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Though your technical skills and achievements may be the foundation of your résumé, there are other skills that can tip the scales in your favor when competing against other similarly qualified applicants.

First, look at the following list of worker characteristics that every employer wants and needs in an employee. These functional skills can enable you to get and keep your job.

In short, punctual, dependable, competent, hard-working, pleasant: well, you get the picture!

Other skills are called adaptive or transferable skills or transskills. Let’s call them Success Skills.  For example, see if you can figure out what skills Henry is discussing and displaying in this interview with Mrs. Smith:

Mrs. Smith: Oh, so you type 55 words per minute?

Henry here has mentioned some other skills besides his technical ones, such as manual dexterity, adaptability, knowledge/theory application and he also has demonstrated his speaking/explaining abilities.

What other skills do you possess? Assignment I required you to describe your experiences where you might use such bonus skills. (Your employer will see them as a definite plus—tipping the scales in your favor.) With the aid of the lists below and your experience description, begin thinking of ways to describe your skills. Note that Henry in the example above uses verbs--action words--to describe his abilities. He doesn’t say, "I am a quick learner." Instead, he uses successful verbs like ‘master’, ‘reach’ and ‘produce’. Like Henry, having some key action words at your command can only improve your résumé writing and interviewing abilities.

Note that most of these skills are not written in verb form. In fact many of these words should not be used in that exact wording on a résumé but can be effective in the interview itself. One example is ‘get along well with coworkers’. That is reminiscent of kindergarten—‘plays well with others’. Better sounding and more descriptive would be ‘able to establish effective working relationships with coworkers.’ Remember, once these words go on your résumé or you mention this to a prospective employer you must be able to give a concrete example: ‘I was the one person in the office that everyone would talk to. When someone would get mad at someone else, I was able to stay above the politics by being good listener and by not joining the complainers.’ Being even more specific than that is also good if you can avoid a complicated tale like ‘Mary said this and Joanne said that and the next day Mary also said…,’ etc.

If you are not able to give a concrete example of your skill, perhaps you should look more closely at your abilities. Too often people will list or cite some skill because it sounds good when it is the exact opposite of the reality. Frequently, résumés may list good communication skills yet use improper grammar, are poorly organized or have misspelled words. Be sure of your reality! (Having someone--who doesn’t know you--read your résumé for such inconsistencies can correct the obvious problems.) Also, choose appropriate skills for the position; tailor your skills towards the job requirements.

If your skills don’t match the stated requirements of the job, you truly might not be a qualified applicant, but look below the surface. Employers have unwritten requirements beyond the technical skills. Use your imagination, brainstorm with classmates or friends and talk to someone in that type of job to get an idea of what those unwritten requirements might be. Try to get clarification from the employer before the interview such as "which communication skills are your referring to, primarily writing ability or speaking and listening or both?"

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