Zygaverse Blogs Helping you understand the power of your personal brandhttps://evolvedresumebuilder.com/BlogThe Most Important Skills To Put On Your Resumehttps://evolvedresumebuilder.com/Blog/PostId/48/most-important-skills-to-put-on-resumeBlog &amp; Latest NewsThu, 23 May 2019 23:00:00 GMT<p>The job market that most people enter into today is very different from the ones our parents encountered.&nbsp;</p> <p>The idea that you&rsquo;d train for a particular career, enter into it, work your way up and eventually retire at a senior level is a path that very few people will end up taking.&nbsp;</p> <p>According to <a href="https://mccrindle.com.au/insights/blog/job-mobility-australia/">research</a>, the average time spent in a single job is just over three years, and today&rsquo;s school leaver can expect to have five separate careers in their lifetime. What does this mean for the average Australian job seeker?&nbsp;</p> <p>It means that you&rsquo;ll probably be updating your resume more often and that you&rsquo;ll have to be more critical about what appears in it as you pursue different positions requiring different skill sets.&nbsp;</p> <p>Here&rsquo;s how to decide what goes on your resume and what you should leave out &ndash; and why your soft skills should always feature.</p> <h2>Adding Soft Skills to Your Resume</h2> <p>There are still a handful of jobs that require set-in-stone qualifications and requirements.&nbsp;</p> <p>If you&rsquo;re planning on entering a profession such as law and medicine or working as a tradie electrician or builder, your technical skills are critical to your ability to get the job done.&nbsp;</p> <p>However, for the vast majority of corporate and office-based jobs, things aren&rsquo;t so cut and dry.&nbsp;</p> <p>Dozens of job titles and job roles exist in the working world, and there aren&rsquo;t dedicated and accredited university degrees for each individual role.&nbsp;</p> <p>For this reason, you need to identify the intangible skills you possess that you could apply in a variety of roles.&nbsp;</p> <p>According to a recent survey undertaken by LinkedIn, almost <a href="https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/trends-and-research/2018/the-most-in-demand-hard-and-soft-skills-of-2018">60% of leaders</a> say that a person&rsquo;s soft skills will help them stand out above other applicants for a job, so it&rsquo;s worth paying attention to this.</p> <h2>Hard Skills vs Soft Skills</h2> <p>If you don&rsquo;t have the faintest idea what soft skills you have, sit down and make a list of the duties you perform (or performed at your last job) regularly.&nbsp;</p> <p>Think about the tasks you excel at or a moment where you received praise and recognition in the workplace. What personal strengths enabled this?&nbsp;</p> <ul> <li>Catching a significant coding error before the client saw it could indicate attention to detail.&nbsp;</li> <li>Being able to find a last minute speaker for a conference after the promised guest speaker pulled out can mean you&rsquo;re skilled at perseverance.&nbsp;</li> <li>Keeping irate clients calm during an unforeseen project delay due to bad weather can demonstrate crisis management skills.</li> </ul> <p>If you&rsquo;re still stuck, don&rsquo;t be afraid to contact old co-workers or references and ask them what their impression of you is. Often our soft skills are best identified from an outside perspective.</p> <h2>Matching Your Skills To The Right Job</h2> <p>You might have a specific type of job title in mind when seeking a new role, or you might be wanting a different job in a different environment that you could confidently apply for based on your current skill set.&nbsp;</p> <p>To be able to build your resume with the appropriate soft skills, you&rsquo;ll need to group them by type and category so that you can see where your strengths lie.</p> <h2>Types of Soft Skills</h2> <p>There&rsquo;s no universally acknowledged classification system used with soft skills.</p> <p>However, the <a href="https://hbr.org/2017/02/emotional-intelligence-has-12-elements-which-do-you-need-to-work-on">Harvard Business Review</a> believes that you can divide most soft skills into four categories:</p> <ul> <li>Self Management &ndash; adaptability, optimism &amp; having a strong work ethic/moral compass</li> <li>Self Awareness &ndash; being self-aware, observant, communicative &amp; open to criticism</li> <li>Social Awareness &ndash; empathy, flexibility &amp; attention to detail</li> <li>Relationship Management &ndash; leadership, patience, conflict resolution</li> </ul> <p>To work out which skills you possess, you need to carefully go through the job posting in question or look at several postings of the kind of jobs you&rsquo;re seeking out.&nbsp;</p> <p>What common traits do they call for? They might mention the very soft skills you possess, by a different name.&nbsp;</p> <h2>Which Skills to Put on Your Resume</h2> <p>When putting your resume together, put yourself in the position of the person looking at it and remember that it will be the first of many communications you&rsquo;ll have with them if you&rsquo;re successful.&nbsp;</p> <p>To grab their attention, you need to lead with the skills you possess that enable you to fill the position. Here&rsquo;s a guide on what to include and what to leave out.</p> <h3>Things to leave off your resume</h3> <ul> <li>Historical details like your hometown or school grades (unless you&rsquo;re a school leaver)</li> <li>Personal details such as hobbies and pastimes, unless directly linked to your role.&nbsp;</li> <li>Lies or anything that stretches the truth. This will always reflect badly on you.</li> </ul> <h3>Skills to list on your resume</h3> <ul> <li>Your contact details (including an up to date contact number and email address)</li> <li>Relevant experience (if you feel it taught you valuable skills, include it)</li> <li>Soft skills related tasks (listing your tasks and which soft skills they exercise).</li> </ul> <h2>Ready to Update Your Resume?</h2> <p>Putting together a resume (and figuring out exactly what skills to put on your resume) isn&rsquo;t always easy, which is why sometimes working with resume templates and our <a href="https://zygauni.com/">interactive resume builder</a> could help you finetune yours.&nbsp;</p> <p>It&#39;s something that ZygaUni can assist you with, and we&rsquo;re experts at helping you to prepare for an interview too. Get in touch with us today to see how we can help you create the perfect resume.<br /> &nbsp;</p> 48