6. Key skills
A list of relevant key skills is generally a good thing for a front page. This is where you pull out the key things you can bring to the role so that they’re instantly visible. Make these general enough that they could work for any employer and avoid company-specific jargon (unless it’s well-known terminology within your industry that shows you are experienced in that industry).
Examples of key skills presented as ‘one-liners’ include:
- Specialist in relationship marketing
- Tender management and supplier negotiation
Alternatively, you can set out each key skill with a little more detail:
- Management: I am a balanced and consistent manager with experience of running teams, functions and projects. I have an understated, relaxed style. I am flexible and adaptable, diplomatic, good under stress, able to coach, and tough when required.
Keep it to no more than four, and make each a very short bullet-point.
Remember that game your granny used to play with all the things on the tray, and she’d cover them with a tea towel and you had to remember as many as you could? How much easier would that have been if there had only been 4 things? This is the same principle. Make your key skills a simple, memorable take-away for the reader.