Work life isn’t always a straight path from job to job. Sometimes, there are stops, starts, and unexpected turns--which can make selling your skills challenging. Think of people like stay-at-home parents who are returning to the job market. New graduates with no experience. Older workers who’ve retired or been laid off, and want back in. Anyone who switches careers. Or recent immigrants who lack Canadian work experience.

How do you package your skills to make yourself more attractive to potential employers – or even identify those skills?

Consider All Your Life Experiences

If you have workplace experience and "hard" skills that relate to a job you’re pursuing, great. But think more broadly. Review the skills or talents you’ve developed outside the workforce, and determine which could appeal to that employer.

Ever volunteer for a charitable or community organization? If so, what skills did you put to use for them? If you headed a committee, maybe you honed your organizational skills. Do any fundraising or budgeting? That could translate into financial skills that are useful on the job.

If you’re a student looking for your first job, think of what skills you’ve learned through extracurricular activities and clubs that you can transfer to the workplace. Serving on the student council, for instance, demonstrates leadership, while being a member of a school team or band indicates your sense of teamwork.

Stay-at-home moms, too, typically have many transferable skills--everything from coordinating an event at your child’s school (organizational skills), to coaching a kids’ soccer team (leadership skills). Even the qualities developed inside the home can have value to an employer.

"Mothers come to my office and say they have nothing to offer – but think of all the skills moms have, such as planning, leadership and human relations," says Ross Young, an employment counsellor with the Winnipeg Transition Centre. "People have blind spots about their skills." 

Stay Current

Whether you’re currently in the workplace or trying to get your foot in the door, learn what employers are seeking in your field and upgrade your skills and knowledge as required, says Patrick Sullivan, president of the job website Workopolis.

Getting up-to-date, he says, could be a matter of ensuring your computer literacy or taking a course to learn the latest techniques in a particular field.

Sullivan says it’s a good idea to talk to associations related to your area of interest, to research the current qualifications for the field, and to assess if you have them. Besides a course, one way to get up to speed on a particular skill (for free) is to practice it through volunteer work with a community or non-profit organization.