The rising importance of functional skills in the job market and its scrutiny by hiring managers on the candidate’s resume calls for a new focus on placing a higher emphasis on functional skills while making the resume.
The functional skills that go into a resume can include a host of skills that facilitate effective performance. These skills are different from specialized academic or technical skills from institutions, just as computer programming. So, math skills, data skills, public speaking skills, writing skills, and language skills are important for jobs, apprenticeships, and also for admissions to universities.
Unlike other skills needing hard training, you can hone functional skills with ample practice. In other words, if you possess more functional skills, do expect hyper-growth in your career path, plus amazing rewards. Here we will walk through several functional skills that should find a space in your resume.
1. Time Management
Among the functional skills for a resume, there is a special place for time management. It is all about completing tasks on time and following a viable schedule. For employers, having staff who can maintain good time management skills will be a great asset to retain clients. So, showcasing your exemplary time management skills on the resume can get you an edge over other applicants.
2. Creativity
Many modern jobs demand good creativity from employees who can come up with new ideas and unique ways to solve problems. If you have demonstrated a record of creativity in past work, showcase it on your resume with examples of projects and exceptional tasks.
3. Problem-Solving
Problem-solving is an important functional skill for any job. Just assume there had been a mishap at the workplace, and if you were a staffer with a problem-solving attitude, you would show the confidence to handle the crisis smoothly. So, mention that trait as one of your functional skills for your resume so that the management can utilize your skills appropriately.
4. Communication
Employers rate communication as a crucial skill in the workplace and will be happy to hire and reward that skill. People with good communication skills shine in drafting good notes and also excel in meetings and social functions as they talk well, use multiple languages, and show the knack of putting across their points brilliantly. If the profile demands speaking and writing, present samples of your communication skills on the resume.
5. Negotiating Skills
In listing functional skills for a resume, never forget to add negotiating skills if you have them. Good negotiators are a sought-after lot. Negotiation means “give and take” and the use of persuasion to reach a compromise. A good negotiator in a company will be involved in many strategic areas such as hiring, budget making, finalizing property deals, and dealing with clients and customers.
6. Teamwork
Teamwork means a group of employees working collectively to attain certain goals and targets. To make teamwork, effective team members must have good communication skills. Employers want staffers with a team attitude to get along better, deliver high productivity, and pursue a common goal. If you have good teamwork skills, do mention the same on your resume.
7. Leadership
If you love taking responsibility, setting goals, charting a road map for coordination, and getting things done, it means you possess leadership ability. You can lead people to certain outcomes with better coordination. So, leadership is undoubtedly one of the top-notch functional skills for a resume. A workplace throws up innumerable opportunities to practice functional skills, and you can impress employers with amazing skills.
8. Organization
Organized individuals excel in doing tasks on or before time. For employers, time-sensitive staffers are like assets that can be compared to an engine driving the business to hyper-growth. If you possess great organizing skills, highlight them on your resume with samples.
9. Delegation
For better execution, delegation is crucial as it allows people to do certain jobs better than others. Employers love to have the workplace better delegated as it adds efficiency, unlike red tape-ridden procedures that slow down competitiveness.
10. Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is an important skill expected in all potential candidates. Companies need critical thinkers who can think logically, and their decisions will not go wrong. If, at any point in time, you have applied critical thinking in your projects, add it as a vital functional skill for your resume.
11. People Skills
People skills are a cluster of many functional skills, including active listening, empathy, and understanding. They make attractive personalities in contrast to the repelling trait of some people. In this cluster, listening is important as a pathway to understanding others’ points of view. Other ancillary properties are speaking skills, and humor sense, even in dry situations. Companies need staffers with people skills to excel in customer service, client interface, sales, and marketing.
12. Self-Motivation Skills
In most job advertisements, you might have noticed a line saying the ability to work without supervision is a plus. This implies that self-motivation matters regarding a positive attitude, commitment, and proactive behavior. It is an assertion of the ability to operate effectively without hard supervision. Persons fired by self-motivation will have new ideas without waiting for someone’s validation. For employers, driven employees are great assets, and that quality gets s leg up during selection.
13. Resilience
This is yet another functional skill for a resume with the capacity to handle setbacks and still keep going. The quality ensures a “business as a usual attitude” even if workplace experiences may not match your expectations and ambitions.
14. Flexibility
In what is generally known as adaptability skills, flexibility is an important quality that needs to be mentioned as a functional skill for a resume. It is an attractive attribute of a potential employee. Flexibility involves taking up challenges and tasks without any stress or tension and executing them with finesse in utmost calm and excitement. It is about ease and speed in multitasking.
Flexible employees bring special value to teams. They will help out when needed, adapt to changing plans, and take on new responsibilities without any fuss. Flexibility expresses an agile mind and willingness to adapt quickly to change.
15. Adaptability
This is an era of workplace transitions, and adaptability matters a lot. This means embracing changes without diluting efficiency. You can add this function as a functional skill for your resume. The pace of adoption will vary. Employees who are quick learners easily adapt to new tools, processes, and situations. This soft skill is highly counted in the technology and marketing sectors.
16. Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is an ingrained functional skill that will influence attitudes, functional performance, and the overall persona of the individual. A person with self-awareness is fully conscious of strengths, focus, creativity, and weaknesses.
They know what will excite and motivate them and also what will depress them. Therefore, employers prioritize self-awareness as a quality as it allows the slotting of employees in respective positions with assured expectations of success.
Ways to Highlight Functional Skills Before the Employer
The above discussion has underscored the need for highlighting functional skills for resumes in various ways. Therefore, the onus falls on the job aspirant to showcase soft skills in the resume and cover letter and during the interview too.
You can create a dedicated section to enlist soft skills in the resume. Try to customize the resume by highlighting some relevant skills to the role. Also, explain the synergy of your skills with the company’s values and how they supplement the demands of the role. In the interview, bring conversations in a professional as well as basic accomplishments context and throw up personal examples of achievements from soft skills.
Self-Help Books and Practice Will Boost Your Soft Skills
In short, an employee’s performance will be limited if it relies simply on his technical knowledge. To become a star employee, you will need an array of skills. Polish your “soft skills,” comprising personality traits, behaviors, and important work habits such as good communication, collaboration, perseverance, and attitude to help people.
You can boost soft skills or functional skills using self-help books, expert articles, and structured training classes. However, do ensure sustained practice and regular updates about each skill set. to improve your problem-solving skills start doing lots of puzzles and playing games.
Always remember that even if an employee is strong in the technical domain and is poor in functional skills such as dependability, time management, and critical thinking, he will fail and become a liability to the company.
On showcasing skills, for example, if you have a strong command of the language in terms of writing and speaking, reflect it on the resume and cover letter. Demonstrate your compelling language skills and correct punctuation, spelling, and grammar in the cover letter. No doubt, impressive language will make your resume outstanding.
Identify the Best Functional Skills
As we have seen, functional skills are an amalgam of many personal attributes that also help boost teamwork, productivity, and growth. You will find many of these functional skills as basic concepts learned in schools, such as maths, English, and computer literacy skills.
Better functional skills are vital for job seekers as most hiring managers insist on a variety of functional skills in candidates. It is clearly evident that better functional skills will translate into job opportunities and enhance your earning power by promoting excellence in professional situations.
Functional skills may not be listed as mandatory in job advertisements, but these inherited skills are expected to contribute robustly to organizational growth. So, job seekers need to attract the hiring manager’s eyes to their functional skills to gain a critical edge.
The importance of functional skills in hiring is further buttressed by a study linked in that notes 85 percent of recruiters say that most failed hiring is connected with a lack of functional skills. Suppose job seekers are still not aware of the urgency of highlighting functional skills for resume power. In that case, it is time they understand the art of drawing attention to functional skills right at the start of the selection process.
The message is clear that candidates should not ignore the sharpening of soft or functional skills to stand out as composite and competent ones and keep adding the best list of top functional skills to their resume.
