How to List Your Skills on the Resume

Excerpt from my Preparing for the Interview Seminars
How to Find the Best Skills to List on Your Resume
In a recent seminar during the segment where I speak about the parts of the resume, I asked a client if she had a resume and if so, was it complete or was it in progress. She said yes and it was complete. She informed me she was working with a counselor that has helped her put the resume together. I asked her if she was using an objective statement or a summary section on her resume. She said she was not familiar with those terms. I ex-plained to her what these sections were and where they will be placed on the resume. She said in that area of her resume she was told to list her skills.
I asked her what the first skill she listed on her resume was. She replied, “Gatekeeper”. I asked her to tell me how she used her gatekeeper skills in her last position. She hesitated, then began to struggle trying to answer my question. She eventually began to list all of the tasks she had performed in her last position. It was not long before the look on her face let me know that she was aware, if she was in a real interview and the interviewer had asked that same question, her chances of getting the position would now be slipping away.
Understanding the parts of a resume, what information goes into each part, how to organize that information and finally, how to speak to that information in an interview is a critical part of a job search. In the above case study the applicant had years of experience and accomplishments making her a valuable commodity for any company but because she lacked understanding of the resume's purpose and was unprepared to sell herself in an interview, she would probably be in the job market for a very long time. I have said this many times, "I am amazed at how many job seekers are unprepared for an interview".
A proper job search that will lead to success has three important and separate components.
Research – Preparing for the interview – The interview
The first component is research. Research has two parts.
Part one of research is getting to know yourself, your real skills and what type position you really want.
In the world of job searching, your skills are often referred to as your competencies. We all have skills.
The questions are, do we know what they are, do we know how we use them and do we know how to explain them when asked? The best way to get at your true skills is to take time to list the skills you believe you have and all the things you believe you do well. Once you have that list compiled, go back over it and narrow it down to two or three very strong skills you believe are marketable. Next, think about how you use those skills and the successes or accomplishments you have achieved by using those skills and write those down.

At this point, you will have your skills, how you use them and the accomplishments you have achieved with those skills all written down. Now you want to review all of those notes and start organizing them into talking points.
Congratulations, you have just completed the foundation for a summary or qualification section of your resume.
Part two of research is getting to know the company and the position for which you will be interviewing. It used to be a recommendation that you go online to research a company; today, it is imperative that you go online and research the company. You should review as much information online as possible especially the company's own website. Find and review the job description and the qualifications for the position. You must match your skills and the qualifications, this combination will be at the heart of how you complete your resume as well as how you will answer many interview questions.
The second component is preparing for the interview. This component also has two parts.
Part one of preparing for the interview is customizing your resume to the position. Once you have done a thor-ough job of your research, you can now highlight the proper skills that best matched qualifications to the posi-tion. You will be able to make sure you include the necessary buzzwords that relate to the position in your re-sume and by focusing on what you put on your resume and why, you will be far more comfortable and succinct when explaining your qualifications and how you will be a great fit for the position in the interview.
Part two of preparing for the interview is networking. Once you know the company or position you will be in-terviewing for, if possible you should visit the location and make contact with people who are already in the position, have knowledge of the position or knowledge of the company in general. By getting this firsthand knowledge of the company or position, you will know their goals, what the company is really focused on and fi-nally yet importantly, you may get to know what the company may be struggling with most. Knowing this in-formation helps you prepare and practice many of the answers you will give in an interview. 
Be sure to review common interview questions and difficult interview questions. I always say, the only reason a question is considered difficult is that you do not have an answer. By reviewing these questions and thinking about the two or three questions, you hope they never asked you, you could practice how to answer those questions. By practicing, if they do come up in an interview you will be much better prepared to handle them.
Had the client in the above scenario used this process, she would have been familiar with the parts of the re-sume, what skills to list on her resume and why. She would be prepared to explain them in an interview.
The third component is the interview itself.
Once you have completed the first two components of the job search, you have all the information you need to ace the interview. Bear in mind a thorough job search is a full time job itself. When you are finally at that cov-eted job interview, there is no greater feeling than knowing you are well prepared to speak with any hiring manager. You will ace the interview by answering all of the questions with short impactful stories about how you use your skills that match their qualifications to achieve goals. Remember, the body of your resume must speak to each position you held, what functions or duties you preformed and the results or achievements. 
Example;
Let us say you were a store manager for a retail store. Your responsibilities would have included staffing, train-ing, sales and profit of the store. Here is a brief impactful way to tell a hiring manager everything he or she would need to know about that position and the results you achieved. 
Store manager XYZ Store                                                  June 2008 to May 2011
          ‘Oversee hiring, training and development of 75 associates’
          ‘Implemented sales contest that led to $100.000 increase for one quarter’.
          ‘Reduced overall expenses 6.0% for the year by coaching team on improving controllable expenses
By developing and practicing short stories about each of those points, you will be ready to answer the “how did you do that” questions that will most likely come in the interview.
A strong well-written resume will get you into the interview. Your ability to explain your resume and point out how you can use your skills to help the hiring company will be the key to landing that position.
For more information I invite you to visit my website at http://arcofsuccess.com/