In this economy. Does it make sense for a recruiter to consider --Transferable skills????

It is part of my role to influence hiring managers to think out of the box. Many times, that means educating those hiring managers how to read a resume, what questions help uncover hidden talents, and Identifying potential vs. experience in an applicant. This prompted me to inquire to all of you----Are hard skills really transferable? I know that we all need leaders, and that is a skill that is transferable, as is future-thinking, and communications. However, what about the professional industry skills. Would you hire a PhD certified researcher as a Surgeon? No, we wouldn't not without commercial actual experience. So is it true -----that there are simply skills in each industry or profession that are not transferable from one industry to another?

Are skills truly transferable?
Technical recruiting we are often faced with tons of applicants that don't meet the basic qualifications. These range from IT folks that want to go into Software Development, and those Project leaders that feel like they have the skills to code. I still look through all those resumes, and in times like these it takes an awful lot of time. So I began wondering....Should we ever consider transferable skills?

Is it a wise choice of our time? If it wasn't for someone believing that I had some transferable skills, I would never have entered technical recruiting. After all, I was a marketing and advertising recruiter--what did I know about C++???? So I have firmly made an effort to look at all Talent, and assess the skills that are crucial to making positive change, learning, and leading. However, as of late I'm beginning to question if I should be doing this.

Most of the roles I recruit for have qualifications that aren't soft skills, they are often hard skills that need recent commercial and educational exposure in a particular industry. i.e., Financial Services have great technical talent, but often--most concentrate on desktop apps, and outsource or purchase software. Therefore, there is a slight chance an application developer for a financial service background has experienced a full cycle of development and can produce from scratch top software. However, I still look for those development skills, and if they meet the programming essentials I call them and ask the questions. You never know is my attitude! My challenge becomes identifying what is a known technical competency vs what is a transferable skill.

However, when you have critical qualifications, it is often hard to sell a candidate that may have those qualifications, but does not exemplify them in day to day commercial experience. Few managers will buy the transferable skills, but occassionally there is one that will be willing to speak to that candidate. In this economy. Does it make sense for a recruiter to consider --Transferable skills????