Many IT leaders struggle to find the right talent for open positions, especially when new technologies appear. Yet often, tech employees already working in the organization have valuable, transferable skills, such as problem-solving, analytical thinking, project management,, the ability to communicate effectively, and even needed technical skills.
These overlooked skills — many of them so-called “soft skills” — can help workers adapt to new tools, learn unfamiliar programming languages, or manage complex projects. By recognizing and developing these skills, IT leaders can fill gaps in their teams while helping employees advance their careers.
IT managers can more easily spot transferable skills if they take a deliberate approach to skills-building. Rather than focusing solely on day-to-day routine work, they should think about broader skills that can help employees succeed in different roles and with new technologies, according to Jill Stefaniak, chief learning officer at Litmos.
Those key transferable skills include coding logic, problem-solving, data analysis, project management, and communication abilities — skills that are particularly valuable as technology continues to evolve rapidly, Stefaniak said.
[ Related: Balancing hard and soft skills: the key to high-performing IT teams ]
To help move a tech employee into a new position, an IT manager should evaluate the employee’s skills, focusing on ones that can easily transfer, such as critical and analytical thinking, data interpretation, or familiarity with automation and control systems, said George Fironov, co-founder and CEO of Talmatic, a concierge hiring service for developers.
“A developer skilled in one language will be able to pick up another quickly if solid training in logical thinking, algorithms, and design patterns goes into that first language,” he said.
Computerworld spoke to IT leaders at five companies that have created successful pipelines for tapping into internal tech talent. Here are the different approaches they take to find and develop skilled tech employees who thrive in new roles.
Redgate Software: Taking a personal, manager-led approach
For Chris Smith, director of engineering at Redgate Software, the most valuable transferable skills include a strong eagerness to learn, empathy for customers, solid business understanding, effective collaboration and communication, and the flexibility to adapt technically when needed.
Smith identifies transferable skills within his teams using a personal approach led by managers, instead of using formal tools such as skills charts or tests. Smith, who’s responsible for the delivery side of Redgate’s technology and software division, said his managers stay closely connected to their team members, which helps them understand what each person can do and what they’re capable of learning.
“Managers have a close understanding of their team members’ skills through regular one-on-one meetings,” Smith said. “And then from there I collate with the insights from all our managers where people with certain technical skills are, where our gaps are in the organization, where our strengths are, and where we might be able to use them in the future.”
Smith also conducts quarterly mini-reviews to look at each team member’s skills and determine which of those skills they might want to develop.
“We also run an annual survey around skills that our folks fill in,” he said. “So they share where they’ve got skills and where they’ve got gaps.”
While he doesn’t analyze this survey at an individual level, Smith said, it helps leadership see the overall skills across the IT organization.
Smith shared an example of a long-term employee who successfully transitioned through multiple roles by leveraging transferable skills.
The employee originally started in the product support team, a technical role that required detailed knowledge of Redgate’s products and a deep understanding of customer problems. From the product support role, the employee first moved to a test engineer position. This transition was facilitated by the employee’s technical insight, knowledge about customers, and attention to detail.
In the test engineer role, the employee developed an interest in automated testing, which served as a pathway to coding skills. The employee then transitioned into a software engineer role, moving beyond testing into full software development.
Through Redgate’s re-teaming process, the worker subsequently moved to a team handling internal systems, where they worked on a Salesforce migration. Leveraging their technical background and understanding of product processes, the employee successfully became a Salesforce engineer, working with technologies such as Apex and Flow.
Lexmark: Combining formal evaluations with casual observations
For Sudhir Mehta, global vice president, Optra products and engineering at Lexmark, transferable skills include “a growth mindset, the willingness to learn new tools, frameworks, and methodologies.”
Mehta said he uses a multi-faceted approach to identify these transferable skills within his team members. “This approach includes a mix of formal and informal methods, starting with regular performance evaluations, one-on-one meetings, and day-to-day job-related observations,” he said.
Engineering team members can also demonstrate their abilities through Focus to Future events, which give engineers the chance to step outside their usual roles, Mehta said. As they team up, brainstorm, and build quick prototypes, managers can see who shows strengths in areas such as leadership, problem-solving, communication, and creative thinking. These events help managers notice skills their engineers don’t usually get to show, making it easier to see who might be ready to take on new roles or bigger challenges.
Mehta provided an example of an IT developer who successfully transitioned from working on ERP applications to a data engineering role at Lexmark. The developer possessed a strong technical background and demonstrated excellent problem-solving skills, which made him an ideal candidate for a new position leading data engineering efforts for an IoT platform solution.
As part of his transition, he participated in Lexmark’s AI Academy to further develop his skills and capabilities. In his new role, the developer implemented innovative solutions that had a significant impact on the company’s operations.
He created automation for data pipelines and developed a lakehouse framework that dramatically improved efficiency. The results were impressive: the new approach reduced data orchestration costs by over 65% and decreased deployment and operations costs by more than 50%, Mehta said.
HireVue: Employing structured, standardized assessments for objectivity
Nathan Mondragon, chief innovation officer at HireVue, highlighted critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, communication, and teamwork as the key transferable skills he looks for in his tech employees.
To identify these transferable skills within his team members, Mondragon emphasized the importance of a structured and standardized approach.
“We find the more structure and standardization you can put into that identification, the better off it is,” said Mondragon, who manages a startup team at HireVue that consists of workers from science, product, data, and engineering groups. “So [structured] performance reviews are good.”
Mondragon said that traditional performance reviews can be subjective, with different managers interpreting transferable skills such as teamwork differently. Instead, he recommended implementing quantitative assessment methods that objectively measure soft skills and cognitive abilities.
One of these methods is AI-based skills validation through interview assessments that test cognitive abilities such as decision-making, problem-solving, and creative thinking. AI-based assessments analyze interview responses to identify skills and behaviors based on best practices in structured interviewing, according to Mondragon.
“The questions are designed to draw out specific skills and behaviors,” he said. “The AI analyzes what somebody says in their answer to look for those types of answers that show they’re demonstrating that skill.”
Although this approach is primarily used for pre-hire assessments, Mondragon said it can also be used to identify transferable skills in current tech employees.
Additionally, Mondragon said he uses a traditional question-and-answer situational simulation-type approach to identify transferable skills in his tech talent.
“You present a scenario or a situation and ask how somebody would respond,” he said. “And those sorts of types of setups in Q&A format are a really good approach to looking at how somebody would interact with others and the types of decisions they would make. For example, do they analyze the data to make decisions?”
By using these structured techniques, organizations can more effectively identify an employee’s problem-solving abilities, communication skills, adaptability, and potential for learning new technologies or transitioning into different roles, according to Mondragon. The goal is to move beyond subjective evaluations and create a more objective framework that clearly identifies and leverages the transferable skills that tech employees bring to their teams.
Criteria: Using real-work observations and AI-powered feedback
When looking to uncover transferable IT skills, Chris Daden, chief technology officer at Criteria Corp., pays the most attention to problem-solving, communication, and analytical thinking.
“I believe that they’re just as critical as coding or security knowledge,” he said. “And I think, for example, a security analyst’s attention to detail can translate very well to a DevOps skill set, and a help desk technician’s troubleshooting mindset can help that person transition into cybersecurity.”
Trying to identify transferable skills through traditional methods such as performance reviews doesn’t always reveal the full range of an employee’s skills, especially in IT, Daden said.
“I find the best way to identify transferable skills is through real work, such as project observations, mentorship, and data-driven assessments,” he said.
Additionally, Daden said, he uses AI-powered assessments that look at skills in more flexible ways, such as by analyzing interview transcripts or conversation notes, and use smart rating tools to fairly measure an employee’s potential. These methods help to show an employee’s true potential — not just what they already know or have done.
At Criteria, Daden uses a an AI bot named Coach Bo, which engages employees in weekly conversations. This bot is programmed with each employee’s personality and skills profile and can understand unstructured feedback, helping to spot transferable skills, areas for upskilling, and possible career growth paths.
By collecting and analyzing these ongoing interactions, the company can gain insights into employees’ critical thinking, problem-solving abilities, and adaptability across different roles, according to Daden.
Mphasis: Identifying transferable skills through observation, not just metrics
The qualities Srikumar Ramanathan, chief solutions officer at Mphasis, seeks in his IT team members are a strong curiosity or desire to learn, along with solid problem-solving and analytical thinking abilities.
Ramanathan pointed out that these skills are essential in today’s fast-changing technological environment, where staying relevant means constantly learning and adapting.
“[The desire to learn] is important because things are changing so fast that if you stop learning, you become irrelevant,” he said. “The second is, of course, problem-solving and analytical thinking. These are probably the most critical skills that one needs.”
Ramanathan finds formal skills evaluation methods such as performance appraisals inadequate. “Performance reviews are a lag indicator. They reflect what results have been achieved”rather than current capabilities, he said.
To truly identify key transferable skills, Ramanathan relies more on direct, day-to-day observation — watching how team members approach challenges, adapt to new developments, and contribute during meetings and projects. He noted that this real-time insight offers a more accurate picture of an individual’s learning mindset and problem-solving approach.
“[I look at] their approaches to addressing problems or opportunities. How do they go about it? How do they adapt to new things coming on board? These are things that one has to observe on a day-to-day basis,” he said.
