What skills should you put on your resume?
Well, anyone that tells you there's one universal skill
set that applies to each and every employer,
is simply wrong.
However, there is a winning strategy
that allows you to hack your skills section in order
to give yourself your best shot at landing the job.
Today, I'm going to share the tactics of that strategy.
Including how to identify which skills to share,
where to place them, And then three common mistakes
you do not want to make.
All right, let's get into it.
Step one is, to tailor your skills to each job.
Now, skills are your ability to perform
essential tasks and how well you can perform those tasks.
So of course there's no exact cheat code
that you can use in every single job application
when it comes to your skills section.
Because the skills that are needed for that job,
are going to be different in every single case.
And you need to be speaking to that exact job
that you're applying for.
I won't spend too long on this section
because I do think it's intuitive.
But just remember, even if you're
applying within the same organization,
or to a job with the same title that you already have,
you have to be thinking strategically
about how you are best showing that you're
going to be able to do the job well, and meet the company
needs.
And that's going to vary for job to job.
Now, we know you have to tailor your skills section,
but how do you do that.
So typically, there are going to be
two types of company representatives
that view your resume.
And it's incredibly prudent to have your skill section appeal
to both.
That brings me to my next step.
Step two in the strategy is to escape the eliminator.
So whether that's a HR professional, a recruiter,
or an applicant tracking system, which I'll explain
what that is in just a moment.
The first reviewer of your resume
is trying to achieve one primary goal.
They're getting a ton of applicants,
and they're just simply looking to make a baseline cut in order
to expedite the moving forward of the hiring process.
Of course they know some people are going to be unqualified.
So they're trying to weed out those folks.
So that the next review of the resume
is only looking at candidates that really
have potential to move forward.
An ATS is a hiring software that many employers use in order
to make the first round of applications move a lot faster.
It takes some information from the employer.
Typically the employer will provide information
about the ideal candidates, qualifications,
years of experience, et cetera and the system
converts that into key words, which it then
scans for in every single resume that it comes across,
for this application.
And then it only passes those along
that meet a certain percentage of closeness
that ideal candidate.
And it's typically pretty high.
So that's really important to know.
Even if an employer does not use an ATS,
or if there's an HR professional as well that
looks at applicants after the ATS
before passing it on to the hiring manager,
the essential function of all of these groups is the exact same.
They are not industry professionals
with a ton of deep knowledge about this particular job.
And they are not the ones making the ultimate hiring decision.
They are just there as a quality control group
to try and eliminate the unqualified.
And make sure that they are only passing along
those that have a real shot at landing the job
to make the hiring manager's job a lot easier.
That's why for the purposes of this video,
I'm informally calling them "The eliminator"
because they're basically just cutting a bunch of people.
As an applicant, your goal here is
to evade the biggest round of cuts
by making it blatantly obvious that you
have the necessary skills to do the job.
So in order to make it as easy as possible
for them to see that you have those assets,
I recommend taking the following steps.
First, go straight to the job description
and look at any skills listed there
that you believe that you have.
Look for that overlap.
But then once you have that, if needed narrowed it down
to three.
And if you have to prioritize, look for the skills
that you feel are mentioned the most often, or most
critical to the essential functions of the role,
or that you believe sort of give you an edge.
Like what do you think other candidates may not
have that you know that you do have and can offer.
And then the final step of this is really critical.
And sometimes it seems sort of odd to be doing,
but it's really important.
I'll tell you why.
You need to use the exact same language, that's
listed in the job description when describing your skills
and put that on your resume.
Now that's for two primary reasons.
First, if there's an ATS involved,
it's likely to be scanning for that exact keyword.
Might also be scanning for some comparable terms,
but basically you know for a fact it
will be scanning for that one.
So just don't risk it.
And the second reason, is that an HR professional,
again if they're not really entrenched in the day
to day duties of that job, they may not know the difference
and whether two sort of industry terms are comparable.
Now, many career coaches recommendations stop there.
They simply say you should have all five of your skills.
Be from that job description, exactly
using that exact same language.
Now, while it is clearly really important
to include some of those skills from the job
description enough to get you passed that bulk elimination
round.
It can cause problems to only include skills
from the job description.
And that's because one, it can make
You seem too good to be true.
Like, do you really have all these skills
really in this exact same language too.
And then secondly, it neglects the far more discerning reader
of your resume.
"The selector."
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Step three is to appeal to the selector.
So these are informal terms but for our purposes,
a selector is someone who has a lot of weight
in deciding who gets hired.
Or is the person who decides who gets hired.
And that could be a potential coworker, a leadership figure,
or even the hiring manager themselves.
And they all share deep knowledge on the industry
and the practicalities of the role.
They're not just words on paper that they're looking
to make sure that you have.
They can go far beyond that.
And because of that first round of hiring
that already happened, which was basically a big quality control
process.
They can more or less trust that the person they're talking to
is qualified.
And could do the job if needed.
So instead of looking for reasons to eliminate someone,
they're looking for reasons to pick someone.
When it comes to impressing and appealing to the selector,
remember that this professional has deep industry knowledge.
So use yours.
Think creatively, what skills do you think
would allow a candidate to really stand out for this role.
One such skill set would be, things
that would make your transition a lot easier.
They wouldn't have to train you up.
Or pour resources into getting you onboarded.
So for example, if you are applying
to be a sales representative, and you
can dig around and figure out what software system
they use to manage their clients.
Then just reference that.
Familiarity with x software on your skills section.
Showing hey, you don't have to pour resources
into getting me ready.
I can just start day one, Or it could
be something that just really speaks
to the exact needs of this particular company.
The point here, is that you aren't just
regurgitating that information, you
are making yourself stand out by going above and beyond what's
required to demonstrate that you have
a really deep understanding, of what this exact job needs.
And needs from you.
For more advice on tailoring your resume
to succeed with these two audiences, the eliminator
and the selectors I highly recommend you check out
this video right here.
So the last step before I dive into the mistakes
is this, which is step four.
Strategically place your skills section.
Now, for most people, especially people
who do not have very technical roles,
you are going to want to just put that skills
section at the bottom.
That being said, there's one really important caveat.
And already mentioned it.
Which is, if you have a highly technical role,
If you're applying for a job that requires you to have a lot
of hard skills, that if you do not have this pre-existing
knowledge, or training, you literally cannot do
the essential tasks of the job.
And if that is your case, do not put your skills section
at the bottom of the resume, instead move it way up high.
I recommend putting it beneath the resume summary,
but above either your education, or work history.
Whatever comes first in terms of bullet points.
The reason why you want to put it so high,
is because for those technical roles,
recruiters more than anything, are
scanning for those key skills.
They want to make sure when they pick up
a resume they understand is this candidate someone who
can actually do the job or not.
And they'll probably get a lot of applications
where it's not the case that they can do that role.
So given that, that's the mindset that recruiters have,
you want to make it incredibly clear and easy
for them to understand, hey don't toss me out.
I can actually do this job.
So read on.
Now I'm going to share the three big mistakes
that people make when approaching their skills
section.
The first mistake is being general.
Avoid being general when you talk about your skills.
Especially skills that are not on the job description.
You want to make those really, really important.
So ask yourself, could most of my friends
say the same thing about themselves.
If so, that strength might not be as valuable or thoughtful
and it could be wise to pick another one.
So for example, instead of people skills,
go with something more specific, like relationship building.
Or if you have client management skills
think about, really what you're best at there.
Or what's most appropriate for the role.
And it might something more like conflict resolution.
Right?
The second mistake is listing characteristics or traits
as though they were skills.
That's because these kind of ring
hollow when compared with some of the more
technical, or specific skills, It almost
feels weird to proclaim the type of person that you are.
So the question to ask yourself here
is, could a person be born with this?
Or born with this quality?
Did I have to work to acquire or develop this quality?
When I'm talking about traits, or characteristics,
I'm really referring to things like a people person,
or even leader, Or determined, motivated, a hard worker,
things like that.
Instead of claiming those in your skills section,
aim to demonstrate those.
Show don't tell.
Just through the experiences that you
choose to provide in the way that you
list those experiences.
In this case, it's really important
just to let your work history speak for itself.
The last mistake that people make
when approaching their skills section
is excluding or deprioritizing hard skills.
Now, again there's two types of skills.
There's hard skills which are essential to performing a task.
And there's soft skills, which impact the way
you can do that task.
So that might be communication skills, et cetera.
And while those are really important.
Really ask yourself, what is more important for the Role?
And unless you find that the soft skills are far more
important for the role, I really recommend
including those hard skills over potential soft skills.
And that's because one a lot of times soft skills
do come across in the way that you explain your work history,
and the way that you present yourself in an interview.
But also because a lot of times hard skills
require resources to acquire.
Whether that's time, whether that's funding from a company.
If you can show that you have those skills already,
that's also telling the company hey,
you don't have to provide additional resources in order
for me to have this asset.
Let's quickly recap the key tips I've
provided on writing a winning skills section.
Step one, is to tailor your skills to each and every job.
Step two is to escape the eliminator.
Step three is to appeal to the selector.
Step four is to strategically place your skills section.
And step five are all the mistakes
you don't want to make.
Don't be general, don't list characteristics,
and don't do prioritize technical skills.
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like down below.
You can subscribe to our channel right here.
And if you want some more advice on resumes or interviewing,
check out this playlist right here.
Or if you want some information on how
to write a stellar resume summary, another really
critical portion of your resume, check out this video right
here.
Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time.