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Crafting an effective resume can be surprisingly easy or exceedingly difficult. Depending on your professional profile and the career path you are following, your CV may be a straightforward list of certified hard skills or a set of soft skills that may change depending on the context of each application. Whatever the case, and whatever your skill set, it’s always a good idea to make sure the skills you add to your resume work together to tell a broader story of who you are as a candidate.
Technical skills, management skills, and interpersonal skills can interact to boost your profile from one of a pure specialist to one that can address workplace complexities, connect teams and departments, and translate concepts from one business language to another.
This sort of profile can be invaluable, and crafting your resume to communicate this value is not too difficult.
To help you restructure your resume so that you can get this message through, we listed 9 important skill buckets every professional may want to fill to ensure they are any recruiter’s dream candidate.
Digital literacy
As even non-technical roles become increasingly digital, job seekers with strong digital skills will be in high demand. This includes proficiency in using digital tools and platforms, knowledge of programming languages, and an understanding of data analysis.
Many jobs, from marketing to customer care, require in-depth knowledge of specific tools and apps, from CRM platforms to SEO plugins. Moreover, data visualization and basic web development (HTML and CSS) or graphic design skills are always useful to help build dashboards and templates that will streamline and simplify work.
While knowledge of the classic Microsoft Office suite, or its equivalents, is a must in today’s world, being truly competent at unlocking the power of tools like Excel is always a big bonus.
More technical skills, such as SQL databases, Python, and similar programming languages, all have value even outside of technical teams and can help automate or increase efficiency for all kinds of processes.
Tip: You can develop this skill by following the news about current and upcoming technologies and work-related trends, and not being afraid to tinker with new tools, testing out how they affect your workflows and productivity.
Critical thinking
Unlike many of the skills mentioned above, critical thinking can be more difficult to pinpoint as there aren’t any formal certifications for it. However, this does not make it less important.
Being familiar with the scientific approach, or basic logic, is a good starting point. This might be where scientific degrees, but even analytic philosophy or cognitive psychology degrees, may come in handy! But critical thinking is by no means limited to formal education.
The ability to challenge assumptions, describe thought processes, and understand different perspectives are equally important.
Critical thinking skills mesh very well with many of the technical skills we mentioned above, so make sure you know how to mutually boost their power and that you know how to communicate this added value.
Tip: While one option is to pick up a book on logic, or read about the scientific method, the best way to practice your critical thinking skills is to make sure you always question assumptions, whomever they come from.
Problem-solving
As you progress in your career, problems become more complex in depth and scale. The ability to break challenges down into actionable chunks of work is vital to any growing organization, and the more people are able to approach their work with this mindset, the better.
However, simply organizing processes so they can be approached effectively is not all that pertains to problem-solving. Coming up with different hypotheses, testing results, making improvements, rolling out solutions, and managing iterations are all important subsets of this skill.
If you have experience in project management and budgeting as part of your work experience, you may already be a step ahead.
Tip: Puzzles are a fun and useful way to train your problem-solving skills, but the top tip we can give is to make sure you always break larger issues into easily actionable chunks.
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Communication skills
Suppose you have all of the skills above. What good will they do if you cannot communicate the tech solutions you are working on, your concerns, and the results of your implemented solutions?
Different teams communicate in different ways, so there are many angles to approach when considering how strongly your profile ranks for this skill, from asynchronous communication to ticketing systems, from active listening to de-escalation and public speaking, from social media management to SEO or paid ads, how well we communicate in our specific language and niche weighs on how successful we are at our job.
But there’s more. The bonus skill, when it comes to communication, is the ability to translate different forms of communication from one department to another and from one platform to another. Your ability to understand data, to communicate marketing needs to developers and IT challenges to customer care agents may be the key that makes your profile truly stand out.
Tip: You can improve your communication skills by actively learning about different techniques and approaches to communication and putting them in practice to see which ones work best fro you. Once you know, never stop practicing.
Adaptability and flexibility
With rapid changes in technology and business practices, job seekers who can adapt to new situations and remain flexible will be highly valued. A work experience section that shows this adaptability in your resume will likely gain you points.
And no, you don’t have to be a jack-of-all-trades and dilute your expertise. You can develop your core skills while still reserving some resources to learn new skills that may be outside of your direct professional needs but are still very useful to help you adapt as your organization grows and evolves. It’s called T-shaping!
Tip: You can train these skills by carefully observing all steps of a project or process, even the ones you are not directly involved in, and asking questions to learn more. Equally, it can help to be available to support in roles and functions that are not your usual ones. Doing this when you have capacity will ensure you are ready to step up when there is a need.
Emotional intelligence
Soft skills such as empathy, self-awareness, and relationship-building are increasingly important in the workplace. Employers seek candidates who can work well in teams and interact positively with colleagues and clients. Still, it’s not just about the human aspect of relations.
A positive and empathetic workplace, in which collaboration and healthy interactions are a core part of the company’s work ethic, can also lead to better results, more fluid sharing of knowledge and information, and increased productivity. This ensures your team members and colleagues act and plan together, reducing obstacles and bottlenecks as a natural consequence of communicating effectively and empathetically.
Tip: This can be more difficult to train, as it’s not an easily transferable skill, however, learning more about the people you work with and that work around you is a great first step to empathizing with them and their needs.
Leadership
Strong leadership skills will always be in demand as companies seek candidates who can motivate and inspire teams to achieve their goals. But we often look at leadership in a very static and hierarchical way.
You don’t need to be a manager or C-suite executive to be a leader, and it’s more than likely that you already have some job skills and experience that prove your ability to be a leader. Look into projects you initiated, and let to completion, times when you took matters into your own hands and tackled a workplace challenge or times you coordinated people to reach a goal or target, and make sure they show during your job applications and job interviews.
You may even want to create a specific section of your resume just to highlight these skills and achievements.
Tip: Get involved in projects, groups, and activities you are passionate about. It will be easier to be heard, and eventually become a leader in your environment if you start with things you know and love.
Project management
Just like leadership, project management is one of the most in-demand skills employers look for when hiring. And it should be no surprise, as being able to coordinate stakeholders and teams while ensuring complex projects are completed within deadlines and budgets is no trivial matter.
And, just like leadership, it’s very likely that looking at your past work experience, you will be able to find multiple skills that could help you gear your professional profile toward project management.
Tip: Make sure you lead projects to ensure your leadership skills are well-honed. Start small, with tasks and projects you are confident with, and make sure you lead them from start to finish. Thi will help you build experience and confidence that will make it easier to approach more complex projects when the time comes.
Cultural competency
With globalization and a more diverse workforce, job seekers who have an understanding of different cultures and backgrounds will be highly sought after. This ties into the emotional intelligence and communication skills we mentioned above, but the focus on culture makes it unique.
Global companies have complex cultural interactions, sometimes even challenges. Still, this complexity also means they have an amazing depth of experience, knowledge, and diversity that can be invaluable assets for any organization. Moreover, global companies have the need to create and grow internal cultural values that shape the practices and work ethic of their community.
Focusing on these key skills in your resume and making sure the strengths and experiences in your profile tie into them will make you stand out the next time you dive into the job market or when you are planning your career path, but there is more.
Tip: Make sure you are in tune with the different cultural nuances of a global workplace and that you are open to adapting to them. As with other skills in this list, getting to know the people around you is the best way to ensure your cultural competence is well practiced.
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In this content series, we share articles, templates, and guides to help job seekers and new hires navigate the world of work. These resources guide you through the entire hiring process, from preparing your resume to interviewing to identifying professional development opportunities.
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