Chapter 5

Your Skills Summary Highlights

This can be the most influential part of the entire résumé if you set it up right. Your cover letter will point to it and the skills you list will support everything you know about your position of interest.

Using the Skills Summary Highlights at the top of your résumé provides a quick reference for the résumé screener. This method adds IMPACT to your résumé and gets your résumé read.

By now, you surely have a good idea about the requirements for the position in which you are interested. If you haven't made that phone call yet, do it. Being nervous about making a cold call is understandable, however, you need not worry. If you are not made to feel comfortable on the other end of the line, you might consider their response as a small test of their work environment.

Through the phone call and/or pre-interview with your future boss, you wrote down all the key items that they are looking for in a person they want to hire for this position.

During the pre-interview you wrote down, in order of most importance, what was required of a perfect candidate. Now is your chance to highlight these skills by listing them in the Skills Summary Highlights.

If you can't cover all the skills your future employer mentioned as, most desirable, you will want to include other things that indicate you probably have the particular skill they need. Do this by listing similar skill sets or pointing out things that require similar skill sets.

In other words, let's take the skill of conflict resolution. You don't have any formal training and it isn't necessarily part of your job function. However, you do have experience resolving conflict.

You could say something like, "Frequently sought after by peers to help with issues pertaining to communication" or something else related to problem solving.

Here are two lists from the sample résumé we have been working with. Notice the difference between the two skill summaries.

This is the same person using targeted highlights to show off their skill sets. Again, we'll edit these later for more impact.

Skills Summary Highlights

Skilled Work Group Facilitator with recent experience developing four teams simultaneously over 18 months.
Have taught all facets of Basic Process Improvement. (brainstorming, flowcharting, decision making tools, charts, etc.)
Have used several experiential exercises to teach communication, conflict resolution and problem solving.
Extensive background in resolving technical and quality control issues.
Strong commitment to consensus management and team building.
Strong leadership skills and training that include constraint theory management, problem solving and customer service.
Over ten years of diverse experience in the electronics field.
Extensive experience in capacity planning, process layout and on-time implementation.
PC experience with EXCEL, WORD, ACCESS and others.

Compare that to this:

Skills Summary Highlights

UNIX Sytem Administrator (7.x-10.x), support 60+ systems
UNIX Workstation setup and troubleshooting
Software installations and configurations
Wrote and implemented KSH, AWK, SED, scripts for system/process monitoring and yield improvement
Strong track record in Customer Support and satisfaction
Informix/SQL database reporting and queries
Experience with HTML
Yield/process improvement and streamlining using TQC
Process capacity planning and on-time implementation
Planning, layout and purchasing experience
Process documentation, procedure writing and training skills
PC experience with EXCEL, WORD, ACCESS and others.
Classes include: ANSI C programming, HP-UX 10.X System Administration

The first Skills Summary Highlights showed specific skills possessed and demonstrated that were targeted toward a management position.

The second Skills Summary Highlights is directed at a Systems Administrator position.

Take notice at the second set of highlights. It shows this person has experience in certain areas. These are areas where they are NOT an expert but are familiar with certain aspects of the skill or expectations they have listed. This is an important distinction.

The Skills Summary Highlights and the Selected Accomplishments are an opportunity for you to strongly convey your skills and behavior. These are often a catalyst for interview questions so you should be able to back up everything you claim on your résumé.

Choose your words wisely. When you say you have experience, it indicates familiarity but does not indicate you are an expert.

When you say knowledgeable or expert or imply in any way that you are a master at a particular skill, you better be able to converse with an expert on the topic.

Many interviewers use this against you and disqualify you from the interview process if you get caught. Don't let this happen to you.

Many times we don't really know what we are good at. The next section asks some important questions designed to get you thinking about the skills you have to offer your potential employer.

Take some time to carefully analyze each question. Think about them from an employer's perspective. If you can, imagine that you are the owner or CEO of the company. Explain to yourself in the mirror why a particular skill is valuable to the company.

If you can do this, it probably belongs on your résumé.

Consider These Skills

Speaking skills?

When have you lead meetings?
Ever taught any classes?
Told you were good at public speaking?
Are you a good social conversationalist?
Have good telephone etiquette?
Do you listen and understand issues?
Do you listen and follow instructions?
Are you good at selling and persuading?
Negotiating issues and bargaining?
Have you managed conflict with others?

Writing skills?

Do you write research reports?
Document procedures?
Correspond regularly?
Personal letters?
Business letters?
Summaries?
Announcements?
Newspaper articles?
Fiction?
Poetry?
Class curriculum?

Computer skills?

User knowledge?
- What Operating Systems?
- How confident in basic skills?
- Application familiarity?
- Ever taught other users?
Programming skills?
- What languages?
Do you record inventory, enter data, run programs?
How about auditing records?
Analyzing and interpreting data?
Managing reports?

Leadership skills?

Take action with things needing to be done?
Inspire enthusiasm in the group?
When have you taken responsibility?
Followed through in spite of obstacles?
Do you motivate others to produce more?
Are you able to delegate?
Do you get things done on time?
Ever take the initiative in problem solving?
Can you handle a crises or emergency?
How have you developed a climate of teamwork?
Have you managed conflict with others?

Math skills?

Are you good at basic math?
How about algebra, geometry or trigonometry
Do you understand and use charts, graphs?
How is your bookkeeping or accounting?
Are you able to handle money?
Do you use scientific equations?
Are you effective at analyzing data?
Can you solve story type math problems?

Be bold, positive and truthful. Use the résumé to show off any skill that may be of value to your future boss. Even if a skill isn't directly beneficial, it may fit in your Skills Summary Highlights if the process for accomplishing it is useful to your future boss.

Right now you should have the foundation for a great résumé. In a moment you will start editing this rough draft into an absolute masterpiece. Before you start there is one more section to add to your work.

Education and Training

A growing number of employers these days are more interested in your demonstrated ability than they are your education. However, most high level professional jobs still want to see your education and require it for their positions.

We'll add this last section to your résumé before we get to the very heart of what makes your résumé exceptional.

The idea here is to show your formal education and any other specialized training or specific awards that are pertinent for the position you are seeking.

It can be labeled EDUCATION, EDUCATION and AWARDS or EDUCATION, TRAINING and AWARDS. You make the call here. It can be significant, depending on your field.

It should look something like this:

A Note for Generic Résumés

Hopefully your understanding of the skills required for the position you are applying for are more than an educated guess.

Your ability to turn out a great generic résumé will rely entirely on how well you know your generic audience. Knowing the audience is why targeted résumés are so powerful.

The Skills Summary Highlights section is used to demonstrate, at the top of your résumé, a certain set of skills that match your future employer's needs.

By matching these accurately, your résumé screener will examine your résumé further or immediately put it in the "save" pile for future review.

Chapter 5 Review

Use the skills Summary Highlights to showcase the skills that match the position you are applying for.

Be bold, positive and truthful with your highlights.

Add all pertinent education and classes to the end of your résumé.

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