Here’s why you may want to rethink that skills section on your resume

Here’s a quick question for you…

If you were building a home, who would you be more likely to contract — someone who told you they were great at building houses or someone who could show you houses that they built?

What about a barber?

Makeup artist?

What about a martial arts teacher? You’d probably want a referral, or at least be looking at reviews, right (we got a referral for ours that I’ll be forever be grateful for)?

Most people are looking for some assurance aside from the person making the offer saying “Yea I’m very good at this.”

But when it comes to winning their own business and landing job interviews, they forget there are equally risk-averse humans on the other side.

I bring it up because more and more I’m seeing these massive skills sections on resumes. They come above the bullets, in pretty sidebars, and sometimes as closers but there’s something that’s not quite right.

For the ones above the bullets and the sidebars, I read those first and I’m primed to see the proof of where these skills were used — and more often than not, there’s a total disconnect. I’m talking about to the point where some of the skills aren’t even hinted at in the bullets.

That’s a problem…

And I’d argue it’s even worse when the skills section is at the end of the resume and I’m left scratching my head thinking “I didn’t see ANY of that.”

So here’s what I suggest you do if you’re going with a skills section (I don’t). Check that you’ve covered where those skills were applied AND the result from applying those skills.

It’ll be so much more compelling for your reader. The next best thing to being able to actually show them.

If you need help seeing what that looks like, check out Breakthrough Resume Writing.