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Is a skills section necessary on a resume? Skills are an important section of your resume. When you create a dedicated skill section on your resume, you can easily convince recruiters and hiring managers. Based on your skills, employers can reach you quickly through digital resumes on job boards, recruitment websites, and LinkedIn. the skill section tells a lot about you.
Experts recommend a skill-based resume instead of an experience-based resume. Although you can’t overlook the significance of the “experience section,” a skill-based resume highlights your personal qualifications listing your skills. It puts less emphasis on your experience. A skill-based resume works better for entry-level job seekers. Read on!
Importance of Skills Section
Is a skills section necessary on a resume? Of course, it is! You can’t ignore this section because hiring managers and employers want to recruit skillful candidates. The skill section becomes even more important when you apply for a job that requires technical skills.
For example, when you apply for a software engineering position, you should list all the technical skills. These include programming languages, software, applications, tools, and cloud platforms. Avoid mentioning them when you lack the expertise or skills.
Adding skills enhances your resume quality and creates a better impression on your prospective employer. Employers look for a person with good knowledge and skills.
If you lack technical skills, avoid adding them to your resume. That can make you miss opportunities. Skills help increase your work efficiency. For instance, if you can develop and run specific software, you can improve your work efficiency and speed. Mentioning this information on your resume will impress your prospective employer.
What skills can you not put on a resume?
Employers usually reject job applications that contain irrelevant and generic skills. For example, if you have applied for an accounting position, there is no need to mention you have good English grammar and punctuation skills. These are irrelevant skills and have nothing to do with accounting.
However, if you have applied for an HR manager position, your prospective employer may consider these skills. Also, you should avoid mentioning common skills such as Microsoft Word.
However, if the employer has mentioned explicitly in the job description that they require an individual who has skills in “Microsoft Word,” in that case, you can add it to your resume. Remember, you have to include skills that align with the job description and the company requirements. Here are a few skills that you should avoid adding to your resume.
- Language skills unless specified in the job description
- Basic computer skills like Microsoft Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, etc.
- Social media management skills
- Outdated tech skills, such as developing Dos applications
10 Skills to wow your employers
Giving details of your skills, internship, or work experiences is mandatory when writing your resume. However, you must list the most relevant skills first. Here are the ten skills that can wow your potential employer. Keep reading!
- Commercial awareness
- Negotiation and persuasion
- Problem-solving
- Active listening
- Ability to work under pressure
- Managing ambiguity
- Resilience
- Enterprise and entrepreneurial skills
- Information technology skills
- Technical skills, such as computers, software, and tools
Highlighting these skills on your resume can increase your hiring chances. However, if you just mention “problem-solving,” your employer may think about what sort of problems you solve. Therefore, a professional approach is to write something like: “Cloud computing problem solving” skills. Similarly, you can write “completed several projects for the company XYZ in achieving over 95% product-market fit” – this is an example of “commercial awareness.”
Conclusion
Adding a skills section to your resume can increase your hiring chances. However, if you highlight irrelevant skills, the hiring manager will reject your application right away. Focus on creating a skill-based resume and ensure highlighting technical skills. Follow the examples above to ace your resume.
Some Of My Favorite Tools
Thank you again for reading my article. Writing this blog takes a lot of time, attention, and effort so I take care in using a very standard set of tools to deliver my blog to you. Maybe you will find these helpful if you have any similar interests along your career path.
Web Hosting: To get started with a website I recommend SiteGround. Their prices are great and they have free backups for my specific plan. (Here is a very good write-up about utilizing their hosting platform that explains a lot of the benefits and walks you through the very easy sign-up process.)
Outsourcing: I use Fiverr for many different tasks. My life is pretty busy and I try to use my time wisely. I utilize outsourcing services like Fiverr whenever possible to have people do various tasks that I'm just not good at – like graphic design. If interested, here is the person I specifically use to do graphical design for many of my images.
Online Privacy: I work hard and strive to keep confidential business details private. Therefore, I always want to keep my work viewable only by the correct people. One of the ways I protect myself online is by using a VPN and more specifically I personally use NordVPN. I use NordVPN specifically because it's fast, I can use it on any of my devices, and I can chose from any specific location. If you are looking to retain your privacy online, I highly recommend NordVPN to both my friends and family.
