SIG Career Transition: Transferable Skills: Leveraging Your Experience to Transition into Training & Development

SIG Career Transition: Transferable Skills: Leveraging Your Experience to Transition into Training & Development

Breaking into the field of Training & Development doesn’t mean starting from scratch. In this session, we’ll explore how professionals from a variety of backgrounds can identify and showcase the skills they already have to land a role in T&D. 'You'll learn how to craft a compelling resume that highlights relevant experience, and how to tell a confident and authentic story in interviews that connects your past roles to your future in L&D. Whether you’re actively job-seeking or simply exploring a career shift, this session will offer practical strategies to help you make the leap.

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify key transferable skills from previous roles that align with the core competencies of Training & Development professionals.
2. Apply strategies for positioning those skills effectively in a resume tailored to T&D roles.
3. Craft and practice an interview narrative that clearly and confidently connects their background to a future in the L&D field.

ATD Capability Model – Building Personal Capability

To learn more about this model see: https://tdcapability.org/#/

Speaker: Adrienne Blanks

With a background in education technology, learning and development (L&D), and workforce strategy, Adrienne helps organizations design and optimize their talent development programs. Her work sits at the intersection of L&D, workforce readiness, and operational strategy, ensuring that companies not only train talent effectively but also retain them for long-term success. Her experience spans both entrepreneurship and corporate workforce development.

In her current role at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), she manages education programs, learning experiences, and talent pipeline initiatives that prepare the next generation of STEM professionals.

Through her consulting work, she brings that same strategic and operational mindset to corporate L&D teams, nonprofits, and startups—helping them design effective learning programs, implement learning management systems (LMS), and build scalable talent pipelines that drive measurable business impact. Based in Houston, Texas, Adrienne regularly share insights on education technology, learning and development, the future of work, and entrepreneurship through speaking engagements, panels, and industry discussions.