Create A Strong Skills Section In 4 Simple Steps
Step 1: The first step to a strong skills section starts with research. Read the companys job post carefully to identify the skills that are in demand. Write these down. Next, identify which of these skills you possess and write them down. Add six-to-eight of these soft and hard skills that best describe your ethics and work performance to your resume.
Step 2: Decide which resume format best highlights your skills. There are three main types of resumes, the chronological, combination or hybrid and functional. Each has a distinct way of highlighting the skills section.
For instance, a functional resume is the most skills-focused format. This type of resume showcases skills over experience. Its ideal for candidates who lack work experience because it draws attention to skill sets rather than your work history. In this format, you will include a brief summary or statement under each skill. Choose three-to-four relevant skills as subheadings, add a summary of achievements that validate each skill below
Chronological resumes, on the other hand, focus mainly on work experience. This format shows a clear timeline of your work history starting with the most recent job and working backward. The skills section on this type of resume goes on a separate section below and is just a brief list. Organize your skills as a master list of six-to-eight hard, soft, and technical skills. To help you decide which skills to include, refer to Step 1.
An example of a professional summary:
What Is A Resume Skills Section
The skills section of a resume is your opportunity to showcase how well you match the job. In this portion of your resume, you can boast about why you would make a great candidate by aligning your characteristics with the job description. It’s always best to review the job description of the position you’re applying for and look at the types of qualifications the position is looking for. The skills section can list both hard and soft skills. Whatever you plan on listing in this section, make sure it’s truthful.
Leadership And Management Skills
If you’re applying for a management position, it’s important to let the employer know what skills you have that enable you to lead a team. Some key leadership or management skills to list on your resume include strong negotiation, delegation, decision-making, and motivational skills. While it may seem obvious, in addition to simply listing management and leadership skills on your resume, give examples that show your skills as well.
Recommended Reading: Beginners Actors Resume
What Not To Do When Writing Skills For Your Resume
Now that you know what you should do when listing the skills on your resume, lets cover a few important points on what you might want to avoid doing. As in any first impression, its important to make sure that you dont come on too strong.
Here are three things to avoid including in your skills section:
- Dont list the entire dictionary: While you really might have a long list of skills that are relevant to the position, be careful not to overwhelm recruiters and hiring managers with your list. Stick to your most important skills and the ones specifically noted in the job description. Otherwise, you might find yourself with a 5-page resume that will never even be read.
- Dont brag: No one likes a bragger. Not in person, or in writing. Be careful to stick to the facts, and resist the urge to overembellish or even worse lie about your qualifications.
- But dont undersell yourself, either: Being too humble can actually hurt you when applying for jobs. They dont know what your experience is if you dont share facts about your achievements and knowledge with them! Dont be afraid to let the hiring manager know that you are the right candidate for the role.
Types Of Skills For A Resume
There are two categories of good skills for a resume: hard and soft skills. Both need to shine.
Hard skills are skills learned through experience or education and generally produce measurable results. For example, hard skills for an accountant could include cash management, financial analysis, and financial reporting.
Soft skills, on the other hand, are more like personality traits and characteristics that determine your work style. Think communication skills, emotional intelligence, problem-solving skills, the ability to work in a team, and initiative.
You might think employers are focused only on job-related hard skills, but soft skills are equallyif not moreessential. Soft skills routinely top lists of attributes employers seek on applicant resumes.
Both hard and soft skills should be included on a resume, as both types are highly valued in all industries.
Recommended Reading: Emailing Resume To Recruiter
How To Include Seo/sem Marketing In Your Resume
Heres a resume sample by Enhancv that highlights all the right skill-sets and keywords to help you land a job in the SEO/SEM domain:
Here are a few keywords that can help you stand out in the crowd:
1. Conducted SEO Audits.
- Its an essential skill for SEO marketers. Here, make sure to mention how you conducted SEO audits for various websites.
2. SEO Experience in Years.
- Mention your work experience in SEO/SEM marketing.
3. Performed SEO Link Building.
- Briefly mention how you performed the SEO link-building tasks.
- Highlight the numbers associated with your link building efforts.
- Mention the strength of the team you led/were a part of.
4. Achieved an Increase in Traffic And Visibility.
- Explain how you helped increase traffic, visibility, and leads.
- Mention the exact increase percentage.
- You can also mention the improvement in keyword rankings.
5. Proficiency in Tools.
What Are Technical Or Hard Skills On Your Resume
When listing hard skills on your resume, include specific proficiencies and certifications. Front-end web developers, for instance, would report their level of expertise in HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and other technologies the company lists in its job posting. A financial controller, meanwhile, might claim a strong foundation in GAAP or SEC reporting, and an administrative professionals resume skills could advertise a CAP or MOS certification.
Here are some hard resume skills for 15 in-demand fields:
Also Check: Is A Two Page Resume Bad
Who Should Use One
If you have a limited work history, or the history you do have isnt directly related to the job youre applying for, a skills-based resume may be the best way for you to showcase what you can bring to the position.
If any of the following describe you, a skills-based resume may be a great option:
- You have several short-term positions, internships, or temporary assignments, rather than long-term work history.
- There are significant gaps in your work history, typically a year or more.
- Youre trying to change careers or industries and your past work job titles dont relate.
- You want to make your hobby or passion your full time job and all of your relative experience has come from volunteering or work on your own time .
- Youre newly embarking on your career and you dont have a large amount of work experience .
- Your positions are similar in nature and listing each out individually feels redundant.
List All The Skills You Know You Have
Create a master list of all the skills you know you have acquired through your life, both hard and soft skills. Think about the things you learned and excelled at in school, the activities you did after school , and the experience you have gained at the various jobs you have done.
Other ways to identify your skills include:
- Considering any awards and achievements you have received and the skills you used to gain them.
- Asking former colleagues and mentors for help.
- Reaching out to professionals in the field for advice.
If you are still learning a particular skill , it is not necessary to list it.
You May Like: Volunteer Work Examples For Resume
Best Skills To List On A Resume: Show Your Strengths
-
When crafting your resume, there are three important sections to keep in mind. They are your objective, your professional background, and your relatable skills. In an age where we scan virtually everything before deciding if a deeper dive is worth our time, featuring your job skills is very wise indeed.
Which skills should you focus on? Read on to explore the best skills to list on a resume, along with a few samples that will help you start building your future today.
Ways To List Skill Levels On A Resume
Some people use numbers and bar graphs to list their skill levels on a resume, but this can be slightly ambiguous. For example, if youre using a 10-point scale to rate your skills, it isnt immediately clear what seven represents. You may assume it indicates that youre proficient. Still, an employer might believe that eight or nine is a better indication of proficiency. For this reason, many people believe that using a universally understood metric is a clearer way to show your skill levels on a resume.
Examples of easily understood and versatile ways to rate your skill levels:
You May Like: Where To Put Relevant Coursework On A Resume
Tip #5 Show Your Progression
Hiring managers also want to see that your skills or duties at your previous jobs have grown over time. Even though careers arent always linear, the value you add should get more complex as you move from role to role or job to job. If it all looks like the same type of work and it doesnt get more challenging, while its not a red flag by any stretch, its just not as interesting of a story, she says.
A fresh, updated resumé can make all the difference when youre trying to stand out in a large pool of candidates. Before you send it off, though, make sure to have someone else look it over for spelling or grammatical errors, says Murray, and save your file as a PDF unless otherwise noted, to prevent formatting issues. A good rule of thumb, says Steele, is apply thoughtfully and youll see better results.
Have you already brushed up your resumé? Consider applying to one of Palette Skillsupcoming upskilling programs. All of our programs include career coaching and one-on-one job search support.
Written by Glynis Ratcliffe
Look For Target Keywords
If youre still not sure if any of these skills are right for your situation, one quick way to check which skills the employer is seeking is to check the job description.
Read through it a few times and youll likely spot three or four key skills mentioned several times throughout the document. If thats the case, you should do your best to focus on those skills in your resume, too.
Also Check: How To Put Relevant Coursework On Resume
Soft Skills Vs Hard Skills What’s The Difference
‘Hard skills’ are transferable skills that can be acquired through practice, repetition, and education. Some examples are writing, reading, and coding. Hard skills are important because they increase a person’s productivity, efficiency and satisfaction in the workplace.
‘Soft skills’, on the other hand, are skills tied with a person’s personality and are not easily transferable. Soft skills enable people to perform well in their environment. Some examples are: social skills, communication skills, and adaptability.
According to an iCIMS study, these are the top soft skills for fresh graduates:
- Computer skills
- Data analysis
- Project management
- Mobile and Web Development
- Accounting
- Carpentry
If some of these skills can be proved by certifications make sure to create a separate section.
Most skills on the hard skills list are job-specific. However, some are also transferable. For example, knowledge of foreign languages is a good skill that may come in handy in various professional contexts. So are project management and MS Office skills.
In this day and age, a huge portion of hard skills can be labeled as technical skills. This is reflected in the findings of a recent , where the top hard skills were identified as:
- Statistical Analysis and Data Mining
- Middleware and Integration Software
- Web Architecture and Development Framework
- UI Design
- Network and Information Security
Top 10 Personal Qualities Employers are Looking For
The 10 Best Skills To Put On Your Resume In 2021
These 10 items are the most important skills to put on your resume, according to our team of experienced hiring managers and career experts. If you have experience with these skills, you should definitely include them on your resume.
However, you canât simply put this list into your resumeâs skills section. Instead, this guide will walk you through how to use these skills on your resume correctly, and how to make the most of each one.
Here are three steps to get started.
You May Like: Should You List Your Gpa On Your Resume
List Of Some Skillsets For Information Technology Career
Information technology, whenever this name comes to mind people think of computers. But one should know that not only computer skills are required for being in the IT sector. While hiring people from the technology sector, you should look for some skills that are needed anyhow.
- Coding is a priority.
- Python, JavaScript, Cloud services, Cyber Security, IP set up, these skills are the basics.
- Be should be multitasking and goal-oriented.
- Also, a person should be a critical thinker and know how to manage the situation.
- Digital communications are needed.
Tailor Your Skills To The Company/position
As you may have read in our other blog articles, it is always very important to tailor your job interview to the company and position you are interviewing with/for (for a more in depth look at our Tailoring Method article. This includes your resume and the skills you include on your resume as well!
As we mentioned before, the company will have a specific set of skills that they will require the successful candidate to have in order to do the job to their standard.
So as you might have guessed, it is absolutely essential that these skills make an appearance on your resume.
You need to spend some more time researching the company, and this means going through all of their various web properties including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
Why?
Because they will leave clues about the types of people they hire, which will give you a better idea of the skills that you need to include in your resume. This especially applies to soft skills.
Ask yourself this. Do I have a similar skill-set to the types of employees they hire?
If the answer is yes, great!
If the answer is no read on!
And as we said before, REALLY dig into the job description to make sure you have a strong understanding of the skills that are required for the job, and make darn sure you put those skills in the skill section of your resume.
Also Check: Should You Put References On A Resume
List Your Skills On A Functional Resume
If you are changing careers or industries and do not have extensive professional experience, you might decide to feature them at the top of your resume. This type of resume is called a functional resume.
3. Skills grouped by theme4. Any relevant professional experience5. Education
To include skills on a functional resume, create a separate skill section that lists your successes with key skills relevant to the position for which youre applying. Any professional experience you do have should go below your skills section.
Heres an example of how to list skills on a functional resume:
Skills
Process Streamlining
Complaint ResolutionAnswered an average 50+ calls per day from unsatisfied customers related to delays in shipment, order mistakes and lost orders. Achieved 97% average customer satisfaction rating, surpassing team goal by 12%.
Service-Based SellingConsistently exceeded application targets by 10% with innovative upselling techniques. Pioneered development of improved system for following up with unsatisfied customers, reducing customer churn by 6%.
Balance Soft And Hard Skills
We already spent a lot of time on this, but once youre actually crafting your resume, dont get lost in specific details to the neglect of the big picture.
You want to make sure your resume contains a good combination of soft skills and hard skills.
The hiring manager should be able to see that you would be a practical choice because of your technical and computer skills. But they also want to know that your people skills will make you a good fit for the team and company culture.
For instance, you might find the following list of qualifications on a job description, which focus on hard skills you could add to your resume:
Qualifications
- Working knowledge of material, facilities, and equipment – including maintenance.
- Working knowledge of computers and related hardware and common business software.
- Above-average spreadsheet and word processing skills.
- Ability to write in English coherently with proper grammar and tone.
- Ability to manage projects from conception to final commissioning.
- Experience with a computerized maintenance management system.
- Willing to study and learn new technical skills and techniques.
Additionally, you might find a request for a set of good people skills:
Team/People Skills
Use some of these same phrases as keywords in your resume.
You May Like: Do You Need A Photo On Your Resume