So, let me ask you something. Do you know the difference between a hard skill and a
soft skill, and you know how to list your hard skills on a resume and how to list your
soft skills on a resume? And if not, that's okay. Because that's what this video is here
for. You're in the right place. My name is Bill Benoist. I'm a certified professional
career coach here in Silicon Valley. And I want to talk about listing the skills on your
resume and specifically some of the errors that I see people make when listing their
soft skills. So let me back up for a little bit here and talk about the resume in general.
And that is when you're sending your resume out. If it's actually being seen by a hiring
manager or a recruiter that first go around, they're only going to spend probably about
six seconds on it.
They're going to scan it and they're going to scan it in a Z format. Right? So if we
know that they're scanning is the format, then we also know that white space is going
to be our friend. And I talk about this a lot in my online class, I have some, um, a
link in the notes section below. If I talk about how white space is your friend, because
we develop the resume, we create the resume strategically to make sure that specific skills
stand out. And those skills that we want to stand out are going to be the hard skills.
So, what's the difference between a hard skill and a soft skill, hard skills are measurable.
So, it could be your programming languages like Java C++ or Python. It could be, um,
software out there like Oracle or Salesforce. It could be budgeting,
Um, inventory control.
These are all things that can be measured, right? And so we want, these are the keywords
that we want to make sure that are separated out. And a lot of times still put keywords
underneath the professional summary or the professional profile, but you know what I
see a lot of, I see something like this, and this is a big mistake out there. But what
people are doing is that they will list their soft skills. They'll stand out their communication,
adaptability problem, solving, time management, critical thinking, whatever soft skill that
you can think of in there. They're putting that in. What they're doing is they're really,
they're, they're really wasting real estate space because this could be areas where the
hard skills can be going into, but soft skills are important. So how do we list the soft
skills? We built them into the accomplishment statements, um, that are going to be under
the work experience.
And in some cases we can even build them into the summary profile or the, the professional
summary of the professional profile itself. We can add an into sentences there that show,
oh, this person has the collaborated skills. This person, um, has great problem-solving
skills, not necessarily using the word problem solving, but when that recruiter or hiring
manager is reading the resume. And now what did I just say? I said that the resume in
that first scan is typically going to last only about six or seven seconds. They may
be reading a sentence here and there, but they're really looking for those hard skills.
Can this person do the job, but when they've separated the yes, pile from the no pile,
now they have a yes. Pile of 5, 6, 7 resumes. Now they're going to do a lot deeper dive
into that resume. And the last thing you want is a resume that reads like a job description,
responsible for this responsible, for this responsible for this.
No, you want to start it with an action verb. You want to show the accomplishments that
you are accredited for or credited for, for those responsibilities. And that's where we
build in the soft skills. So quick video today, but again, don't be wishing real estate space
listing soft skills. When you should be listing your hard skills, put those soft skills into
the accomplishment statements. And in some cases, even into the professional summary,
what you need to do is you need to show that hiring manager, that you are the person to
solve their pain points, okay. Help them sleep at night. So I hope you found this video informative
and useful if you haven't already done. So make sure that you subscribe to this channel,
hit the bell notification as they do upload new crew tips and strategies every Tuesday.
And I'd hate for you to miss anything. Thanks for stopping by. And I'll see you next week.