What would be the right skills for a resume? Deciding out the best resume skills is not a walk in the park.

Your resume creates your first impression and determines whether you are qualified enough to get that particular job or not. At the end of the day, your skills get you hired in a company. So, you should know which skills to put on a resume and which to avoid.

Many reports suggest that recruiters spend no more than six or seven seconds analyzing a resume before deciding whether to shortlist a candidate or not. So, to stand out in those few seconds, you need to be very particular and thoughtful of the skills you are writing so that you create a good impression in no time.

Now, if you are wondering what would be the ideal resume skills for you, then here you get to know about some crucial resume skills, why skills are essential and more.

What are Resume Skills?

All the personal abilities or talents you possess can be divided into three sections of resume skills:

1. Transferable Skills for Resume– Same as what it sounds, the skills you can take with you and use in every job, irrespective of the field and designation. Some examples of transferable skills are communication skills, time management, Microsoft excel, multitasking etc.
2. Adaptive Skills for Resume – The skills that you need to function daily and that you continue to grow in your work environment. Some examples of adaptive skills are flexibility, persuasiveness, ability to work etc.
3. Job-specific Skills for Resume– The skills you require to perform a specified job. Job-specific skills for a resume can be any based on the type of job. For example, if you are a software developer, you need to know programming languages.

Why are Skills Quintessential to Recruiters?

Since skills are your natural capabilities utilized to accomplish a task, thus every recruiter would look for certain skills to get an affirmation that you will complete a required task and excel in the same. Multiple skills help you deal with a specific situation, and it could be any – life skill or professional skill. All types of skills, whether transferable, adaptive or industry-specific, eventually, fall into two areas – soft skills and hard skills.

Employers do not spend much time shortlisting resumes. As employers cannot go through every single detail in your resume, exhibiting a good balance of soft skills and hard skills for CV shortlisting is essential. The more precise your resume would be and the more correct jargon it would include, the chances of you getting shortlisted increases.

Skills for Resume: Soft Skills Vs Hard Skills

Hard skills refer to the abilities you gain through a job experience, education or formal training. Hard skills vary from job role to job role and can be measured through evaluations. Your hard skills determine what you have to comply with a specific job description. To exemplify, if you are a software engineer, then mathematical aptitude, programming knowledge, coding skills etc., are hard skills for a resume you need to have.

At the same time, soft skills refer to how persistent you are in performing your duties and how reliable and trustworthy you can be as a professional. Simply put, soft skills are comparable to your personality traits and the qualities that determine your way of working. Some good examples of soft skills are – communication skills, teamwork, problem-solving ability, leadership quality, emotional intelligence and much more.

So, are you thinking, which skills to list on your resume? Hard skills or soft skills. The answer is there should be a balance between both skills. Employers seek professionals who possess a good mix of both – soft skills and hard skills, as both are much-valued in the corporate world. Employers do not just look for hard skills in employees or just soft skills.

Crucial Skills to Include in Your Resume: 

Generally, the resume skills section states directly about the skills you are able with. The hard skills for a resume are specified to a role, but there are some generic soft skills that you can include in your resume. They are as follows:

• Decision making
• Creativity
• Communication skills
• Teamwork
• Interpersonal skills
• Leadership
• Problem-solving abilities
• Listening skills
• Adaptability
• Management skills
• Critical thinking
• Analytical skills
• Customer Handling
• Organizing skills

Some of the skills for resume that you should AVOID are:

• Hard-working
• Calm
• Cheerful
• Courteous
• Confident
• Enthusiastic
• Honest
• Patient etc

How to Decide Which Skills to Put on a Resume?

You can figure out the right skills for a resume based on the role you are applying to by following the practices mentioned here:

• Look for job descriptions on various sites and pick the ones that you wish to work in.
• Now, go through all the job descriptions and make a resume skills list for the skills that have been repeated in most of the job descriptions in a posting.
• Throughout your educational years, job experience, training, extracurricular activities, being part of clubs in college and more, you would have developed a skill.
• Now, brainstorm and identify the skills you have, then follow it by matching the skills with the ones written in the job description and required job qualifications – mention the shared skills in your resume.

Here’s a small outline of how to match skills to a specified job description: 

So, when making your resume, you have to prepare a table that includes your skills. The table should have soft skills and hard skills that directly match the job requirements and employer’s hiring criterion.

All the keywords you would have identified through a job posting should be mentioned in the table, as using the keywords same as job posting would make you more reliable in front of the interviewer and help you get shortlisted.

Many firms now use an Application Tracking System to narrow the job-seekers pool and shortlist some. ATS filters the most relevant resumes for the job position, so if your resume is based on keywords included in the job posting, then the probability of getting shortlisted increases.

Things to Keep in Mind While Creating a Resume: 

Do not lie in your resume

Lying and exaggerating in your resume could be quite off-putting for the recruiters. So, abstain from writing wrong information or stretching it in your resume. Ensure you mention only genuine skills you possess and give a brief about the academic qualifications you have achieved.

Back up your skills with substantial examples

The best way to exhibit yourself as the right candidate would be to support your skills with examples. You can specifically mention numbers to demonstrate your skill, if attainable. So, if you have mentioned in your resume that you are good at convincing people, then showcase that skill by informing them that you brought x number of clients and earned y amount of revenue in your job.

Avoid typos

Typos in a resume are a big no-no! As soon as a recruiter find a typo in your resume, your chances of getting shortlisted narrows down. Since a resume creates a first impression for a job-seeker in terms of skills and experience, typos indicate sloppiness, and that builds an assumption that s/he would do a mediocre job.

Keep the resume to the point

You have to make sure that your resume is not too lengthy. Preferably, it should not extend two pages, and one page would be the most ideal. It’s no surprise that recruiters do not spend time reading a resume, so keep the resume short, precise and to the point. Your resume should not be too wordy, and you don’t have to amplify everything.

Proofread the resume

No matter what, you cannot send the resume without proofreading it twice. You have to look for spelling errors, improper formatting or grammatical errors in the resume. The ideal way would be to print out the resume and then proofread it since spotting errors becomes easier on paper.

If you are a student, you can create an effective resume by seeking help from your university as well. Most of the top universities in India not just provide students with excellent placement opportunities but also train them in job-related aspects like resume building and resume writing, mock group discussions, mock interviews, etc.

One such wonderful college is Marwadi University. Marwadi University is a NAAC A+ certified institute, which offers placements in reputed companies like Amazon, LG, Hettich, BYJU’s etc., and also trains students in each aspect of placements by following a 360-Degree Learning Approach.