What skills do you have that you could use in a totally different job?

12 comments

1. The only thing I learned to be remotely competent at is flying a plane so that’s kinda limiting tbh

2. I reckon I’d be pretty good at giving hand jobs, so there’s always that.

3. Nearly all my skills tbh. I don’t have any specific or vocational type skills. There’s nothing I’m trained on or knowledgeable about that only has use in one field of work. Pretty much all my skills are things that would be transferable to any number of different jobs.

   In some ways it’s very freeing, but in others it does make job hunting feel overwhelming sometimes, because there’s so few parameters to put on my search.

4. I work in tech but one of my passions and few things I’m good at is cooking, have often wondered if I’d be happier as a chef but I’ve heard the lifestyle can be pretty harsh too.

5. I did retail, sales and factory picking work before my current job.

   So, nothing ultimately useful really.

6. I can brew beer pretty well, I have fairly good DIY skills including plumbing and tiling, I fix my own car and do plenty of decorating, odd jobs and gardening. There are plenty of jobs I could start with a moderate level of competence but none without further training and professional qualifications.

7. I suppose my procrastination is transferable. I’ve been thinking about a change of job for a while now.

8. Any kind of middle management role in a corporate function like ‘business transformation’ …..

   Same as current role just talk bs and pretend like good results are coming from what I’m allegedly doing.

   If results are bad just spout some made up KPI that in fact says my function is doing well.

9. I work in IT, but can also fix cars and operate machine tools – I won’t go as far as to say I’m a machinist, but I’m getting there.

   But being in my 50’s, changing to either of these trades doesn’t seem likely

10. My husband is a software engineer and often remarks on how I should have gone into the field. I work in education and I can’t code, but he’ll come to me with various problems and I can conceptualise a solution to it better/faster than he can. I’m also very good at lateral thinking. For example, he’ll show me problems on leetcode, and I’m better than him at understanding the problem, explaining the solution and talking through the steps I’d take (even if I have no practical understanding of how to translate that to code). He also gives me example interview questions which I’ve been able to answer confidently, or he’s interviewed people and asked me the same questions and concluded that I’d have been better than his candidates.

    So I think what we’ve concluded is that I’d probably be able to pass an interview for a software role, and then I’d just have to teach myself to code after…

11. I’m a dentist, so I spend a lot of time cementing ceramics – perhaps tiling bathrooms wouldn’t be such a far-cry?

12. I am able to look busy whilst accomplishing absolutely nothing. A truly portable skill that has served me well for decades.