Transferable Skills for Nurses: 6 Strengths You Already Have (and How to Use Them)

Unlock your next career move with transferable skills for nurses. Discover 6 strengths you already have — and how to frame them to land non-clinical roles.

This post was first published on my Medium blog—follow me there for the most up-to-date entries!

If you’re thinking about leaving bedside care, you might wonder what you have to offer outside the hospital. The good news? You already have a wide range of transferable skills for nurses — you just may not yet know how to name or explain them.

You’re not starting over. You’re reframing what you already do well.

Before you can talk about your value to others, you must recognize it yourself. Transferable skills for nurses are the bridge between where you’re at now and where you want to go. Understanding them will help you refine your resume, tell stronger stories in interviews, network more effectively, and open doors you might not have realized were within reach.

What are transferable skills for nurses?

Transferable skills for nurses are abilities you develop in one setting which hold value in many others. They are not just technical tasks — they are real-world survival skills. You’ve built a transferable skill if you’ve:

managed a critical situation with limited information,
displayed professional communication with a demanding or condescending physician or boss, or
adapted to last-minute changes without falling apart.

No matter what field you move into, you will face tough people, tough problems, and tough decisions.

The good news? You’ve already handled them. Now you just need to frame it.

Common transferable skills for nurses

Even without knowing you, I can guess you’ve developed at least 6 transferable skills.

1. Communication

Strong communicators aren’t just good talkers — they’re skilled at listening, explaining, clarifying, and documenting. In clinical roles, communication shapes safety, trust, and outcomes. In leadership and non-traditional roles, communication becomes a bridge between ideas and action.

You demonstrate strong communication skills when you:

practice active listening (an overlooked leadership tool) — a complex skill that takes deliberate practice, sharp attention, and quick adaptation in the moment
explain complex concepts in simple terms
speak with patients, families, physicians, and other professionals
write clearly and accurately (think: documenting, writing reports or care plans)

Real-world example: Shortly after I wrote my first book in the late 1990s, a former charge nurse congratulated me and said, ‘I always knew you could write.’ When I asked how she knew, she replied, ‘Because your documentation was so good!’ Hmm. That had never occurred to me. Yet, in those days of writing copious narrative notes, clear writing wasn’t just a bonus — it was a skill that set a nurse apart.

Maybe you’ve had a similar experience and didn’t even realize it. If you’ve consistently communicated clearly in some aspect of clinical care, you already have a highly transferable skill for nurses.

Where this shows up: education, training, marketing, health tech, customer success

2. Clinical Judgment

According to the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, (NCSBN), “No aspect of nursing today is more important than developing the skill of clinical judgment.” It’s all about critical thinking and decision-making. Specifically, it’s about:

rapid assessment in high-stress situations
interpretation, often based on incomplete or conflicting data
prioritizing tasks with competing demands
anticipating complications and acting proactively

Real-world example: I was surprised when my boss wrote on my annual performance appraisal: “Marie can anticipate every eventuality.” Yet, I knew she was right. I groove on those cases where the data is subtle, incomplete, or conflicting, and somehow, I can make a judgement about what might happen around the next corner, and I take action. I honestly don’t know how I do it; it’s a gut feeling or a superpower of some kind.

In healthcare — and in business — seeing around corners is a superpower.

Think about your own experience: Have you ever predicted a problem before it happened? That’s critical thinking in action. That’s a transferable skill for nurses.

Where this shows up: operational tasks, risk management, public health, case review, policy

3. Education and teaching

Whether you’re at the bedside or behind the scenes, your ability to teach others is a critical skill. Nurses teach constantly — sometimes formally, often informally — and the impact can be immediate and lasting. Teaching isn’t just about knowledge transfer; it’s about clarity, connection, and adaptability.

You demonstrate education and teaching skills when you:

Provide clear, tailored patient education
Train new hires or mentor peers through precepting
Create or adapt materials for different learning styles

Real-world example: One boss wrote on my performance appraisal, “Marie does too much teaching.” I chuckled. Is there even such a thing? (On a mother-baby floor, patient teaching was perhaps my most important role.) Teaching isn’t just for classrooms — it is central to leadership, training, and support roles.

Have you ever stayed late to explain a procedure to a worried family? Mentored a new grad? That’s real-world teaching experience, which is a transferable skill for nurses.

Where this shows up: instructional design, health education, corporate training, advocacy

4. Leadership

Leadership isn’t a title, it’s initiative: taking responsibility, making decisions, and seeing things through. You show leadership when you:

use organizational skills and manage time well
step forward to take responsibility even when it’s not technically “your job”
initiate solutions to recurring problems no one else is solving
propose better processes based on firsthand experience
influence change by presenting practical ideas that improve outcomes
demonstrate emotional intelligence (You can get 60 new strategies from the master of emotional intelligence, Travis Bradberry, in The New Emotional Intelligence. Emotional intelligence is about managing your own stress, de-escalating conflict, building trust quickly, and supporting patients and families through trauma)

Real-world example: The hotline for breastfeeding mothers was collapsing under its own weight. Nurse educators were frustrated, working overtime, and still not meeting families’ needs. Instead of pushing harder on a broken system, I asked them to jot down the questions they got most often. With that list in hand, I asked our QI team for help, and we uncovered the six top recurring problems. My proposal? Let’s address these during the hospital stay. We updated the patient education process and dramatically cut the number of post-discharge calls — without adding more staff or time. It started with a simple ask. It ended with a sustainable solution.

Where this shows up: Leadership is the person who looks past the immediate situations and digs into the root causes. Instead of pushing harder on broken processes, they gather the facts, map out options, and initiate a strategy that not only solves today’s issue but delivers a stronger long-term outcome. Root cause. Data. Solutions. Better outcomes. That’s leadership in action.

5. Collaboration

Collaboration means more than getting along with your coworkers. It means valuing diverse roles and creating space for shared problem-solving. When departments silo themselves, patients suffer. When nurses help break those silos down, real change begins.

You demonstrate collaboration when you:

Work across departments to solve shared problems
Create space for multiple voices — especially from underheard roles
Take time to understand another team’s point of view
Suggest systems or meetings that improve communication between units

Real-world example: Postpartum, NICU, and L&D teams in our medical center were all dealing with overlapping issues — conflicting protocols, unclear discharge plans, missed opportunities for continuity of care. I started a perinatal committee that brought everyone into the same room: residents, attending physicians, dietitians, social workers, lactation consultants, bedside nurses, and more. With time, we created cross-unit agreements and better workflows. It wasn’t perfect, but we were finally talking — and patients saw the difference.

Where this shows up: Collaboration lives in every huddle, handoff, and hallway conversation. If you’ve invited others in, listened fully, and built solutions that respect multiple perspectives, you’ve collaborated by clarifying goals, noticing gaps, and making sure everyone is working from the same playbook.

6. Adaptability

Adaptability is more than flexibility. It’s the ability to think clearly, pivot quickly, and take action under pressure. In clinical practice, this might mean improvising when resources are scarce. In non-traditional roles, it’s often about adjusting to uncertainty, ambiguity, or fast-moving situations. You show adaptability when you:

remain calm and make quick decisions in unpredictable or high-stress situations
adjust your approach when circumstances shift — without losing momentum
solve problems creatively when resources are limited
step into unfamiliar roles or tasks with confidence and professionalism

Real-life example: One night, I was called to help a woman giving birth in the back seat of a car. No doctor. No daylight, and not much light at all. No time. But I was an experienced L&D nurse, so I felt confident — stayed focused — until I felt a very small head. I knew the baby was preterm.

With no equipment and no backup, I concentrated on stabilizing the mother and doing what I could to keep the baby safe and warm. Thankfully, with some aggressive medical management after reaching the hospital, the 27-weeks’ gestation baby survived and so did his mother.

That situation hinged on adaptability — thinking fast, adjusting in real time, and taking the next right step when conditions were far from ideal.

Where this shows up: Adaptability isn’t just a clinical skill — it’s essential in consulting, education, product training, and business roles. In non-traditional settings, I’ve found myself adapting in all of these situations:

Designing a training session for a new audience on short notice
Switching gears mid-presentation to address unexpected questions
Pivoting a client engagement due to changes in funding, policy, or leadership
Handling technical glitches during a live webinar with poise and clarity

How to identify your own transferable skills for nurses

Even though you’ve probably used all of the above skills, you might not recognize those as marketable skills. That’s normal. Here’s how to start uncovering them:

Review your last week of work
Look at job postings outside of nursing
Use language that crosses industries

Using transferable skills for nurses in your job search

When I interview a nurse for a job, I have no interest in hearing a rehash of her daily tasks. I already know what’s on the typical job description.

What I want to know is this: What do you bring to this job that every other qualified nurse doesn’t? It means highlighting how you think, how you adapt, and how you’ve made a difference, not just what tasks you completed.

Your transferable skills for nurses answer that question — clearly, confidently, and memorably.

Use them everywhere:

in your resume and cover letter
in LinkedIn summaries
during informational interviews
in response to ‘tell me about yourself’

You’re not making things up — you’re making them visible.

Next step: schedule a discovery call

Not sure where to start?

If you want help spotting your transferable skills for nurses and figuring out how to frame them for your next step, I invite you to schedule a free 20-minute discovery call.

You might be closer than you think — and a conversation could help you see it.

📥 Book your call now

You’ve got this

You don’t need another degree to leave the bedside. You need language. You need framing. You need to recognize the value you already bring.

Transferable skills for nurses aren’t fluff — they’re your bridge to the next chapter.

You’ve already done the work. Now it’s time to tell the story.

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