Transitioning careers and need to highlight soft skills in your resume?

Identify the soft skills most relevant to your new field, such as communication, teamwork, adaptability, and problem-solving. Showcase these skills through specific examples in your work experience, emphasizing how they’ve led to positive outcomes. Include them in your summary, and weave them into your job descriptions by focusing on situations where you used these skills effectively. Tailor your resume to highlight how your soft skills can bridge the gap between your previous role and the new industry, making you a strong candidate for the transition.

For college students, think, "transferable skills". Your soft skills becomes the abilities you gained that you can apply to any role you apply to. For example, you led a project and the group passed that class as a result. What soft skills did you gain? How can you use those skills and transfer it over to the position you are interviewing for? When defining your skills, think about your own experiences and stories.

Highlighting soft skills is crucial for career transitions, focus on how these skills have helped you succeed in past roles and align them with the new job. Also, use action verbs, quantify achievements, and weave them into your experiences. Remember, soft skills are often the key to landing interviews and demonstrating your adaptability.

1. Begin by identifying your soft skills. These can include communication, leadership, teamwork, problem-solving, adaptability, time management, and more. Reflect on your past experiences and determine which soft skills you possess. 2. Once you've identified your soft skills, tailor your resume to highlight these skills. Your objective statement or summary section is a great place to showcase your transferable soft skills and how they relate to the new career you're pursuing. 3. Provide specific examples.

Soft Skills: Your Hidden Powerhouse Soft skills are your secret weapon for career transitions. They're the interpersonal magic that makes you shine. Highlight problem-solving, teamwork, leadership, and time management, but don't stop there. Tailor these skills to your new industry. Show how your past experiences have honed these abilities and how they'll benefit your new role. Remember, it's not just about listing skills; it's about proving their impact.

It seems like a lot of work, but you should have 1 - 4 themed resumes to fit the role you are applying for. There are folks out there who learned multiple areas of a function, gained different areas of skills etc. If you are applying for a role that focuses on a specific skill, have a resume tailored for that. For example, your main roles were in recruiting but you gained skills in learning and development, HR employee relations, HR compensation and benefits and now you want to apply to a HR business partner position? Focus the resume to highlight those employee relations skills specific to the position you are applying for!

Tailor Your Soft Skills Match your soft skills to the job. Analyze the job description for key soft skills. Reflect on your past roles for examples of these skills in action. Rewrite those experiences to highlight how they align with the new role. Show how your soft skills translate into value for the new position. Remember, it's about proving your fit, not just listing abilities.

Keep the description, stand alone words out of a resume. Like "Hard working", "detail oriented" etc. Means nothing if you dont describe how you gained that skill. For example, instead of saying "hard working" include a task, experience, responsibility where you applied being curious, resourceful and putting in that extra effort to meet a deadline.

Keyword Powerplay Unlock the ATS with strategic keywords. These digital gatekeepers scan for specific terms. Match your resume to the job by incorporating relevant keywords. Think like the ATS: what would it search for? Sprinkle these terms naturally throughout your resume. Remember, it's about quality, not quantity. Make your resume ATS-friendly while showcasing your skills.

If you are using MS Word or Canva to create a resume, use the rulers, grids and visual guidance to make sure your resume is visually uniform. You can hide those grids when you are done. Use a easy to read font and the same font for the entire resume. Pay attention to font size and color. When you write your resume, sit back and look at it from afar. That helps. I once received a resume with a green background and red font, all italics. BIG no-no.