Decoding Job Descriptions Part 4: Who's got the skills?

You need some skills to pay all those bills.

Skills are the abilities and knowledge you bring to the table in order to solve the employer's problems. If you review the functions or requirements of the position, you can figure out what the required skills are. Wanted skills are often connected to certain descriptions, such as years of experience in that skill, specific training or education.

In your resume, you must describe your experience solving the same or similar problems you read about in my last post. It must also highlight skills that the employer considers essential that you are also capable of.

Hard versus Soft skills

Our problem solving abilities can be categorized as Hard or Soft Skills:

Hard Skills: Are objective, often quantifiable, require training and they follow a standardized process or protocol. I look at these as "what we do."

Examples include Microsoft Word and Excel proficiency, being bi-lingual,operating commercial kitchen equipment, project management, or conducting patient assessments.

Soft Skills: These are often associated with interpersonal communication, decision making and the manner in which we conduct our jobs (How we do it). The strength of our soft skills are often determined by observation of others, but there is still a standard of acceptable social behavior and emotional intelligence by which Managers judge employees.

Examples are being a team player, excellent time management, as well as excellent verbal or written communication.

Using the JD example from the last post, see if you can figure out the hard skills from the soft skills. Then compare your list to the one below. Skills can be directly listed in the JD and/or implied by the duties outlined.

Here are the skills are directly stated and implied from the the link above. (H) and (S) indicates if they are hard or soft skills respectively:

Direct: Secretarial/ office experience (2-3 yrs) (H)

Computer literacy (H)

Word processing and database software (H)

Medical terminology preferred (H)

Interpersonal/ Communication skills (S)

Implied: Team work (S)

Multi-tasking (S)

Time Management (S)

Organization(S)

Exercise Time

Remember the PDT exercise from last post? I have another one for you. Identify the hard and soft skills from one of your own JDs you picked last time. Then for each one, jot down a specific example of a time(s) you demonstrated that skill and where you worked (or volunteered). Feel free to review personal experience examples since you will likely be using those for this exercise. check out my specific example guidelines at my last post.

Tip for including skills in your resume

Be sure to mention those directly stated skills from the JD into your resume, more than just once or twice. This is because a lot of employers use applicant tracking systems (ATS) software to sort through the hundreds of resumes they receive to find the most qualified candidates. Skills are among the keywords that ATS are set to recognize, and this recognition helps to narrow the field. The more you mention those skills in your resume, the better!

What does that look like? You've likely used those skills across multiple jobs or other volunteer/ community/ internship work. Many resumes also feature a "Qualifications Summary" or "Skill Highlights" section towards the top of the resume where these skills are mentioned early to attract the ATS or that fast-skimming pair of eyes belonging to a Recruiter or Hiring Manager.

Hope this has been helpful! Was it easy to spot the skills in your JD? Questions? I want to hear about it:)