.png)
Mandy Bancroft, expert insurance and claims recruiter, shares her advice on the transferable skills which will help candidates in their search for a new claims job
A career in claims demands a unique blend of skills – sharp analytical thinking, unwavering attention to detail, and a touch of human empathy. So, if you thrive on unravelling complexities and advocating for others, finding a claims job could be the perfect next career step for you.
If you are looking to take the first step in your claims career, maybe as you begin your employment journey or as a change in career direction, it's likely that you'll already have an array of transferable skills which will help you to be successful in your new claims role.
While certain qualifications and experience might be a bonus on the journey to securing a claims job, it's entirely possible to secure a role with no direct experience, as long as you can demonstrate a range of transferable skills which you have built up in your work or academic history.
Find out everything you need to know about a career as a Claims Handler in our Claims Handler Career Guide!
What are transferable skills?
Transferable skills encompass the specific knowledge and expertise that people acquire through education or work experience. It’s possible to then apply these skills and use them in another role, profession, department, industry or work setting.
Both hard (or technical) and soft skills can be transferable.
Hard transferable skills are more technical abilities which you learn or pick up through applied practise. These might include computer programming, data analysis, or fluency in a foreign language.
Soft transferable skills are those that often come naturally to people, such as empathy or communication. That said, these skills can also be honed with practise. Other soft skills include dependability, time keeping, problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, and leadership.
What transferable skills are beneficial for a claims career?
Claims handling requires a unique blend of technical and soft skills. The good news is many of these valuable skills are transferable, meaning you can leverage experience from other fields to excel in this career. Here are some key transferable skills to highlight in your application or interview:
Communication
This involves speaking and writing effectively and persuasively. It requires listening skills, focusing on what another person is saying and probing for more information to make sure you fully understand what the person is saying.
These skills also encompass the ability to foster interaction among team members and create an atmosphere of cooperation and collaboration among people. A person with good communication skills can facilitate discussion, give useful feedback, negotiate succinctly, explain coherently and interview effectively.
Those with experience in client-facing roles such as sales representatives or customer service agents often have a high level of communication ability.
Creativity
This is the ability to see patterns and make connections that often elude others. Creative people can see things from different perspectives and use their imagination to solve problems. They can bring together disparate ideas and thoughts to help them, while finding fresh new approaches to carrying out tasks.
Any role where problem solving is a daily task helps to build your creative thinking skill. This could include complaints handling, customer services, sales, analysts, and more.
Reliability
Dependability is the quality of being reliable and trustworthy. In the workplace, being dependable allows people to trust that you can do what you say you're going to do correctly and in a timely fashion.
The skill combines punctuality, accuracy, responsibility, time management and organisation. As a result of demonstrating this skill, your employer and team members can continuously trust you with similar tasks in the future since they know you can accomplish the necessary goals.
Reliability can be honed and demonstrated in any workplace. To highlight this on a CV or in an interview, draw upon examples of when you have been relied on by your colleagues or manager, when people have expected something from you and you have delivered (or even better, exceed expectations!)
Empathy
Empathy is understanding another person's feelings, thoughts, ideas and background in a given situation. It involves actively listening to others, considering an issue or situation from another person's perspective and respecting differing viewpoints.
This quality is important in resolving conflicts, building more productive and diverse teams and improving relationships with team members and customers or clients.
Client-facing and service-oriented roles provide plenty of opportunity to debelop empathy skills, such as counselling, social work, customer services, and healthcare.
Adaptability
Employers understand that business strategies are ever changing. For this reason, employees must be able to adapt to changes, learn new skills and ensure that work is done efficiently, even as demands increase. Employees can also use their adaptability skills to complete different projects, work with new team members and cope with changing leadership.
Many jobs offer the opportunity to develop and demonstrate your adaptability. Being adaptable could include learning a new software system quickly to optimise your workflow, restructuring your workload and adapting your schedule to meet urgent deadlines, staying calm and flexible when unexpected tasks or priorities emerge, or volunteering for challenging projects outside your comfort zone to expand your skillset.
If you’re looking for a claims job, whether that be the next step in your claims career or if you're just starting out in the field, get in touch with our team to discuss your options.
RELATED ARTICLES
MERJE Markets: Catch up with Mandy Bancroft
