www.businessinsider.com: Your resume is the first impression a company has of you. So it needs to look good.
There are certain things that are essential on your resume, like your experience and the companies that you've worked for.
Certain social skills are also important to include.
5 comments:
Before this article I didn’t really know what people meant when they referred to soft skills, I thought that maybe they were slightly less relevant skills or skills that are supplementary to the hard skills listed previously. To be honest I thought that these were things that were implied or at least discussed during the interview as it feels a bit disingenuous to put “ability to work in a team” or “ ability to feel empathy with my co- workers” on a resume. People frequently lie during the hiring process a little bit and these soft skills have always seemed like the exact brand of thing that people lie about the most often. I have met with people before who have said that they work well in a team during an interview and are absolute pills when it comes to making good on that. I certainly will take advantage of this though as an applicant but I can’t get a good gauge on how willing to engage in this I would be as an employer.
I’m sure a whole lot of us are, and have been, refining our resumes recently, either for summer job positions (like myself) or for post-graduate positions. This was a quick read, and did offer some helpful insight on those soft skills that we are putting on our resumes. I’ve always found these conversations interesting, because it’s literally figuring out how to portray yourself in the best way possible on a single 8.5x11 sheet of paper. Say it like that, and it sounds kind of funny right? But, I also really do understand the importance of a resume. It can tell employers a little snippet about who you are in terms of what you have been working on, and what skills you have. The soft skills this article mentions, like adaptability and teamwork, are skills that I think most of us in theater learn and build just by working in this area: inevitably, something goes weird in load in or tech, and you have to adapt and problem solve (or something happens during a performance: same thing there too). And, you are working on a team from start to finish: so, definitely something useful for us all to think about when writing our resumes!
Like Maureen mentioned, it is the time of year when people are polishing up their resumes and trying to find internships or job positions. However, none of the tips on this article was surprising or new to me. I feel as though adding any of these tips will actually improve your resumes. I agree this is something you should have, but it is to only elevate your resume to the level of everyone else's. I am particularly not a fan of these buffer words. I feel as though it is a way to tell not show, and your resume should list your experiences and you can elaborate them in your interview, where how you are "proactive" or "creative" will shine through. Saying these things on a paper is meaningless. Also, no employer really looks at your resume until the interview anyway. I suppose it is useful if your resume goes through an automatic sorting code and needs certain buzz words, but other than that I don't think this article was really and "insider" at anything; just kind of obvious.
After learning about soft skills in Technical Management last semester, I never really considered how one would integrate them into a resume. When listing your most recent jobs and biggest accomplishments, I did not think that putting ‘good at public speaking’ would really fit and flow well. This article seems to call attention to the fact that you can incorporate things like your “ability to learn” with the pre-existing information. I always think it is interesting to see what works for the business model as well. Articles like this one are built for - in my mind - the usual nine to fiver climbing the corporate ladder, but it does, to some degree, work within our theater world as well. As a stage manager one of the things that is essential to your job are these soft skills so it is kind of humorous to see companies seeking out these qualities in others.
I found this article interesting because it is up to date when it comes to writing resumes. What employers are looking for in applicants changes so often it is important to tweak your resume whenever new ideas or skills begin to be considered. For example, the soft skill of having the “ability to learn” is important now more than ever with the fast-changing environment the pandemic has brought when it comes to learning different technology or protocols. Following this is “adaptability” which again was emphasized with the pandemic and how workers can adjust their responsibilities with grace. All the qualities mentioned in this article apply to the theatre industry because it is always changing and requires collaboration. After reading this article, I agree these are extremely important traits that can really enhance a resume especially those for entertainment purposes. More specifically, since my background is mainly in stage management, I can see how these skills could guide an employer when trying to read through stage management applicants.
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