Recently Learn New Skills? How to Showcase Them in Your Resume

new skills job search

This year hasn’t been anything like we expected. Many of us have had to learn how to work from home, while others have been out of work since the world hit pause back in March.

If you have extra time on your hands and are looking to try and find a new line of work, it’s possible to use this downtime to your advantage.

Here are some ways to boost your resume during quarantine and help land yourself a great new opportunity as things reopen.

1. Add to your skills.

There are plenty of course offerings available if you want to add to your abilities. For example, if you’ve ever had an interest in marketing or public relations, the PR Council is offering a free eight-week course that will get you certified in agency relations, covering data applications for social media marketing, crisis communications, and other need-to-know information. For free! LinkedIn, Coursera, and other online communities are also offering online classes that you can take as time permits.

2. Become a virtual volunteer.

It might seem a little ironic: You finally have the time to give back, but everywhere that needs assistance is closed. Expand your horizons and adapt to the situation! Places that needed help before still do; it just might take on a different form now. Contact organizations that matter to you and see if they need help with a letter-writing or social media campaign. Organize a canned food drive for a local food pantry and set up a socially distant drop-off. Helping others and being committed to your community is a great way to set yourself apart.

3. Use new skills and volunteer activities to polish up your resume.

Tell your story in a new, better, and more focused way. Remember that you might need different versions of your resume to meet the demands of different types of jobs. Now’s a great time to establish and polish those versions to really show off your skills, qualifications, achievements, and interests — like the new skill you’ve learned or the volunteering you’ve done. Highlight the things that set you apart from other candidates, including your experiences, times you’ve led a project or team, ways in which you’ve increased sales or efficiency, or decreased clutter or waste. Use numbers whenever possible as they tell a story very succinctly.

4. Build a website.

LinkedIn profiles can be beneficial to show off your resume and highlight any organizations in which you are a member. It can serve as a starting point when looking for new jobs, but a website dedicated to your work is much more focused. There are so many accessible sites hosting options these days, making it simple to build a website that can highlight your achievements and offer a little more personality than the standard LinkedIn page. And now that your resume has been newly polished and optimized, building a website to house it, along with samples of your work, can take you to the next step.

5. Ask for recommendations.

This is something you can use on both LinkedIn and your personalized page, a way to show off what others believe are your best professional qualities and why you’re the right candidate for a position. Let other people sing your praises! With that newly revamped resume, your best qualifications will jump off the page.

Debbie’s Staffing Will Help You During Your Job Search

Things aren’t easy right now, but you can make job searching a little less stressful and painful. We at Debbie’s Staffing are standing by and ready to help you get back on your feet, working toward a bigger future and chasing big dreams. Contact us today to learn more.