The skills section of a resume is a place where I see people struggle again and again. Plus it`s the place where I see a lot of mistakes get made. So let`s talk about it and how to make it an easy section of your resume that does a lot of the work for you. Now we are going to talk do`s and don’ts!
Hard Skills In Your Resume
Today number one do list hard skills in your resume skills section. Don`t list soft skills so what is a hard skill, a hard skill is think of it as anything you could get certified for or take a test on so any software languages.
You know sometimes certifications go under this section. If you didn`t have another spot like CPR but let`s talk softwares c plus plus, SQLexcel, word. There`s a whole other thing about should Microsoft go on there. I still say yes! It`s in jobs descriptions all the time so Microsoft office suite list them social media. You can go in this section but please don`t just say social media what platforms.
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Do you know so any of those things can be listed in the skills section? So what is a soft skill or what is now being rebranded as a success skill! Well, those are things that are a little bit more ambiguous things like communication, organization, writing, creative writing, etc. I see those sorts of things listed under the skills section a lot
Here`s the deal you can`t just put communication, why should i believe you right? I don`t know you yet I am supposed to look at the fact that you put communication on your skills and go.
Oh! Well, he said it no one ever lies it must be true. So you can`t put those things under that section. You need to put soft skills or success skills in your bullet points because there you can give me a bit more of how you`ve communicated, how you`ve done creative writing in the past. You get to prove it in a way that just putting it in the skills section. Doesn`t really work for you.
Bullet Points
The second do use bullet points don`t use charts and graphs. Now I don`t know if you`ve seen these but on Canva, Microsoft, Word, Google templates. Sometimes there are these really cool boxes that people will do that will chart out their skills.
It`ll say skills and then it`ll say something like Adobe Photoshop and there`ll be five dots and four of the five dots will be filled in and then it will say Adobe Illustrator and five of the five dots are filled in right something like professionally.
There`s different versions of it the first time I saw that on a resume I was like Amazing! That is brilliant what a great visual. Oh and yes, I love the way this looks, it`s creative. I was really into and then I had a recruiter at dream works go.
Please don`t put boxes, graphs or dots or any of those things they said all it. Does is tell me. You don`t know Photoshop as well as you know Illustrator. They are right plus they said also who`s judging this who`s saying what four out of five is your version.
How much you know my version and how much you know might be really different and in all honesty, I have seen many students from the past really underestimate their skills. If you were filling in the boxes you`d be like.
I only get a three out of five but the recruiter would be like no for what. We`re looking for you know. Well, beyond what we need for this position like they would be impressed by your skills and you tend to undersell it.
When you do those boxes and things. You don`t use the charts and graphs. They look really pretty but they actually can be a disservice to you.
So instead just use good old bullet points even bullet pointing throughout. This thing keep bullet pointing just the bullet point that`s all you need.
Write The Skill Don`t Add A Bunch
The next one do just write the skill don`t add a bunch of filler words. When you write this bullet point I want it to be bullet point, Adobe Photoshop bullet point, social media, colon, Instagram, Facebook.
You know put them all. Don`t use bullet point proficient in Adobe Photoshop. Bullet point excellent at blah blah blah….!
No if you weren`t proficient it shouldn`t be under skills so just get to the point. Don`t use all those filler words just list that hard skill that you have plus.
They are looking at your resume for six seconds max and you do not want them to miss the skill. Because there were all these filler words before it.
Columns In The Skills Section
This last one doesn`t happen all the time but I do see it enough that I thought it needed to be mentioned do use columns in the skills section. Don`t create a long list. So for my engineering folks, my computer science folks, this is where I see that you have a bunch of different skills.
You do bullet point them but you just let that bullet point list become half a page. Well, we need to column that up so we save some space. So in all, honesty if you have well depending on space. If you have four I would column that section and make it two bullet points.
The two bullet points or if your resume needs a little more to fill out the page after four bullet points going down. I would then start making a column to do any others.
On the other side, you don`t let your skills section just become this insane long list column. It up just that section column it up I hope this was helpful.