Sunday, December 29, 2019
no one is reading my resumes skills section
no one is reading my resumes skills section no one is reading my resumes skills section A reader writesI was wondering what your thoughts are in general on having a skills section on resumes. Ive seen pretty ambiguous skills sometimes, but I only list concrete technical skills, e.g. video editing with Adobe Premiere, NOT things like engages with industry influencers. For me especially, I thought it would be helpful because my skills are sometimes useful in my field, but Ive only been doing them outside of paid work. But Im wondering if a skills section dont carry real weight with interviewers, or if the work history section totally overshadows it.I ask because at the last few interviews I went to, it turned out they actually wanted some with a skill of mine but when I reminded them that I had that skill, their response was, Oh you do? like they hadnt even noticed. Ive even been telling a project management story in my titelseite letter about the time one of these skills came in han dy, so Im wondering how they can learn enough to bring me in for an interview but totally blow past the fact that Ive been doing exactly the special thing they wanted. I was at one today and the interviewer threw it out there wistfully, like it was pie in the sky she wouldnt be able to find We have so many promo clips to edit for the webpage. It would be SO nice to get a chocolate teapot crafter who could edit video, but I mean, what are the chances that someone knows how to craft chocopots AND edit video?Do I need to move the Skills section to the top of my resume? Do I need to make it bigger? Does it have to live strictly in my cover letter from now on because interviewers just dont care about stuff beyond job history descriptions? Or should I not sweat it because it keeps turning out to be a bonus skill rather than the meat of the job?Yeah, I think a lot of people just arent bothering to read that section or retain it, largely because so many peoples skills sections are totally useless (listing things that are a given in their field, like Word, or listing ridiculous subjective self-assessments like strong communication skills, works well in groups and independently, and other useless proclamations).I wouldnt move the section or make it bigger. Instead, if the stuff youre including in there is integral to what you want to convey about yourself as a candidate, find a way to include it in the work section, which is really the most important part of your resume and your candidacy. For instance, instead of listing video editing in your skills section, talk about it in a bullet point under the jobs where you edited videos. Doing thatwill also allow you frame it in terms of what accomplished with the skill, instead of just noting the skill itself and thats always better and more convincing.
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