How to create a basic list of skills

Experts advise not to limit yourself to one resume in your job search but to adapt it every time to a specific vacancy. The description of key skills in your main resume (which you simply publish on the website or send to several similar vacancies) and in the resume created specifically for a specific job should be different.

Let’s figure out how to describe your skills in a basic CV that is suitable for many vacancies with a typical description. The “Skills and Achievements” column in the resume template at Superjob.ru concludes the “Work Experience” section. This means that your skills should summarize your experience, be a natural result of it.

For example, if you worked in marketing and are currently looking for a marketing manager position, make a logical list of what you have learned and how you can be useful to the new employer – in this case, a generalized one. For example:
– conducting marketing research;
– analyzing the situation in the market and consumer preferences;
– organizing and conducting marketing activities;
– developing ideas for souvenir products.

The list should not be too long and detailed – stop at a few meaningful points. The recruiter reading your resume needs to see that your key skills are a product of your experience, so don’t makeup what didn’t exist. So, if you were an ordinary employee, mentioning such a skill as “organizing the work of a department” would seem implausible. Conversely, if your goal is to be ahead of marketing and you have relevant experience, emphasize those skills that are related to the organization of work, for example, “creating a marketing service from scratch.” Another example: if you have worked as an accountant all your life, and in the “Skills and Achievements” section you suddenly write “the ability to communicate with the audience”, also do not count on the understanding of the HR manager.

Don’t confuse the description of skills and personality. It is better to write about the fact that you are responsible, sociable, punctual and have a pleasant appearance in the section “About me”. The Skills and Achievements section is for business information only.

What is relevant for company N?

Now let’s consider a situation when you are preparing a resume for a certain vacancy that you are especially interested in. In this case, the list of basic skills should no longer be regarded as a general list of competencies, but as a listing of specific skills that will be useful to this particular employer.

Read the announcement carefully. What should a successful candidate be able to do to be hired by this company? Compare these requirements with your experience and think, which of what you can do well? This is what you need to write about in the “Skills” section.

At the same time, it is easy to rewrite the employer’s requirements for yourself in the resume and arrange them as your skills will be wrong: the recruiter will immediately understand that you treated the resume formally. Pass the information through yourself, make it more specific, highlight accents, add what the employer did not mention, but which, in your opinion, can be useful to the company. For example, if you are applying for the position of personal assistant to the manager and see in the announcement such requirements as confident knowledge of English and conducting business correspondence in it, mention in your resume not only these skills but also the ability to organize visa support for the manager (if it corresponds to the truth). Think logically: since the director and his assistant correspond in English, it means that the company most likely has foreign partners or clients. And if so, then your ability to quickly organize the receipt of a visa will interest a potential manager.

Don’t forget that we live in a digital age, which means there is a high probability that a recruiter will search for suitable resumes by keywords. Please write your skill description to include words and phrases that appear in the job description.

Let your resume skills be the keys to the doors you need!