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Highlights of the week:
For more career opportunities from various industries, please
access Career Axis. Dear Students, What are transferrable skills? These are skills you acquire that
can be transferred from one job role to another, like project management,
presentation, reporting and analytical skills to name a few. You will find yourself accumulating and honing these skills
throughout your life, be it from academic studies, sports training, or
participating in clubs and volunteer activities. For instance, when you have
completed an individual assignment or project, you are likely to have
acquired research, analytical and presentation skills, while after
volunteering for social causes, you would have acquired social, coordination,
and interactive skills. With repeated practice and exposure to different
environments, we can then apply the skills we have acquired at another
environment. As you are pursuing your undergraduate or postgraduate programme
right now, have you ever felt that whatever you are studying may not be an
area you can envision yourself working on a full-time basis after graduation?
Or perhaps you have understood more about yourself and discovered you might
be good in something else, or even found your interest/passion and would want
to pursue it? Let me assure you that you are definitely not
alone as many students (and even working adults) have at some point
experienced this. Throughout our lives, we will continue to experience events
that will impact and affect us, shifting our perspectives, mentality
and priorities at the time. This could stem from lifechanging or significant
events which alter our life stage such as further studies, marriage, the
birth of a child, death of a loved one, or even external macro-economic
variables such as recession and war. So, with all that uncertainty, what can you do? Acquire as many
transferrable skills as possible by upskilling beyond your curriculum. Be
open-minded and attempt different part-time jobs or short-term internships.
Often, it is through on-the-job trainings and internship experiences that
allow you to have a better understanding of the role(s) available in the
market, where your interest lies, and how different working environments and
company cultures are like. These opportunities also allow you to venture
outside your course of studies. A fruitful internship experience could well become your first full-time
employment after graduation. As featured in “Undergraduates in Singapore turn
internships into full-time jobs” (The Straits Times, 25 Jan 2023), one
of Nanyang Business School accounting graduates interned at three companies
and were offered two full-time jobs offers. She eventually settled for a
management trainee role at Nestle that allowed her to branch into marketing,
which turned out to be her passion. Indeed, the significance of internships
should not be underestimated. In a recent article, “askST
Jobs: How important is prior internship experience?” (The Straits Times, 3
Apr 2023), Mr Bryan Lee, General Manager at talent recruitment and matching
platform Glints shared that, “Whether you had an internship or not is no
longer the question. The questions (employers ask) today are: ‘How many
internships and where?’” Ultimately, the key is to identify and equip yourself with the
transferrable skills that are relevant and sought-after for the role you are
in or intend to embark on. Concurrently, work on the skills gaps that will improve
your employability. Always adopt a growth mindset and practise lifelong
learning, as it is through active recognition and acquisition of
transferrable skills that will allow you to stay relevant for your current
role and provide you with that boost of confidence even as you move on to
other new roles. Interested to learn more about building a
career in any of the following industries? Simply join my interest groups in
table below with priority access to career opportunities and events or click here to book an
appointment with me directly.
This week’s e-blast is
jointly prepared by:
Frederick Khoo frederick.khoo@ntu.edu.sg Accounting & Audit
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