While a carefully crafted resume is a crucial part of your job hunt, it’s important to acknowledge that your resume serves one task: getting you an interview. The resume does not get you hired – your interview does.
That’s why it’s so surprising to see so few candidates prepare thoroughly for each job interview and take the time to understand what’s really important to the hiring manager.
Too many job seekers focus exclusively on their specific skill set. Their accounting skills. Their programming expertise. Their writing ability. Although these skills are essential to any hire, they are the minimum required for anyone invited to interview. How will you separate yourself from every other candidate with the same professional skills?
Focus on your personal skills. In an excellent post in the Detroit Examiner, Christine Wodke outlines the seven personal skills that employers are looking for in any hire. These include:
- Leadership
- Team Player
- Motivation
- Communication Skills
- Time Management
- Flexibility
- Sense of Humor
Your job in the interview is to find a way to weave these personal skills into stories relating to your previous positions.
Don’t just describe the technical complexity of your last programming project, detail how you assembled a team, kept them motivated, managed the project to ensure you met the deadline, and how you stepped in to help when one of your team members needed support. These are the truly valuable skills that separate you from every other candidate whose answers focus solely on their professional proficiency.
