When you’re looking to transition from education to employment, you need to display your transferable skills in your CV, showcasing your relevancy for your chosen career path.
But you don’t need work experience to have workplace skills.
Valuable skills can be gained through school work, voluntary employment or any hobbies and interests, so be creative when finding skills to include.
Below are 5 key skills you should incorporate into your CV, if you want to secure your dream career.
Communication
Communication is a universal strength needed in any role, whether that be communicating with colleagues, customers or presenting information or ideas. Use examples to demonstrate your ability to converse with people of various levels, displaying your confidence and willingness to get involved in group discussions.
For example, consider school group projects, describing how you communicated with various members of the group to get the task done. Sporting teams are also great examples to use, documenting how you’ve communicated with other team members to succeed as a team.
Problem solving
In any role you’re going to face problems that need to be resolved quickly and efficiently, so the ability to react to situations and consider all possibilities is imperative. Reflect on how you have solved issues in any voluntary or part time employment, such as a mistake resulting in a customer being unhappy with their service or not being able to find a particular item.
Detail how you supported them to get the best possible solution. Think about whether you have helped classmates with any issues relating to coursework, not only showing your problem solving skills but your ability to work as a team.
Negotiation
Negotiation skills aren’t just applicable for sales roles, the ability to negotiate is a skill that can be beneficial in any area. This could be negotiating a better price with a supplier or even just negotiating best practise or an idea with a colleague.
Think of occasions where you have debated an idea, whether in a club or school project, recording the outcome of that negotiation.
Relationship building
Relationship building is a sought after strength, even if the career path you’re pursuing involves no customer or client interaction, building relationships with your fellow team members is vital.
Consider how you first built rapport with new teachers or your first boss within any part time roles, and how you found common ground. Display your confidence through times you met new people, for example in a book or drama club.
Employers want to see how you’d adapt to an existing team and become a positive role model for their brand, so evidence your capacity to create a good first impression and maintain relationships.
Time management
Time management doesn’t just refer to your ability to be punctual, it also encompasses your capacity to work to deadlines and stick to a schedule. Whilst being on time for work is an assumption for most employers, the ability to juggle workloads and deliver on time is a core strength.
Look at times you completed coursework to a deadline, including changing demands such as extra curriculum activities, that you needed to balance at the same time.
Andrew Fennell is the founder of CV writing advice website Stand Out CV – he is a former recruitment consultant and contributes careers advice to websites like Business Insider, The Guardian and FastCompany.
