Three skills to polish on your resume

Before you press the ‘send’ button to send your resume for a position you really want, take a moment to review it for three skills that SEEK says are important to employers.

If you’ve already featured these three skills in your resume, then congrats. If not, revise your resume to make sure they’re highlighted.

What are these skills (based on SEEK’s research)?

Teamwork and collaboration—valued by 32% of employers, compared to 21% of job seekers.

Critical thinking and problem solving—valued by 28% of employers versus 19% of job seekers.

Attention to detail/thoroughness—important to 27% of employers but didn’t feature in job seekers’ top 5 skills.*

Now that you’re armed with this knowledge the question is how to polish your resume to feature these skills.

Our expert recruiters have compiled top tips for doing just that. It’s important to remember that it’s not cool to just state you have these skills. You need to get creative and prove you have them. This means using short and precise examples to back up your claims.

Teamwork and collaboration

Today, employers value teamwork and collaboration since these attributes help organisations drive results. Employers appreciate motivated, high-performing teams that can solve problems, achieve targets, meet goals and generate ideas.

This means focusing your resume on how you interact with others, internally (say with colleagues and management) and externally (say with customers or clients).

The trick is to illustrate how you’re a great team player.

Examples

“I was a member of a large, multi-faceted team responsible for implementing a $2 million project. I collaborated and communicated closely with others on the team and, together, we made 10 recommendations that led to a cost savings of $500,000. We also streamlined 3 major processes, which saved 10% in production time.”

“I lead a diverse team of employees with varying skills and abilities. To get the team motivated and moving in one direction, I held a series of training sessions to set goals and responsibilities. The team came together and now exceeds targets by a minimum of 15%.”

Critical thinking and problem solving

SEEK say employers value critical thinking and problem-solving skills because they show you’re able to analyse, innovate, create and find solutions when challenges arise.

This means you need to prove you’re both a critical thinker and a problem solver. You also need to illustrate these skills in action.

Examples

“I was assigned a project designed to improve and streamline processes to save staff time and stress. The first step I took was to critically analyse existing processes. I mapped them and could immediately see overlap and duplication.  I next developed recommendations on how  the organisation could collapse certain steps to avoid wasting time. We reduced processes from 14 to 9.”

“My team had low productivity and morale. No one seemed happy. To identify the issues and be clear about the problem, I met staff members individually to listen and understand their views. I listed the main issues, categorised them and organised a team day to brainstorm solutions. As a team we implemented 80% of our ideas in less than 3 months. This has transformed team culture.”

Attention to detail or thoroughness

Employers are never pleased with staff who are sloppy with their work. They crave staff who are methodical, accurate and thorough in execution. Staff who have great attention to detail save organisations time and money.

So how do you illustrate your attention to detail in your resume?

Examples

“I write detailed data reports that management use to make major decisions. I know it’s important to be thorough and accurate so management can be confident in my work. To ensure the quality of my work, I created a 10-point checklist. I use this to reality check data and facts  before finalising reports and submitting them to management.”

“I was asked to write marketing and advertising material for a new product designed to earn our small company projected revenue of $900K. Before I submitted the content to senior managers to approve, I triple proofread the wording and had a colleague in the communications branch review it too. I was therefore confident that management wouldn’t find any mistakes.”

Learn more about resume writing

How to get yourself ‘resume ready’

How to write a fabulous resume

Words to use and don’t use in your resume

Your resume: Photo or no photo?

Career objective statement? Yes or no?

* Source: Independent research conducted by Nature of behalf of SEEK, interviewing 4800 Australians annually. Published June 2021.