Examples of the Best Skills to Include on a Resume
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Throughout the ages and the dawn of history, men have survived a great deal and managed to dominate the universe – as we know it.
Who would have thought that the World Wide Web, a.k.a. the Internet used for instant communication and other more powerful purposes, would be created from the successors of mere nomads in the ancient times?
You, as part of the human race, are highly intelligent that you can find solutions to your own problems and can even help other people around you. Such capacity of being able to do something on your own is what we called skill.
For you to be able to survive to the growing demands of life, as you grow older, you have to learn from various experiences.
With these experiences, whether they are bad or good, they will be enough for you to learn things that are beneficial for your future. As a part of means to survive, you have to have a source of income.
And how do you get an income?
You need to work hard and find a job if you cannot start your own business. In applying for a job, your skills which are highly relevant to the desired position are your best weapon to increase your chances to be hired.
So, let this article help you construct a proper skill section of your resume.
LET’S TALK ABOUT SKILLS
Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines the word skill as the ability to use one’s knowledge effectively and readily in execution or performance or a learned power of doing something competently.
In other words, a skill is an ability that is learned from specific areas and times in your life. A skill is something that you have learned from school or in another setting.
In order to call a specific ability a skill, you must have done it repeatedly and gained mastery that could be competent enough to bring greater satisfaction to others.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SKILL AND TALENT
One of the most common misconceptions you tend to perceive is talent being identified as a skill. There is a difference between the two. Talent is a natural ability that you have since the day of your birth. It is a gift innately ordained to you to do things with so much ease without even trying to exert an effort.
Talent is hidden while skill is demonstrated. For example, painting is a talent and being able to illustrate it using Photoshop is a skill. Talent and skill can be acquired together. Having them both is a great advantage.
Like in clerical jobs, if you have talent in writing, the ability to utilize technical discipline, and use Microsoft Office applications like MS Word, then you have a promising career as an Executive Officer.
Importance of skills
Skills are relatively important whether they are highly inclined or not to the position you are applying because those skills will be used most of the time and by an emergency.
Skills also say a lot about you.
As an individual, you have – what it called – life skills that help you out to find new ways of thinking and solving problems. They also give you the power to identify your own actions and teach others to take full responsibility for their own acts.
Also, building your confidence both in verbal and group collaboration is helpful.
Above all, you must develop a greater sense of self-awareness and appreciation for others. Having these life skills will definitely make a winner out of you. Practicing them fully spells a wonderful future ahead of you.
The society also benefits from your life skills. By understanding cultural diversity, awareness, and international cooperation gives you the will to acknowledge and respect all the races and their beliefs that exist in this world. Such empathy leads to creativity in building a more democratic society.
For employers and commercial businesses, your skills are vital in the selection process and for their skills inventory. The more relevant your skills are to the position that you are applying, the higher the chances that you will be selected.
Your skills will define you during screening because what you have to offer at the job interview will determine your future contributions to an organization. Also, it gives the employer a glimpse of skills that are needed to develop further as you advanced to the employment process.
THE TWO TYPES OF SKILLS
There are so many skills that had been identified in this world and they are classified into two types: hard skills and soft skills.
Abilities that are teachable which are easy to quantify and typically learned in schools, through books, training manuals, or practical instructions are known as hard skills.
Examples of hard skills are language proficiency, acquisition of diploma or other relevant certificates, typing speed, web development and machine operation. Hard skills are commonly enumerated on your resume and in your cover letter as well.
On the other hand, soft skills are considered as subjective skills that are more difficult to measure. Better known as interpersonal skills, it greatly deals with interaction and relations with other people.
Examples of these skills are communication, flexibility, leadership, motivation, patience, persuasion, problem-solving, teamwork, time management, work ethic and the like.
THE MOST IMPORTANT SKILLS
Having both of these types of skills is very important. You will not be able to climb the ladder of success dramatically if you are just good at utilizing technical skills and poor to establish rapport with other people, especially your workmates. So, the hard and the soft skills are very vital in every aspect of your life.
Anyway, the importance of which skills that you must possess depends greatly on what kind of position you are applying for. If you are applying for technical and highly physically demanding jobs, your hard skills must be sharpened greatly. If you are applying for managerial or supervisory positions, your soft skills must be set to prominence.
Keep in mind that you always have some of the hard and soft skills. You do not need to own them all because you can gain some of these skills as you grow professionally and as you dig further into the future.
Balance these two by utilizing what is greatly in need once the institution successfully hired you that you are eyeing for.
KNOWING THEIR BUSINESS
Most companies conduct an interview and they usually ask the million-dollar question: “Why do you want to work here?” And you will feel like you are joining a pageant, pressured to be on the last stage of the competition and your answer will determine if you are suitable for the crown.
Of course, you do not need to be in the interview just to feel the need to be prepared. Preparation starts from the moment you submitted your application to a company or an institution.
Once you apply for a position, it means that you are interested not just in the job but to the company itself. As a responsible applicant, you have to know the company first starting from its mission and vision down to the smallest details that you can muster during the application period.
TIPS FOR KNOWING YOUR FUTURE EMPLOYER
1. Research on the company’s strongest areas
The most effective way to convince yourself that you are applying for the right company is having the information of how special the company is compared to your other options.
You have to visit the company’s website or blog or its social media pages and the answers to your questions are mostly found there.
We all know that since the rise of computer technology coupled with the powerful internet which paved the way to the development and domination of web pages and social media, companies through e-commerce can spread their advertisement and FAQs regarding their organization.
Companies have their own designs and promotions on how they will increase the number of visitors exploring what they have and what they could offer.
Keep in mind that these are also convenient for applicants in gathering the necessary data about a certain company.
The most basic content of a business site or page is the mission, vision, and other vital information about the company.
2. Have knowledge about the company’s financial status
A company with a sound financial asset is a big catch and attractive not just for investors but also for applicants because it guarantees you a better salary, benefits, and working environment.
Companies tend to announce through different media their assets and how much they have accumulated partnered with congruent statistics and reports which identified either by a study or other research companies.
The moment you gathered all the financial information and contemplated on them, you may now draw your very own discrimination.
3. Be updated
Being able to pull out the latest news and activities of the company aside from searching it using Google, you may visit the company’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and/or LinkedIn pages to see posts that might contain various special info like winning a new account, tying-up to a new partnership, awards and recognition, etc.
4. Stalk and go undercover
You could have a glimpse about the company’s culture through the website, a blog, or social media profiles. But, if you really want to know more and the learn something about the actual thing; you should try to go and look from external sources.
To know more about the company, feedbacks from its present and former employees are very helpful. Positive and negative comments will greatly help you to decide whether you are investing your skills as well as you as a professional to the right company.
Research the company online or personally ask someone (whether a past or current employee) and try to further judge the continuation of your application.
5. Know the competitors
It is best to learn so many fun facts about the company that you are applying, and it is also good to know something about its competitors.
Probably, there are other companies which offer the same services and products as the company you are applying does. Upon researching the competitors, you would be highly informed about the diversity of the industry you are going to pursue.
Knowing the competitors, as an applicant, has the best advantage for you. As you research for the others, you will find out the leading one and which one has the best offers for its employees like compensation, benefits, facilities, and management. With this information, you can also weigh-in properly where to apply.
Knowing every single detail about the company you want to work with will help you not only in deciding the best skills that you need to showcase in your application. It will also help you to prepare for the interview as your application progresses.
So now, after you conducted your researches and came down to a conclusion, the question that you need to answer is “What are your strongest skills to qualify for the job?” And to answer that, you need to make a shortlist of your most capable skills.
HOW TO HIGHLIGHT YOUR SKILLS?
Attracting your potential employers is possible if you had reached the minimum requirements for a job vacancy.
Making them aware of your skills during the whole application process is an easy way for an employer to determine whether you are suitable or not for the job.
The constant mention of your hard and soft skills by highlighting them in your resume and cover letter and mentioning them during job interviews will be great.
- List-down your skills into your resume. Your resume is the most important thing that must submit when you are applying for a job. On it, you can create a skills section that enumerates the relevant skills.
- Include relevant skills in your cover letter. Your cover letter is also an opportunity to highlight both sets of skills. When it comes to soft skills, however, rather than saying you have a soft skill, demonstrate that you have it. For instance, rather than saying “I have leadership skills,” you can say, “At my role at Company ABC, I steered the sales team to record numbers, creating a bonus structure that generated strong results.”
- Share your skills during job interviews.During interviews, the STAR interview response technique can help you show off soft skills.
REVIEW SKILLS LIST
But which skills should you highlight?
Browse through the below list of skills best suited to be included on resumes, cover letters and interviews, employment skills for a variety of different types of jobs, and information on job-specific skills, to get inspiration for the skills you have and can highlight during the job application process.
Also, don’t forget to read the job description carefully to get a sense of which skills the employer is looking for in applicants.
BEFORE WE WRAP UP
Listed below is a comprehensive list that contains both hard and soft skills:
Accounting | Deductive Reasoning | Negotiations |
Active Listening | Digital Marketing | Nonverbal Communication |
Administrative | Digital Media | Organizational |
Analytical | Editing | Persuasive |
Behavioral | Employability | Presentation |
Clerical | Flexibility | Problem Solving |
Collaboration | Inductive Reasoning | Public Speaking |
Communication | Interpersonal | Research |
Computer Literate | Leadership | Retailing |
Conflict Management | Legal | Sales |
Conflict Resolution | Life Skills | Social Dynamics |
Consulting | Listening | Social Media Interaction |
Content Strategy | Logical Thinking | Strategic Planning |
Creative Thinking | Management | Team Building |
Critical Thinking | Marketing | Teamwork |
Customer Service | Microsoft Office Skills | Technical |
Decision Making | Motivational | Time Management |
Delegation | Multitasking | Verbal Communication |
Writing |
There you have it.
So upon creating your resume and applying for the job, make it sure that you are prepared to explain and demonstrate your skills on the job interview.
Make sure that you truly possess them so that when you are hired your boss/es will be proud of your performance and can help you grow in the company.
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