A good resume is often the difference between getting a job that pays $40k and a job that pays $75k a year. “Done-For-You” Recruiting is a service that my consulting firm provides and I have a lot of experience with hiring and looking at resumes.
A mistake that many people make is putting “soft skills” on their resume.
This means putting words like:
- Confident
- Good communication skills
- Good attitude
- Leadership skills
- Good at teamwork
- Hard working
- Attention to detail
- Smart
- Good people skills
- Can connect with people easily
etc.
This is largely a waste of space because no one thinks you are “confident” simply because you wrote “confident” in your resume.
At best your potential employer will ignore it, at worst he will think you are unprofessional and reject your resume.
Things like confidence, hard work, attention to detail, etc. HAS TO BE SHOWN NOT TOLD.
For example, if you write “attention to detail” but your resume has a typo or bad formatting or a missing fullstop… what does that mean? If you want to show attention to detail all of those things should be 100% good. There should be zero typos, the dates should be in the same format (Eg. If you said November, 2024 in one place you shouldn’t say Jan 25 in another place), etc..
Likewise instead of saying “hard working” you need to demonstrate it. For example, “black belt karate” in your hobbies and interests section DEMONSTRATES hard work.
“Member of the city Toastmaster’s Club” DEMONSTRATES good social skills.
The game is about showing and telling.
Make this change to your resume and it will perform better.
– Harsh Strongman
