Resume Skills
Resume is a marketing tool used by every individual to secure a good job. Your resume describes you. It has the details of your educational qualifications, your past employments, your skills, abilities and your personal information. To get an interview call from the employer, your resume must highlight you from the bunch of resumes received by the employers. In the first look, employers view the skills section of your resume to get a brief idea about your skills and abilities. So, this section in your resume must be strong enough to highlight you and short list you from the bundle of resumes. Also, one must keep in mind of how many skills should be mentioned in a resume. The article below provides the answer to this question.
How many skills should be mentioned in a resume?
- Listing the number of skills in the resume depends on the status of the applicant. If you are recent graduate and have no previous work experience, you can add 8 to 10 skills in your resume. This can give the employer brief idea about your capabilities of performing the task
- If you have previous work experience, then the number of skills in this section can be reduced to 5 to 7. Writing a lengthy skills section in this type of resume would not focus attention of employer on the experience section.
- If you have good knowledge of any technical skill, but do not have the certification required, you can mention this in the skills section. It can prove to be a plus point for you to get short listed.
- Writing more number of skills in the resume doesn't make the resume attractive, but writing the skills according to the requirements of the employer will help you in getting it short listed.
- You must keep in mind to add the skills as per the demands of the prospective employer.
- The skills section and number of skills in the resume can change from employer to employer. Before writing the resume, stress more on the skills section, as it is initially viewed by the recruiters. Think about the requirements of the employer, what are they looking for, and write the skills according to their requirements.
- If you are fresher, you can write your soft skills like verbal communication skills, effective listening skills, interpersonal communication skills, decision-making and problem solving skills. You can also include the technical skills like knowledge of programming languages, operating systems, application softwares, database softwares, etc. This will add additional support to your skills section.
- Balance your resume with the appropriate number of skills. Do not exceed the length of skills section above 10 in case of a fresher and 7 in case of an experienced applicant.
It is always seen that a good resume gets more interview calls. For your resume to fall in the category of 'good', it is necessary to focus more on writing the skills section. How many skills should be mentioned in a resume is not more important, but representing the appropriate skills in a proper way and according to the requirement of the employer is more important.
