Personal skills on the CV
Filling a document with personal information to create a resume is only apparently easy: in fact, you have to pay attention to many things and elements to add or avoid. These include your personal skills, which can make a difference when looking for work.
Personal skills: what are they?
Specify your personal skills, also called quality, is not one of the most common things in Italy when drawing up a curriculum vitae. In fact, by focusing on who you are and your personality, you can make a good impression on the employer you are introducing yourself to. Or, conversely, it can also make a bad impression. Obviously it is in no way mandatory to provide this information and everyone is free to decide whether to add it to their CV!
What skills and qualities to mention?
As we saw when we spoke of professional skills, there are 3 types of skills: transferable, technical and adaptive. Personal qualities are what are called adaptive skills and are linked to the personality of each of us: in fact, even if we do not realize it, our personality is always with us and influences our way of relating to others and to the world of work. Adaptive skills, qualities, can be innate or have been acquired over the years: in all cases, they are the traits that define who we are.
Evaluating the position for which you are applying, your strengths and the qualities required even if not explicit is the first step to evaluate what to insert.
A great way to understanding which qualities to insert is to take part in a psycho-aptitude text, which will help to understand what one’s aptitudes are by clarifying.
What are the advantages that specifying the qualities on the CV can bring?
Inserting your qualities, without exaggerating or over-emphasizing, can be beneficial for several reasons. The personal qualities in fact:
- They give a personal touch to the curriculum, allowing recruiters to understand a little more who they are in front of and to know their strengths;
- They help to give a positive image of the candidate;
- They highlight elements that can be useful for the position.
The three elements put together clearly benefit one candidate over another when used correctly.
What are the disadvantages that specifying qualities on the CV can bring?
Obviously, specifying your qualities on a CV can lead to preventive discrimination: let’s say the candidate has written, for example, that he is a good leader, the recruiter may decide not to consider him preferring a candidate less explicit and less leader, to maintain a certain balance in the team. This, regardless of professional experience, which may not be enough. Not to mention that if the qualities inserted are trivial and too common, the impression of a recruiter could be extremely negative.
What are the qualities to which a recruiter pays more attention?
In light of the above, what are the qualities that a recruiter pays most attention to when evaluating candidates for a position? We can classify according to generic categories: intelligence, friendliness, integrity, courage, leadership, resilience. Based on these categories, these are some of the qualities that a recruiter looks at more carefully (always taking into account that they must be supported by work experience and professional skills of a certain type!):
- Autonomy
- Discipline
- Dynamism
- Team spirit
- Motivation
- Creativity
- Passion
- Proactivity
- Adaptability
- Punctuality
- Curiosity
- Versatility
- Organization
- Involvement
How to present your qualities on the curriculum
Once you have identified the qualities to be included, how do they present themselves on the curriculum so that they are effective? The element to always keep in mind is brevity: a long CV is a boring CV and as such the information you enter must be relevant and not take up too much space. At the same time, there should be no spelling and grammar errors.
If you are applying for a job in the bank, you can specify the following qualities:
“Organized, attentive, motivated and concrete.”
If you show up for a job as a social media manager, you can instead write:
“Creative, always on the piece, proactive and smiling”.
Never focus on specific elements of your personality, unless required by your job position. For example, if you are applying as a babysitter it might be good to add:
“Child lover, smiling, resolute, available”.
It may happen that you want to dwell on specifying where and how certain qualities have been acquired, but we must always remember that a recruiter must evaluate several CVs during the day and going too specific does not increase the opportunities for be called back for an interview.
Talk about your qualities during an interview
Once your qualities have been specified on the CV, you should expect at least one question about them during the interview. Not only that, because the entire interview could be aimed at finding out if the qualities inserted are really real or have been emphasized. It is therefore good to really pay attention to what you write, to avoid making a bad impression during the interview phase, and to avoid lying.
Lying about your qualities just to make a good impression in the recruiting phase can lead problems and embarrassment.
Recapitulating
- Personal qualities can be the extra element of a CV but can be omitted;
- When adding your own personal skills on a CV, one must be honest, brief and specific;
- Never lie to impress the reader: during the interview, lies will be discovered and the candidate unmasked easily;
- Always avoid qualities that are trivial or have no specific connection with the job position.
