Generally speaking, transferable skills are skills that can be used across different work settings.  For example, identifying problems, attention to detail, and meeting deadlines, would all be transferable skills.  You have been gathering these skills, and many others and using them interchangeably in both your medical and school placements. 

Let’s explore transferable skills as it pertains to preparing your resume and talking points for upcoming interviews.  You may feel that your exposure to critical elements in a particular setting might have been limited, especially due to COVID-19, and therefore you may feel that could hold you back as you interview for jobs.  Let me give you an example of how a sample student, “Emily”, gained her pediatric clinical clock hours, how this might influence her ability to get the job she wants, and how to minimize any deficits in her interviewing or presentation of her skills.  Emily wants a CF job in a school setting.

Emily’s Clinical Experience Profile

Emily had peds diagnostics at her on campus clinic. Emily also had two externship placements working with pediatrics, one full-time at a private practice and one part-time in an elementary school.  

1. Peds Private Practice – full-time.  Emily got the majority of her pediatric clinical hours here.  She had about 25 kids on her caseload. She saw kids 1:1 for 45 minute therapy sessions primarily.  She had 2 groups of 6 preschoolers she saw for 1 hour each week for language enrichment. She wrote daily soap notes, synthesized data and documented/shared progress with the caregiver after each session.  She didn’t get to do any evaluations here as it was the responsibility of another SLP and not the one she was paired with. She gained some idea about insurance billing as well, including Medicaid. 
2. Elementary School – 2 days/wk.  Emily had about 15 kids on her caseload.  She saw students in pull-out therapy, both individually and in small groups.  She went into one inclusion classroom and saw two students for push in therapy.  She sat in on four IEP meetings. Her supervisor did all of the talking during the meetings, though.  Emily’s supervisor also had her write up 3 mock IEPs for students on her caseload so she could get some practice writing them.  The school district did do Medicaid billing, but Emily wasn’t able to participate in that because her supervising SLP did the billing while Emily was working on therapy.  The school did not have a formal RtI process, but Emily had a class in grad school which covered this topic and she completed a group project pertaining to RtI.

Emily’s concerns:

1. Emily doesn’t have experience with larger, school-based caseloads. – i.e. scheduling, grouping, planning
2. Emily didn’t get experience with school-based Medicaid billing – tracking, documenting, coding
3. Emily doesn’t think she got enough experience participating in sharing information with the parents in an IEP meeting – evaluation reports, data collection, goal writing
4. Emily is concerned that she hasn’t had enough exposure implementing Response to Intervention in the schools –doesn’t really understand the school’s framework

This is a very common situation for new graduates to find themselves in.  I want you to know that for every obstacle Emily has identified, there is an identifiable transferable skill she gained at her other settings that she will be able to incorporate and transfer to her school based setting.  

Let’s take a look at some solutions for Emily:

1. Emily can refer to her caseload of 25 students at the private practice and the 2 preschool groups she worked with.  She can draw upon specific scenarios which speak to her ability to successfully implement therapy for a longer period of time (45 min in private practice vs 20-30 min in school).  This would require Emily to have several activities to move through in the extended period of 45 minutes. She could also use the group therapy experience to discuss targeting various ability levels and goals.
2. Emily DID get experience with insurance billing at the private practice.  She is able to talk about the knowledge she gained in this setting and how she can apply it to Medicaid in the schools.
3. Emily can speak about the experience she did gain during the IEP meetings she did attend at the school.  She can give examples of what she learned during the process. She can also discuss that she shared information with caregivers after each therapy session at the private practice.  Emily could talk about the concerns parents shared with her and how she was able to address those. Having daily feedback sharing with parents and caregivers gave Emily lots of experience in talking with concerned family members. Additionally, Emily can discuss her experience in the diagnostics clinic on campus.  She can expand on any of these topics as she sees fit to highlight her skill set.
4. Emily should bring up her course experience as it pertains to RtI and ask the district how RtI is implemented in their district.  Emily may also discuss her RtI project and demonstrate she understands the framework of the process, how the district implements this, and the role of the SLP in implementation.

Take a moment and look at your own resume, your transferable skills and identify any deficit areas you are concerned about.  Once you have identified these areas of concern, connect experiences in other settings to these deficit areas by identifying transferable skills so that you are able to address any concerns a future employer may have.