CAREER MONDAYS: Know how to market your skills on your CV

Your CV is meant to market you, your skills and abilities. It is not a document containing your education and work history only.

Your qualifications and experience are equally important, but you need to find a way of expressing what you can do based on the qualifications and experience you have acquired.

Today I will let you know one of the secrets we use to create professional CVs. It is not just enough to say “I have good communication skill” in your CV, yet you are not communicating clearly why you should be hired. Again, communication skills for different professional fields should be structured differently.

For example, a teacher can say this on their communication:

I have the ability to explain complex concepts to a student in a way they can understand using simple language and examples. In addition, I ask questions to assess understanding and give feedback.

Similarly, an accountant can say this on their communication:

I can talk to clients to convey financial and accounting information effectively to people with no accounting knowledge. In addition, I can give full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.

The same applies to all the other skills. Some skills cut across all the professional fields but should be organized differently to fit in. Another example, ICT skills for a teacher and an accountant should be different.

A teacher can say this:

I have the ability to use word processing, presentational application to teacher students. I also use videos, audio clips, interactive software and online classes platform to engage the students and cater for the visual, audio and kinesthetic students.

An accountant can say this:

I am conversant working with accounting applications such as Quick Books, I-TAX, Fin-Sacco and Micro Banker. In addition I am fully proficient and with experience using these applications in data entry, processing, real analysis and numerical analysis.

So, get your CV to market you properly.

Author

Daniel Mutuku, Professional CV writer at Careerpoint Solutions Get a Free CV Review Click Here