How to write a Resume with Effective and Job-Friendly Core Competencies

A good job seeker would spare no effort to keep his recruiter reading his resume a little more than six seconds. He, just like you, would treat the core competencies section as crucial as the professional summary and career objective in his/her resume. 

Additionally, adding effective resume core competencies would help your resume pass the ATS scans and other resume examining bots. Next are the best ways to incorporate core qualifications in your resume!

What are the Core Skills or Competencies of a Resume?

‘Employee’s key competencies’ heading highlights a list of your hard/ technical skills which may catch the reader’s regard for a chance of you to be seen as an ideal applicant for the position. This section can include your traits, certifications, job-related skills, and relevant formal knowledge.

Resume core qualifications are an efficient demonstration of your sole traits. Thus, if delivered with fine attention, it besides the rest of the resume will put you in an ideal spot for the job offer! Try writing this section with a well-researched approach and come up with a blue diamond combination. These non-typical and keenly job-related choices of competencies may lead you to the hired class in the organization!

Place of Core Competencies on a Resume

Below the Power Statement

Above/ Besides Education Summary

Below Professional Summary

This section must be formatted in a neat and reading-friendly layout. Including it at the resume’s top will assist the hiring manager see you as a go-getter for the position even before reading your professional and education summary.

Instead of showcasing yourself as an all-rounder with 25 key competencies, skim the list to 8-10 skills. This approach is not only human-friendly but also ensures that the skills you included are strongest and you’ve earned them naturally over the years. Make your professional skills list. Don’t forget to add only those skills which are particularly related to your desired industry. 

Make this list your brilliant combo of hard skills – the skills your personality inculcated through either previous professional experiences or by training over time. Proofread, skim, and add this section in a clean layout in your resume.

Two Reasons for Core Qualifications Section

A proficient job candidate treats his resume as a sales pitch. He takes odds, reads the job offer cautiously, and puts himself in the best light. For doing so, weigh your accomplishments, skills gained over time and mention the best suited in your application. This exercise for the core qualification section has two significant motives:

Hiring Manager’s Attention:

Make life easy for your application reader! Try your best to minimize his hustle! If a hiring manager devotes 6-8 seconds towards the resume of potential candidates, be a star and try hard to make each of his second worth. Write the core competencies section at the resume’s top, this would facilitate the hiring managers to get your overview at a glance.

Spare time researching about the desired position. Pick what competencies to embody in your resume by treating this job application individually. Approach your hiring manager’s attention with an eye-catching, neat section layout. 

Pass ATS Scans:

You must have a reasonable discernment regarding the Automated Tracking System, if you plan on submitting a resume and if you wish it to reach a recruiter’s desk! Organizations are smart today. They employ ATS systems to scan candidate’s applications nowadays. The system is fed with positions ideal skills and relevant keywords. 25-30% of resumes win a chance passing these scans and achieve manual reader’s sight.

To avoid your application bottoms, fall out, read the job post thoroughly and research the skills most relevant to the position. Adjusting some of these skills in the resume core qualifications section is a platinum opportunity when you can’t find room to adjust such keywords in the experience section of your resume! 

Consider an example of a teaching position, key competencies for this post are definitely: teamwork, student handling, lesson design, effective communication, patience, etc. Some of these can be excluded while adding others as per the job description. 

How to write core competencies on a Resume to Beat the Bots?

Now that you are mindful of how ATS trackers work, you can beat the bot in myriad manners! Capitalize the competency section’s opportunity to include relevant keywords in the resume. Some bots decide your skillset strength by the frequency those skills were contained in your resume. 

Furthermore, if a skill/ competency is written on its known without any experience mentioned – bots assign a 6-month experience to that skill. The former point is a piece of strong advice to include relevant keywords in the key competency section even if accommodated in your resume’s qualification portion! Be proactive while staying zillion miles away from keyword stuffing. 

Core Competency Examples

A smart and bot-friendly resume core qualification section is precise, relevant, and professional.

As accommodating as these self-serving catchphrases might be to outline your center capabilities, ensure to include them only if they portray you precisely. The craft of self-promotion is fundamental, it’s likewise imperative, to be honest.

Now that recruiters are quite aware that you being an applicant are well-aware of ATS systems, they test/ question candidates on basis of skills you claimed in your resume! So, if you stated SQL as your resume core qualification, being familiar with this skill’s charisma in today’s digital business, you better be ready, answering some data questions to support your assertion!