Highlight Your Value by Integrating These 5 Skills Into Your Resume

It is important that your resume effectively articulates your accomplishments and what you can bring to the table. Otherwise, how will you stand out from all the other applicants and land the position?

Your resume must be accomplishment-based, rather than responsibility-based. That is, your resume should highlight what you’ve achieved instead of simply stating that you hold a certain skill. For maximum effect, your resume should also include these five skills — provided, of course, that you can truthfully say you have them:

1. Adaptability

According to PwC, CEOs see adaptability and collaboration as equally important as problem-solving, risk management, and other traditional skills. In startups and small businesses especially, employees are often required to wear many hats, work with cross-functional teams, and adapt to new situations as they arise.

Instead of just writing “adaptable” on your resume, show employers how you have adapted to new situations. For example, you could write something along the lines of:

“Hired as an administrative assistant and served as an editorial assistant while managing social media postings and website content and liaising with contributors to organize submissions.”

This highlights not only your ability to adapt based on company needs, but also the value your adaptability creates for employers.

2. Collaboration

According to i4cp, “collaboration is highly correlated with market performance,” and high-performing organizations are 5.5 times more likely to encourage and reward teams for collaboration.

A great way to highlight collaboration on your resume is to discuss group projects you’ve worked on. The more you can quantify and illustrate your collaboration at work, the better, so be sure to include details like how many people worked on the project, whether the project was cross-functional, and so on.

3. Leadership

Leadership is a key skill in almost every business sector. A great leader can motivate employees and increase productivity, while bad leadership can damage morale and hurt the company’s bottom line. Leadership makes such a big difference that 49 percent of CEOs are “changing their talent strategy to focus on the leadership pipeline so that they can help attract, retain, and engage the staff needed to remain relevant and competitive,” according to Glassdoor.

If you have leadership skills, it’s crucial to highlight them on your resume. Discuss times you’ve shown leadership in both large and small ways, and make sure to discuss the results of your leadership. As always, your results will make the biggest impact when you’re applying to jobs.

4. Problem-Solving

When a company is hiring, it is looking for a solution to a problem it has, whether it be a recently departed employee or a business function in need of improvement. If you can show a potential employer how you will be a solution to its problem, you will land the job.

To communicate your problem-solving prowess, create SOAR stories (situation, obstacle, action, result) describing times when you’ve successfully overcome major challenges. You can then use the information in your SOAR stories to highlight your problem-solving skills on your resume and during interviews.

5. Tech Savvy

Social media is more important than ever to business. Roughly a third of all people in the world use social media, and 71 percent of consumers who have a good customer service experience via social media are likely to recommend that company to other consumers. If you have the technical skills to run, analyze, or improve social media reach, highlight them on your resume.

Additionally, it is crucial to list any software knowledge you have. Anything from Adobe to QuickBooks to Google apps can come in handy when you’re applying for a job. Often, a recruiter or hiring manager will do a keyword search of their resume database to source candidates who are proficient in certain software applications. If you don’t list your software skills, you won’t be in the search results.

—

Your resume should articulate what you’ve accomplished and what you can bring to a new role. While your achievements are unique to yourself, integrating adaptability, collaboration, leadership, problem-solving, and tech savvy into your resume is a good way to stand out in any industry.

A version of this article originally appeared on Write Styles.

Michele Lando is a certified professional resume writer and the founder of Write Styles.