Transferable Skills: History

February 2010: All content has moved to http://drbexl.co.uk.

What do employers think of graduates with a history degree, a subject that is ordinarily viewed as non-vocational? Employers widely respect history graduates as having a valuable combination of skills. Broadly speaking, history skills include:

• research skills, including the use of information and communications technology;
• excellent communication and writing skills;
• independent work skills of self-motivation and time-management;
• high-level analysis and evaluation skills.

Studying history improves the depth and range of your personal transferable skills including:

• critical reasoning and analytical skills, including the ability to solve problems and think creatively, often through doing extensive reading;
• intellectual rigour and independence, including the ability to conduct research using different types of tools and sources, gathering, sifting, interpreting, analysing and organising information;
• marshalling an argument, including evaluating, selecting and ordering relevant evidence and formally communicating findings in a structured, coherent, clear and persuasive manner, both orally and in writing;
• self-motivation and self-reliance, with the ability to work without direct supervision and manage time effectively, but also the ability to discuss ideas in groups.

Taken from Prospects Careers