Soft skills
Soft skills are personal attributes which are not specific to a particular profession and can be applied to any job or industry. They are just as valuable as hard skills, but they are more common and harder to measure and prove in a CV.
Adaptability– The ability to quickly adjust to new situations and environments whilst maintaining a high level of performance
Attention to detail – Spotting small details that could have big consequences to your employer and dealing with them accordingly
Communication– Delivering information to others so that they receive and understand your ideas – This can be written (emails, letters, messaging systems) spoken (conversations, meetings, presentations) visual (videos, posters, images)
Creativity – The ability to generate new ideas such as new marketing campaigns, staff initiatives or images for adverts
Decision making – Choosing to take actions that could have big effects on colleagues and customer, especially in pressured situations
Diplomacy – Dealing with people sensitively and tactfully whilst trying to reach agreements that satisfy differing needs as closely as possible
Flexibility – Willingness to make sudden changes when unexpected circumstances arise
Initiative – The ability to think independently and make responsible decisions, without asking management for guidance
Motivation – The ability to stay driven and focused to achieve targets, especially during difficult times
Organisation – Putting systems and order in place to ensure routine tasks are carried out efficiently
Planning– Preparing how tasks will be delivered, putting processes into place
Problem solving– Dealing with situations that pose threats to the running of your organisation, and providing solutions to combat them
Reliability – Being trusted to complete tasks and deliver results without being checked on
Team work– Working collaboratively with colleagues and external individuals to achieve common goals
Time management – Being aware of time limitations ensuring deadlines are met
Admin skills
Efficient administration is vital to the smooth running of an organisation, so whether you work directly in admin or not, you are likely to need some administration skills.
Business software – Being a confident user of business IT tools such as Outlook, Gmail, Excel, Windows
Business support – Assisting senior business figures with ad hoc tasks such as note taking, diary management etc.
Communications – Creating and distributing messages internally to keep colleagues informed of news and changes within the organisation (usually via email)
Data analysis – Taking raw data sets and using the information to spot trends and make predictions
Data entry – Inputting information into databases to keep organisation records up to date
Diary management – Organising schedules for a team or senior staff members
Document management – Creating, updating and formatting important business documents such as staff lists or HR records
Email management – Managing the organisation and distribution of emails for a company, department or individual
Post distribution – Collecting incoming post and delivering to relevant people or teams
Process management – Ensuring admin processes are completed correctly, such as customer onboarding or invoice input.
Query handling – Providing accurate answers to questions from internal staff, suppliers and customers
Reporting – Creating and distributing reports containing business figures such as sales, profits and costs
Typing – Creating Word documents, emails and other typed information
Creative skills
Whether you work directly in a creative role (graphic design etc.) or not, creativity can play vital role across any business, helping to drive marketing initiatives or solve internal problems.
Attending briefs –Meeting with clients to understand their requirements and asking effective questions to extract the information needed to carry out the work correctly
Brainstorming – Meeting with team members to discuss new ideas for a project – contributing ideas and providing feedback
Branding – Contributing to a company’s look and feel by providing input on logos, copy, product design etc.
Designing – Creating effective looks and functions for anything from advertising material to buildings
Idea generation – Thinking of new approaches for marketing campaigns, office designs, company slogans and more
Customer service skills
In any customer facing role, strong customer service skills are essential if you want to keep customers happy and maintain a good reputation for your employer.
Complaint resolution – Dealing with complaints from customers and providing solutions to rectify their issues
Customer service – The ability to deal with customers on a regular basis to fulfil their requirements in line with business goals
Identifying opportunities – Listening to customer and spotting opportunities to recommend products or services
Meeting and greeting – Welcoming customers and making them feel comfortable, whether in person, via phone or email
Product/service knowledge – Having a solid understanding of company products and services in order to explain features and benefits to customers
Promoting – Making customers aware of offers and deals to promote sales
Query handling – Answering question from customers and providing accurate answers and advice
Transaction processing – Taking payments for goods via cash or card and providing customers with receipts
Education & training skills
Whilst education skills are most frequently used in teaching roles, they can also be applied utilised in business within areas such as training or learning & development.
Assessments – Evaluating student’s ability and learnings in exams and observations
Coaching – Working one-to-one with students, providing advice and guidance to support their development
Lesson planning – Preparing how individual lessons will be delivered to students, including topics and lesson structure
Performance tracking – Monitoring student performance over long-term periods
Resource planning – Preparing learning resources required for lessons such as handouts, tests and checklists
Teaching – Delivering lessons to students, ensuring information is correctly received and handling questions
Finance skills
The following roles apply to finance and accounting roles, or any roles which involve an element of financial responsibility.
Account preparation – Preparing company financial accounts for public records and management
Auditing – Checking company accounts for anomalies and reporting findings
Bookkeeping – Recording company income and expenditure for records and taxation purposes
Budgeting – Managing funds on behalf of an employer and allocating spending effectively and responsibly
Cost saving – Using multiple methods to reduce employer spending whilst maintaining or even improving standards
Credit control – Managing records of customers owing money to the business and communicating with them to ensure prompt payment
Financial reporting – Creating reports to inform stakeholders on varying aspects of business performance
Forecasting – Using past data, trends and analysis to predict future revenue streams for products and services
Investing – Placing company funds into assets such as stocks and property in order to generate profits
Payroll – Calculating and processing staff payment and ensuring correct amounts of tax are levied
Profit and loss responsibility – Overall responsibility for the profitability of a business or business unit
Spending – Purchasing goods and services for an employer, ensuring the price is beneficial for the business
IT skills
Technology is present in the vast majority of workplaces nowadays, so even if you don’t have a technical IT role, you will probably still need some IT skills to perform it well.
Cyber security –Defending networks and websites from malicious attacks using modern defence tools and techniques
Data analysis – Using large data sets to spot trends and provide valuable insights to business leaders
Database administration – The management and maintenance of a set of data within a company database
Development – Coding using programming languages to develop web sites, pages, or applications
Installation – setting up new hardware or software systems and tailoring them to business needs
IT support – Dealing with IT issues from employees or customers and providing workable solutions
Programming – writing sets of rules to inform computer systems to carry out automated tasks
Recommending – Assessing an organisation’s IT requirements and suggesting suitable technology solutions
Requirements gathering – Speaking with colleagues to collect an understanding of what they require from an IT system before a build or upgrade
Software/tool knowledge – The ability to use software or tools specific to your role such as Microsoft Excel, Outlook, or Photoshop
Testing – Trying out features of a system to ensure they work before going live
Troubleshooting – Diagnosing issues with hardware and software to determine causes and suggests fixes
Management skills
Whether you manage a team of people or simply have to manage your own time or company resources, management skills should be present in your CV.
Delegation – Alleviating suitable responsibilities to junior staff to aid their progression whilst freeing up your time to perform more demanding activities
Goal setting – Planning targets for a business, team or individuals in order to meet long-term objectives
Leadership – Providing direction to staff on an ongoing basis to ensure they perform at the best of their abilities and achieve organisational goals
Leading meetings – Creating agendas for staff meetings and directing the topics and flow
Motivating – Instilling staff with confidence and enthusiasm to carry out their jobs effectively
Process improvement – Identifying under-performing procedures within the business and changing them to become more efficient
Resource management – Allocating roles to staff and setting time scales for tasks to be completed
Staff development – Ensuring that staff receive sufficient progression throughout their career in order to gain promotions and grow professionally
Strategy – Developing a long-term plan to achieve overall business goals
Training – Teaching staff vital skills and system knowledge to improve their ability to perform in their roles
Marketing skills
Marketing is the process of making customers aware of a service or product and moving them closer to a sale – so marketing skills are extremely valuable to employers.
Advertising – Buying paid media placements, creating images and text, driving customers to websites, shops, restaurants etc.
Campaign management – Devising and carrying out marketing campaigns through various channels, measuring performance
Content creation – Creating marketing content in the forms of articles, videos, landing pages, podcasts and more
Copywriting – Writing engaging content to inform, entertain and persuade customers to buy
CRM tools – Knowledge and confident use of popular Customer Relationship Management tools
Email marketing – Creating email campaigns to build relationships with customers and generate leads and sales
Market research – Investigating audiences and buying trends to determine demand for products and services
Outreach – Contacting potential partners to promote content and suggest mutual deals
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) – The process of driving organic traffic to websites by making them search engine friendly
Social media management – Managing social profiles of organisation accounts (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn)
Project management skills
Project management is prevalent across all industries, and even if you aren’t a dedicated project manager, you could still find yourself supporting or leading projects in your role.
Delivery – Ensuring that projects are completed on time and within budget whilst producing all of the pre-determined goals
Gaining buy-in – Persuading senior business figures to back initiatives and provide permissions and funding
Leadership – Managing people and guiding them towards the completion of a common goal
Presenting business cases – Building strong cases to get sign-off for projects, explaining the business benefits to senior management
Risk management – Identifying potential project risks and putting procedures in place to minimise their impact on project delivery
Scheduling – Planning a succession of activities and monitoring progress to ensure the overall project is delivered on time
Stakeholder management – Managing the expectation of senior business figures and keeping them updated on project progress
Sales skills
Private sector business are driven by sales, so sales skills are vital in the workplace – even if you are not in a direct sales position.
Some of these skills are also valuable when dealing with colleagues in internally also.
Influencing – Persuading others to agree with your opinions and back your ideas
Lead generation – Providing a business with a pipeline of potential customers who are likely to buy products or services
Negotiation – Holding discussions with colleagues and clients to reach favourable outcomes and agreements
Networking – Growing your list of personal contacts by seeking out valuable connections and building relationships with them
Presenting – Delivering presentations to clients to explain the benefits of products and services
Relationship management – Building and maintaining relationships with customers (or even colleagues) to foster positive outcomes for employers
Sales closing – Generating sales of products and services by obtaining final agreements from clients
Target achievement – The ability to reach and exceed targets set by your employer
Soft skills VS hard skills
Skill is defined as the ability to do something well, or having expertise in a particular area, it is understandable that employers want to hire candidates with plenty of skills.
Skills can be categorised into 2 main categories;
1) Role specific skills – also called hard skills
2) Generic skills – also called soft skills or personal skills.
Role specific or hard skills are specific profession-related skills that are needed to carry out particular job functions
Generic skills or soft skills are common skills that are required for most roles, such as communication, team work and problem solving.
Now that you understand the main types of skills available to use in your CV, it’s important to understand how to add them both to your CV
Always research your target roles thoroughly to determine which in-demand skills you need to include in your CV.
How to add hard skills to your CV
It’s crucial to highlight role specific skills in your CV because they are normally what recruiters are briefed to look for above all else.
Role specific skills are important to your CV because:
a) Recruiters search for hard skills only on job site CV databases, internal CV databases and LinkedIn
Therefore, the more relevant role specific skills you have in your CV, the more searches you will appear in.
The more searches you appear, the more times your CV will be opened – which will increase your chances of being called in for interviews.
b) Recruiters scan your CV for hard skills when they open your CV
When a recruiter opens your CV, they will firstly look to pick out some of the most important hard skills they’ve been asked to look for.
Initially they won’t be looking for soft skills like planning and organisation – that will come later in the screening process.
So these two reasons make it vital for you to pack your CV with role specific skills, and make them easy to spot
So, how do you do this?
1) Add hard skills to the top quarter of your CV
The first few seconds of a recruiter or hiring manager opening your CV are crucial to the success of your CV. If a busy recruiter with hundreds of CVs to review doesn’t see the skills they are looking for in the top quarter of your CV, they may close it down without even reading it in full.
So pack the area visible without scrolling down full of in demand hard skills – to create a powerful first impression.
Quick tip: If you struggle with spelling and grammar, try a free grammar checking tool, like Grammarly.
Add hard skills to your profile or personal statement, and your core skills section.
As always, research your target roles thoroughly to determine which of your skills should be featured at the top of your CV.
2) Add hard skills to your roles
To show hiring managers how you apply your skills in the workplace, you need to weave them into your roles descriptions.
But simply listing the skills you use will not be enough.
You need to explain how you apply them, and what positive results they achieve for employers, clients and colleagues.
How to add soft skills to your CV
Generic/soft skills are a little more difficult to express in your CV because they need to be implied rather than stated. If you fill your CV up with terms that plainly state your soft skills, no recruiters will be able to understand what you do.
Recruiters aren’t searching for soft skills, so you want to keep them to a minimum and save space for your hard skills.
So, how do you demonstrate your soft skills without simply writing them down on your CV?
You show them, rather than tell them.
So, rather than simply writing…
“I am organised”
“I am motivated”
“I am a team player”
Instead, you should prove that you are an organised, motivated team player – by giving real life examples of this in your role responsibilities and achievements.
Key skills for your CV
Adding skills to your CV is absolutely essential if you want to get noticed and land job interviews. But you must ensure that you understand the core skill requirements of your target roles so you can reflect them throughout your CV.
It’s also important to understand the difference between hard skills and soft skills, and how each should be added to your CV. Hard skills are arguably more important to get down in writing, whereas soft skills should be implied throughout your role descriptions.
Good luck with the job hunt!
For further help in writing your CV, you can contact 350VA and receive a free CV template.
Anja@350VA