Keeping Your Skills Section Professional

Keeping Your Skills Section Professional While you may have a Skills section in your resume, you may not have a Professional Skills section. What is the difference? Why is it important to have a Professional Skills section? People have lots of skills. Some people can play instruments. Some people can juggle. Some people can stand on their head. Some people can curl their tongue into a clover shape. While these skills make great party tricks and are  fun hobbies and enjoyments, they are not useful in a professional setting. You may think that people would not place playing instruments or juggling in the Skills section of their resume,  but it does actually  happen. People may add some of these skills in order to show some personality or change up their resume. Unfortunately, that personality can also make you look unprofessional and even incompetent. So if you want to make your resume unique, there  are  better ways to do it. Get Rid of Personal Skills and Hobbies: As fun as they are, your personal skills are not applicable to a professional setting. Even though they should not be listed on your resume,  if you are  specifically asked for some of those fun skills during an interview,  then you can feel free to speak about them. List Your Professional Skills: List your professional skills from most applicable to the job to least applicable. If you cant figure out which skills will be most applicable to the job, start with your strongest skills first, then move down the list. Title The Section: Instead of titling the section Skills, title it Professional Skills or Areas of Expertise. You could even consider pulling qualifications right from the job description and incorporating those skills (if they are applicable to your skillset) into your list on your resume. Keep the personal out of your resume. Employers want to read about your professional expertise and the value you offer, not about your hobbies and personal interests.