10 Proven Skills Your Resume Must Have In 2023

Introduction

Are you looking for a job in this post-pandemic job market and unsure where to start? Stick around because, in this blog post, we’ll discuss some crucial skills that you really need to get on your resume if you want to be taken seriously. 

Now, if you’re somebody who is applying for job after job and assuming that you’re reasonably qualified for the positions that you are interviewing for. If you’re not getting any interest on your resume, in other words, you’re not getting any interviews it’s almost always a resume issue. 

As we’ve navigated through the job market for a couple of years, things are drastically changing in how we present ourselves as candidates and what companies are looking for. 

So, it’s worth dusting off the resume and taking a long hard look at how well it actually sells you in the application process. 

If you’re somebody that hasn’t written your resume in the last year it’s almost certainly going to be out of date. So the purpose of this article is to give you a baseline of what employers are looking for on the open market and these are going to be universal skills that you should have regardless of the type of position that you’re looking for. 

Now it’s worth mentioning that simply writing these terms into your curriculum vitae(CV) as a quote-unquote keyword is not enough. We need to ensure that we’ve demonstrated these core competencies to truly stand out from the competition. 

So, without making any further ado, let’s get into some of the skills that you should really consider having on your resume. 

10 Crucial Skills You Ought To Have On Your Resume

Adaptability

The first skill worth mentioning is ADAPTABILITY and if you have survived this incredible job market from 2020 till current, you know how adaptable you have needed to be in order to stay afloat. Think about how you have to adapt and evolve and how you approach your work. 

If you show that in your resume, that will be an incredibly powerful indicator to the employer that you can adapt to the times.
 

Let’s take remote work as an example. A lot of us were used to going into an office every day and suddenly and seemingly overnight we had to shift to become remote workers if you are somebody that didn’t work remotely normally there’s definitely a change in the way that you need to approach your work. 

Specifically, around communication, which is pretty obvious but also around networking and teamwork. If you’ve never used technology like zoom or ms teams before, sure at this point you have to.

So those would be great skills to get on your resume to show that you’re not only adaptable but that you can also thrive in a new way that we approach work. 

Technical Skills

This leads us right to the next one, which is, TECHNICAL skills. Now the state of the industry or the job type that you work in is going to necessitate which skills you need to have on your resume. 

If you’re a software developer and you’re working with an older programming language, you should understand where the industry has moved and keep your skills up to date accordingly. Because it simply doesn’t behoove you to have an older technology listed on your resume if nobody uses it anymore. 

You are somebody that stayed in a job for a long period of time. Make sure you’re keeping up to date on what other employers are asking for in the market so that if you do find yourself looking for a new job, you’re not way behind the eight ball. 

Analytics

Alright, so the next skill you really need to have on your resume in today’s day and age is ANALYTICS. In nearly every job that I recruit, data analytics is one of the most common skills that come up from hiring managers. Our jobs are all dictated by metrics that we have to fill and the ability to take complex sets of data and be able to tell a story with them is crucially important. 

So, if you are wondering what kind of data needs to be interpreted in your job, think in terms of how you’re measured in your performance appraisals.

If you are driving a forklift, maybe it’s the number of loads physically moved in a given period of time, or if you are a recruiter you have days to fill metrics just about every position in the workforce is governed by some level of data and you need to be able to interpret that. So make sure you show that skill on your resume.
 

Problem-solving

The next major skill to consider is PROBLEM-SOLVING. Now be careful with this one because people tend to list this in their skill sets and it usually comes across as being pretty fluffy, but what we want to do is try to attach an actual accomplishment to our problem-solving so demonstrate the problem-solving in your resume if possible 

Think about times when you didn’t have a playbook to follow, where you had to create kind of create your own solutions. Those are the things that employers are looking for and those skills are in high demand. 

So on your resume, instead of just saying that you’re a problem solver tries to actually show them the type of problem you have solved. If you could link it to a measurable result using data analytics, even better. 

Collaboration/Teamwork

The next major skill that you need to be able to show is COLLABORATION or TEAMWORK and as we look at how we approach our jobs nowadays, it’s a much more global environment. Not uncommon for people to be working cross-culturally, cross-continent across time zone and across departments in order to get something done. 

I don’t think there’s any job out there that doesn’t rely on some level of teamwork and collaboration to be successful.

So, try to show where you were a good team player and how got other departments or other cross-functional teams involved in your problem-solving skills.

Accountability

The next major skill you need to have on your curriculum vitae(CV) is ACCOUNTABILITY. A very common thing that I hear about interviews is people using the “I” and the “Me”. 

So, if you can show in your resume the aspects of your job that you completely own and take accountability for, that will go a long way toward satisfying an employer’s curiosity. But be sure to link how you did the work and not necessarily your team. 

Self-starter

The next skill you really need to have on your curriculum vitae(CV) is being a SELF-STARTER. Show that has taken the initiative to learn a new skill without being prompted to come up with a business case or project that makes your work life easier. And if you could show your willingness to take on new tasks

Maybe find the things that weren’t even broken, to begin with. It’s going to show that you’re self-started in the eyes of the employer. But ideally, on your resume, you want to try to capture how you have identified and acted on opportunities to improve, quality, and productivity or minimize risks.

Productivity

The next skill that you want to have on your curriculum vitae(CV) is PRODUCTIVITY. It seems like in this day and age of data analytics, one of the most important metrics is productivity, i.e, how much work you put out. 

If you can show you have improved productivity and that you’re a very productive worker, it’s going to reflect well on you especially if you can get that on your resume in a clear and concise way. 

So, think in terms of improving speed or getting done quickly and ideally. If you can work under high pressure, even better.

Growth Mindset

The next major skill that you want on your curriculum vitae(CV) is a GROWTH MINDSET because hiring managers love it when an employee shows motivation for continuous improvement. So, if you’re somebody that has gone back to school to enrich your skills, maybe you’ve got a certification that wasn’t part of your job or shows that you’re looking to better yourself as an employee, then that is something you absolutely want to have on your resume 

If you are somebody that’s been out of the workforce for a while it’s important to show employers that you have the ability to learn those new skills. So, on your resume make sure you show how you went out and captured those new skills.

Writing Skills

The last skill I want to talk about is your ability to convey your thoughts in a very concise manner. When you think about it, your resume is the first impression that you make on the employer and if they see you’ve listed out every single thing on your resume and you seem to have scattered thoughts, what impression do you think that’s going to make on the employer?

Not only that, but a poorly optimized curriculum vitae(CV) is also going to make it much harder for you to get noticed by a recruiter for that first-round interview. So the ability to convey your message in a very concise manner on your resume is a crucial skill that you need to have. 

Think about it in terms of passive versus active voice. We want to make sure that we’re telling the story in as few words as possible. It does take some skill and honestly, it’s worth sometimes having a second set of eyes on it. But that’s a crucial skill that you need to have if you want to increase your chances of getting that first-round phone call.

Keynote

Thus, it’s clear that if your resume consists above-mentioned skills in addition to your industry-specific skills then your chances of getting that appointment letter may become higher. Additionally, constantly polishing these skills may also develop your work personality in such a way that you may start showing signs of getting promoted. At the same time, employees should keep updating the skills mentioned in their resumes as it would be beneficial during switching to other jobs and also when it comes to any employees notice that the company they’re currently working in is showing bad traits.