How to list Key Skills On Resume
How to Write Your Key Skills on your Resume
0:00 / 0:00
Quality:
Sharing buttons:
hey Georgia vich here with job interview
tools in this video I'm going to show
you how to write a skills summary or
accomplishments section on your resume
so let's get started now this section is
usually a bullet point list of your best
skills but transformed into
accomplishments because you don't want
to just list raw skills you don't want
to just say that you know you have
leadership experience you have
management experience you want to put
that into context for the employer so
that they can get a better feeling for
the depth of your skill you want it you
want to emphasize how you've used it if
you just list raw skills like Microsoft
Office or web programming you know that
you're not saying a lot you want to say
how you've used that skill and that's
where the real value comes in when you
put your skills in the context that
makes your skills so much more valuable
when you can use it in a statement that
describes what you've done with it and
that's going to really validate that you
know what you're talking about anyone
and a lot of people do they just dump
skills life scenes people put like a
hundred skills on their resume before
and when you when you do that you you
dilute everything about yourself because
nobody has a hundred things that they're
really good at I mean they got five not
a hundred so and if you have a hundred
and maybe you do know all those things
they're they're not relevant you there -
miniscule
to put on there all right so let me ask
you this let's take a look at a couple
of different skill statements and which
one you think is more powerful here a
candidate one if someone just put
leadership experience on their resume
it's a skill or someone said let a
technical team of seventeen web
developers to design a customer service
database application to track buying
trends for customers and resulted in a
13% increase in urine sales now which
one do you think sounds better obviously
number two because they put their
leadership experience in the
context and they say what they did with
it that's the key and that's what you
want to do if you don't do that you're
going to sell yourself short
and you're going to wonder why nobody is
calling you for job interviews your
skills statements should make it easy
for an employer to visualize you working
for them and that's what you want that's
that's when your resume is speaking
louder than words your skills section
also needs to be very tightly focused on
the type of job that you're seeking if
you have a bunch of skills out there
that aren't relevant to the job that
you're applying for then then you're
wasting space you want to use skills
that are relevant to the job that you
are looking for that's how you make a
strong connection you also want to avoid
but I've already touched on this a
little bit you want to avoid putting
down overused and cliched phrases
results-oriented goal-oriented all that
stuff doesn't really say much at all you
may think it sounds good but what you
want to do and if you have excellent
written skills then list why you have
excellent written skills maybe you've
written some published works that would
be great that would tell me you you have
the ability to write I mean these
phrases they all sound good but they
just don't carry any weight and
employers know if they see hundreds and
hundreds of resumes and when you have
things on there like that they just
don't carry any weight so let's take a
look at a couple of different skill
statements that you can put on there and
I'm going to show you how to take eight
a skill statement and translate it into
something that you want to put on your
resume so that's an example one here an
information technology professional with
database experience might say I have
been working with SAS and Microsoft
sequel SAS is some kind of database
stuff so to translate that into a
statement that you can put under your
skill summary you might say five years
of team lead experience hands-on
development experience with SAS and
Microsoft sequel databases at General
Electric now that really says something
let's see what that looks like on a
resume
so what we do is we'll start a skill
summary statement here and what I'm
going to do I'm just going to start a
ballpoint list here and I'm going to say
and there you go there's our first
statement okay let's take a look at
another example here an industrial
engineer might write I've been managing
construction and quality control of
hydroelectric power plants so let's
translate that into a statement we can
put on a resume might say 18 years of
professional experience managing quality
control of hydroelectric power plants
with a 100 percent accident free safety
record doesn't that say a lot more than
I've been managing construction of
quality control power plants of course
it does I think so
it really resonates a lot more with
employers so let's put that on a resume
next line here there we go there's two
statements now as you can see each
statement here on my sample resume is
kind of different it's for a different
person in a different industry but I
deliberately did it that way just so I
could give you a different example for
each statement that we create and I
think we have a better chance of
reaching out to more people versus just
having one resume that's laser focused
on one particular profession this way we
can have one resume that's geared
towards maybe 20 professions and
everybody can feel a little bit more
like they're a part of it
so let's take a look at another example
here let's say you're an administrative
assistant you might write that you have
excellent communication skills you're
good problem solver and you take
pressure off of your superiors
so let's translate that over into a
usable statement we can put on a resume
reputation for being patient a
resourceful problem solver and directed
the implementation of an email
integrated voicemail system that helped
increase revenue by 27% so let's add
that to our resume we'll see what it
looks like
and there we go we have three bullets
pretty good bullets under a skills
summary that our accomplishment based
that that clearly demonstrate we know
what we're talking about and in this
case we know a little bit about
everything so that's all I have on
writing a skills summary you can also
title this an accomplishment section if
you want to either way but the key here
when you're writing your skill summaries
you want to pack it full of quantifiable
accomplishments so that it grabs the
attention of your employer and makes
them want to keep reading your resume
ideally you should have four to six
bullet points on your resume right
underneath your objective and that's all
I haven't running your skill summary
let's go ahead and jump into the next
video of writing your work experience so
I'll see you in the next video bye bye
