When you think about your resume, you tend to think of including your experience, job responsibilities, education, etc. But one thing you shouldn’t overlook: your skills.
“Skills are the most important factor when it comes to landing a job right now,” LinkedIn career expert Blair Heitmann recently told CNBC Make It. “More companies are shifting from traditional measures like degrees and years of experience to skills-based hiring to ensure that they get the most qualified person in the job who can really deliver.”
So, what kind of skills are we talking about?
Recruiters want to know what hard skills (certifiable skills like coding or graphic design) you have but they’re increasingly looking for soft skills (less quantifiable skills like multitasking and problem solving) as well.
“Let’s say you have a special certification that wasn’t necessarily a higher education degree like a bachelor’s degree,” Vicki Salemi, a career expert at Monster, told CNBC Make It. This could be a certificate from an online course in marketing. Or if you are fluent in another language — that would be great to include under skills.
Some of your skills you can work into bullets under experience but for the rest, include them under the skills section of your resume.
Showing off your skills can put you “head and shoulders above other candidates,” Salemi said.
The top 10 most in-demand skills
LinkedIn took a look at job listings on its site and came up with the most frequently mentioned skills. Here are the top 10 skills recruiters are looking for right now:
- Customer Service
- Sales
- Accounting
- Business Development
- Marketing
- Leadership
- Communication
- Digital Marketing
- Sales Management
- Problem Solving
Of course, not all of these skills will apply to your job search. But it’s important to start training your brain to pick out what skills companies are looking for in the job description and, if those are skills you have, to highlight them on your resume and underscore them in the interview.