Employers care most about your responsibilities and accomplishments that are related to the job opening. So for data entry jobs, employers will want to know your keyboarding speed and accuracy. The best way to highlight jobs that are not in this field is to draw out your transferable skills. For example, cashier work at McDonalds requires fast order entry at the register, so if you learned the system quickly and were fast and accurate, you can emphasize that on your resume. I' m pasting an article that might help you identify transferable skills for your new goal. Wishing you good luck finding a new position!

When Changing Careers, Highlight Transferable Skills

A huge challenge career changers face is preparing a winning resume. After all, it' s arduous enough when you have ample related experience. Writing this crucial document becomes even more painstaking when you' re looking to take a completely new career direction.

Your saving grace: Transferable skills.

What Are Transferable Skills?

Career expert Richard Nelson Bolles pioneered the idea of transferable skills in his perennial best-seller What Color Is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers. According to Bolles, we are all born with skills we take from job to job. These transferable skills can be broken down into three categories: people (communicating, teaching, coaching and supervising), data (record keeping, researching, translating and compiling data), and things (operating computers/equipment, assembling and repairing).

If you take the time to identify your transferable skills, you can convince employers that you have the core skills necessary to excel in your new career choice.

Where to Find Transferable Skills

• Job Ads: Search for your target job on Monster.ca, and review the skills it requires. You may not possess all of them, but look for skills that are somehow related to those you developed via another career, hobby or educational pursuit. For example, a teacher transitioning to sales might find that presentation, organizational and interpersonal skills are desirable for salespeople. She could then highlight her experience giving daily group presentations, creating and launching educational programs, and building team morale. All of these are examples of transferable skills you may overlook, because they come easily to you.
• Occupational Information Network (O*NET): The site provides a keyword search tool that lists job skills based on career field. Search the list for those of your skills you can transfer to your new industry, and check out this list of all-purpose skills.
• Industry Networking: Speak with workers in your desired field, read trade publications, study employer Web sites, network at industry events and connect with industry associations to learn which skills are important. Once you have a good understanding of desirable skills, you' ll know which ones to emphasize.

Identify Your Transferable Skills

Career coach Christine Edick works closely with her career-change clients to identify transferable skills. In one exercise, she asks them to create a chart of old job skills, new job skills and transferable skills. "Most clients find that they have at least 50 percent of transferable skills needed for their new job," she says.

Emphasize Your Transferable Skills

Demonstrate you' re qualified for your career change by prominently displaying your transferable skills on your resume. "Showcasing transferable skills up front helps the human reader see the keywords they are looking for, and then they can look to other parts of the resume for more details," Edick says.

Your transferable skills may be included as a key skills list within your qualifications summary. You can lead with a statement like, "Highlights of my related skills include:" followed by a bulleted list of your transferable skills. When creating your Monster resume, you can use the skills section of the Monster Resume Builder to list skills.

Back up your transferable skills by including examples of how you successfully used the skills in another career field or other experience. Edick uses the CAR (challenge, actions, results) approach by asking her clients