Translatable Skills Map
Translate underlying capabilities across roles instead of matching job titles
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 96%
The Translatable Skills Map looks beneath job titles and industries to compare the actions that produce results. First, decompose the target role into capabilities such as researching prospects, building a case, making an ask, stewarding a relationship, following up, or understanding an offering. Then inventory where you have performed equivalent actions across paid jobs, volunteering, community work, places of worship, or family responsibilities. Match the underlying action and evidence, even when the surface setting differs. Otting distinguishes this from a direct transfer, such as moving from one sales job to another: translation shows how fundraising or PTA leadership can supply many of the same capabilities required in sales. The final task is to connect those dots explicitly so an employer does not have to infer the relevance.
Origin
Otting explains the model through sales, nonprofit fundraising, and a stay-at-home parent whose decade of PTA fundraising and volunteer organization can translate into a sales role.
Core principles
- 01A skill can translate even when a job title does not transfer
- 02Underlying actions matter more than surface context
- 03Unpaid work can build commercially useful capability
- 04Career changers must connect the dots for other people
How to run it
- 1
Decompose the target
List the recurring actions, decisions, and relationships that make someone effective in the target role.
Pro tip Use job descriptions and conversations with practitioners to identify real work beneath broad labels.
Watch out Do not reduce the role to generic traits such as being hardworking.
- 2
Inventory every context
Review paid work, volunteering, community service, family responsibilities, and other settings for relevant capabilities.
Pro tip Look for repeated responsibility, not only formal titles.
Watch out Do not dismiss unpaid experience before analyzing what it required.
- 3
Match underlying actions
Connect prior actions to equivalent target actions, such as donor research to prospect research or fundraising asks to sales asks.
Pro tip Build a simple source-to-target table for each capability.
Watch out Similarity of language is weaker than similarity of actual work.
- 4
Attach outcome evidence
Add concrete scope, results, frequency, or stakeholder evidence to show that each capability was genuinely practiced.
Pro tip Use numbers when the transcript or your records support them.
Watch out Never inflate informal experience into work you did not perform.
- 5
Tell the translation
Explain how the prior action prepares you for the target task rather than expecting a recruiter or client to connect the dots.
Pro tip Use one concise source-action-result-target sentence per major skill.
Watch out Do not claim translated experience removes every onboarding or technical gap.
In the wild
A parent who has spent ten years raising money for a PTA has researched prospects, built a case, made pitches, organized volunteers, and stewarded supporters. Although the work was unpaid and did not carry a sales title, its underlying actions align with a commercial sales process.
→ The parent can present substantial relevant capability instead of assuming they must restart at the lowest level.
A nonprofit fundraiser maps donor research, mission understanding, timing an ask, and donor stewardship to prospect research, product understanding, closing, and account follow-up in a sales role.
→ The candidate demonstrates a credible capability match across different surface contexts.
Common mistakes
Matching titles instead of actions
A literal title comparison hides capabilities that operate under different names in another field.
Ignoring unpaid experience
Volunteer and family responsibilities can contain substantial practice that disappears from a paid-work-only inventory.
Leaving the translation implicit
Decision-makers may not recognize relevance unless the candidate clearly connects the prior action to the target requirement.
Is it for you?
Best for
Career changers, returners, volunteers, and candidates whose strongest evidence comes from an adjacent context.
Not ideal for
Regulated or highly technical roles where translated capability cannot replace mandatory credentials or direct technical practice.
From the transcript
“how does column A translate into possibly column b or column C or column D”
“what other skills do I have from outside of my paid work”
“those skills while they're not directly transferable they translate into the same sort of work that she could be doing”
From the episode
Episode 271: Laura Gassner Otting: Why Success Doesn't Feel Like It Should + What to Do About It
Laura Gassner Otting