Page 80 - Marky Stein - Get a Great Job When You Don't Have a Job-McGraw-Hill (2009)

Fearless Résumés

1. General skills
2. Job-specific skills
3. Personal traits or characteristics

• Identifying your skills in each of these three categories is
the first step in crafting Q statements clearly and con-
vincingly on your résumé.

General Skills
First, let’s take a look at general skills and see why they can be so
important to you, whether you’re planning to stay in the same
occupation or are thinking about making a move into an entirely
new profession.
Here are some examples of general skills to remind you of
some of the actions you may have performed in the past while on
the job, volunteering, going to school, or in other situations.
Please go through the list and check off the skills that you know
how to perform and even the ones that you feel you could per-
form with just a little bit of practice.

• In other words, you don’t have to be an expert at a skill
to check it off on this list. You may have used the skill
only once, but if you have even a bit of knowledge about
how to use it, check it off.
After all, every time you switch to a new job, you have to brush
up on or even spend a bit of time relearning certain skills. Be
generous with yourself as you do this assessment. Don’t cheat
yourself out of a skill just because you feel you can’t do it per-
fectly. Even experts aren’t perfect.

EXERCISE 5

General Skills Inventory

Acting Advertising
Adding Advising
Administering Analyzing

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