As the year winds down, company budgets are often depleted for hiring new people. Topresume.com asserts that “several companies report they freeze hiring to save both money and time during the busiest season of the year.” ERE.net contends that searching for your next career move in December may give recruiters “an edge in” their “competition for talent” in that recruiters compete with fewer job postings for the usual number of jobs.
It might be a good time to be sure to your resume includes relevant, marketable skills for the job title you seek. If you find any skills gaps, the holiday lull in interviews may provide you time to get started on skills and education to edge out the oncoming competition by the time the new year starts. Here are some steps to help you get started:
- Find the most valued skills for the job you are seeking.
- Search for a specific job title. Take a look at a job search site such as LinkedIn or Indeed for a specific job title of interest. Find multiple company’s listings that contain the same job title.
- List the key hard skills of that job: There are soft skills and hard skills. Soft skills are things like “Excellent communication skills”, etc. Hard skills are things like “Expertise in InDesign.” Write down key hard skills that are listed in several of the job descriptions for that job title.
- Count them: Take note as to which skills appear most often. List them out and give them priority based on how many job listings mention those skills.
- For any highly valued skill you don’t have, close the skills gap. If the job listings show a skill that is highly valued, yet you need to brush up on it, take advantage of several online educational programs. A web based learning platform, such as LinkedIn Learning, will enable you to set a goal of learning time per week. It will track and notify you when you have accomplished the time goal. Software programs such as Adobe InDesign have free training at their home page. YouTube has training on several skills topics of value.
- Let employers know you have those skills. Include them in your resume. Place them prominently and in more than one place in your resume and on your LinkedIn profile.
- Take skills tests on LinkedIn: LinkedIn has several skills tests. Take those tests. If the results are favorable, allow LinkedIn to show the results publicly.
- Repeat the above steps for another job title of interest.
The closer you match the words of the job title you seek, the more attention your profile and resume will get.