The skills section on your resume is one of the essential parts of your resume. It shows the hiring manager that you have all the necessary skills required for the job.
Recruiters only get 7.4 seconds to decide whether to pass a candidate or shortlist them for an interview. That means they are quickly skimming through your resume to find out the essential skills needed for the job.
Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills
Hard skills resemble the industry-specific skills on resume that can be obtained by learning in schools, taking courses, or from experience on the job. The most common technical skills are:
- Data Analysis
- Accounting
- Market Research
- Programming
- Project Management
- Operating specific tools
Soft skills, on the other hand, are transferable skills that are valuable for any job you are applying for. The most common soft skills are:
- Communication Skills
- Leadership Skills
- Problem Solving
- Computer Skills
- Time management Skills
- Team Management Skills
These soft skills resemble the candidate’s ability to fit into the company culture, handle stress and manage time effectively to improve productivity. And hiring managers actively search for the demonstration of soft skills and hard skills to gauge a candidate’s competency for a job.
This article will tell you five skills that recruiters are actively looking for in your resume.
Communication Skills
Communication is the most valuable skill in the workplace. In an organization, employees are expected to communicate effectively with one another, customers, and stakeholders to ensure smooth operations.
In your resume, demonstrate how your written or verbal communication skills have created value for your organization. Here are some examples:
- Engaged in writing weekly newsletters to the email list while increasing the website traffic by 20%
- Conducted weekly webinars for promoting 2 new products and increased the product user rate by 11% in 3 months
Leadership Skills
Leadership skills require you to motivate others constantly to complete tasks on time as part of achieving the end goal.
However, you don’t have to be in a managerial position to show leadership skills. As an entry-level professional, showcasing volunteer works also counts as leadership skills.
- Led a team of 20 professionals to implement product improvement suggestions within a stipulated time while successfully increasing user retention by 11%
- Led a team of 10 volunteers to raise $10k from 5 fundraiser events for the development of Hib vaccine
Problem Solving Skills
Problem-solving is another essential skill that every employee must have. It is the ability to quickly identify the root of a problem and find effective solutions.
Demonstrate in your resume how you have solved complex problems in your current or previous organization and improved. For example:
- Deployed KANBAN methodology to optimize the product development process, reducing the product delivery time by 1 week
- Coordinated with 10+ team members to identify & implement process improvement best practices while improving team productivity by 12%
Time Management Skills
Time management skills allow the candidate to efficiently manage tasks and complete their projects before the deadline. It is an essential skill as it enables the employee to maintain a healthy work-life balance and perform at peak efficiency at all times.
It might be more challenging to showcase time management skills on a resume. Here are some examples:
- Coordinated with a team of 20 web developers to deliver 5 web design projects within stipulated time with 99% customer satisfaction
- Managed the timely publication of 5 blogs on the company website while writing newsletter emails on a weekly basis to improve the lead generation rate by 12%
Computer Skills
Whether it’s a technical job or a non-technical job, hiring managers are looking for basic computer knowledge such as typing skills, knowledge of spreadsheets, creating presentations, emailing skills, etc. in every candidate.
Here’s how you can demonstrate your computer skills in your resume:
- Created PowerPoint presentations on a quarterly basis to present a work progress report to the stakeholders & senior management
- Collected and analyzed data gathered from user feedback by deploying Microsoft excel as part of improving user engagement by 15%
Key Takeaways
Here are the key takeaways from the blog:
- Read the job description to identify both hard skills and soft skills for writing in your resume.
- Match the skills in the job description with your own skills
- Demonstrate the skills in the professional experience section in single-line bullet points.
- Quantify the skills using statistics and make them achievement-focused.
