Building Credibility In Your Tech Job Application

Like most people, when applying for jobs, I was applying for many different positions and possibly to more than one company in the same industry.

That means many candidates are applying for one single position. And you have to ensure that you put relevant skills in your tech resume, so you can differentiate yourself from the competition.

The problem is most people don’t know what’s relevant or not when it comes to skills. In this article, we’ll discuss what skills you should include on your tech resume and how those skills will help you stand out from other candidates.

The skills you list on your tech resume will differ slightly from those you’d find on the resume of a candidate for a marketing role.

When creating the skills section, it’s essential to focus on your hard skills.

Soft skills are skills that apply to every job. They include skills such as leadership, communication, and creative thinking.

In contrast, hard skills are the skills that qualify you for a particular job role. In the tech industry, they would include skills such as Java, Ruby, Python or C++.

You can showcase your soft skills in the work experience impact statements instead of listing them out.

List all skills you’re comfortable addressing in a technical interview

In college, I took a course in Java Programming. On my old resume, I used to list Java as a programming skill I was proficient in. But the more time that passed, the more Java I forgot, so I decided to remove Java because it no longer represents my current skillset (C++).

The rule of thumb is if you can’t code during an interview in this programming language or answer questions about the technology, you shouldn’t list it on your resume.

One option you have when listing skills is to state how proficient you are with a specific skill

For example, if you’ve worked with C++ for eight years and understand its strength, you might list your advanced proficiency with the language.

In contrast, perhaps you’ve only worked with JavaScript for a year. And while you can get by with it, you’re not as proficient as you are with C++. You might state you have intermediate proficiency with JavaScript.

Use words like advanced, intermediate, and basic to denote varying competency levels. This will help your recruiter and perhaps your interviewer determine whether you’ll be a good fit for the role at hand.

When listing skills, you can break them up by domain

For example, if you have skills in both design and development, you can choose to break them out into these two subsections.

You can list a combination of technologies, languages, and ideologies to convey your skillset.

If you’re only listing technical skills, you can also break these up into subsections, like tools, languages, technologies, and processes.

It can be tempting to list technologies or languages which are highly covetable in the tech industry or for a specific job role. However, you should never list a technology or a language you have not had experience with unless you denote your proficiency level.

Conclusion

To build credibility, you need to show off only the skills and experience that are relevant to a particular job.

Thanks for reading. Check out my latest resume to see how I put my software development skills there.