy for you to develop your own voice in writing? Is it easy for you to connect with anyone? All of those (and many more!) are skills that are transferable.

Also, skills are environment dependent. Skills that you may have developed outside of your current career might be applicable in your next career.

Mentioned in This Episode*

The Turnaround with Jesse Thorn: Ira Glass – Discussion of identifying skills

Synesthesia – Super powers

The Greatest General Ever – You have to be in the proper setting to fully use your skills.

Do you know what’s your dream job? Try the Flower Exercise! – Doctor PMS’s blog about the Flower Exercise

What Color is Your Parachute? – Book about identifying your skills and what career would suit you

So Good They Can’t Ignore You – The opposite approach to the above book

* I couldn’t find the twitter thread where someone was translating academic skills to resume speak/transferrable skills. If anyone has the link, please send it to us! (Comment here or send us a tweet @RecoveringAcad)