By Aoife Barry
Applying for a job is an exercise in trying to make the most important information about your career journey stand out.
ADVERTISEMENTBut once your CV and cover letter are in the hands of a recruiter or potential new boss, it’s hard to know if they’ll spot what you want them to see.
Traditionally, people have tended to go for a chronological CV, where your work experience is laid out according to what year or decade you undertook it.
But there’s another way to create your CV that can benefit some people in particular: a skills-based approach. This is an alternative way of highlighting what you’d like a potential employer to know about you.
Using the skills-based approach means – as the name suggests – emphasising the transferable skills you’ve gathered and honed across your career journey, with a skills-based CV is sometimes being called a "functional CV".
Why use a skills-based CV?
One big reason to use this sort of CV, according to the Indeed Career Guide, is if you don’t have previous experience with that sort of role, but you do have experience with the skills needed for the job.
ADVERTISEMENTIt’s also an alternative approach if you are just out of school or university and need to build up work experience; if you’re moving to a new sector; if your previous roles were similar; or you have gaps on your CV.
The most important step when thinking about this sort of CV is looking at the job description and analysing what sorts of skills are required for the role.
Take note of these, and then look through your employment history and see where those skills match the skills that you already have. The task then is to use the skills-based CV to highlight those skills, so the potential employer can see how you’d be able to apply them to the role.
Your cover letter can also emphasise why you’ve chosen the skills-based route.
How to lay out a skills-based CV
One approach to a skills-based CV is to open with a personal statement that highlights skills gained through experience.
This can be tailored depending on the job that’s being applied for. The opening statement is followed by details on educational experience.
Following this is the skills profile, or breakdown of the skills gained over the previous years. Rather than using job title headings, the headings are your skills. Skills gained from employment and other experiences can be used in this section.
This can then be followed by a section on employment and work experience, but you don’t have to go into too much detail as you’ll already have highlighted the skills associated with the roles in the section above.
Finally, this can be followed with a section on additional qualifications, if applicable, then one on extracurricular activities. It can be rounded off with details on your references.
How skills-based CVs can benefit jobseekers
Earlier this year, a report found that 45 percent of employers use skills-related metrics to find candidates, up 12 percent year-over-year. From the perspective of how the approach benefits employers, it found that talent pools expand on average nearly tenfold when using a skills-first approach.
ADVERTISEMENTThe report noted this can also help to expand candidate pools so that they include historically underrepresented groups, or people who might otherwise slip through the net.
For example, in jobs where women are traditionally underrepresented, going skills-first when it comes to the hiring approach can lead to increasing the proportion of women in candidate pools by 24 percent more than it might for men.
So if you’re looking to apply for new roles, the skills-based CV approach could be key to you tapping into that growing emphasis on employee skills – and underlining why you’d be the ideal hire for your ideal employer.
Looking to use the skills you’ve learned in a new role? Visit the Euronews Jobs Board to see which companies are hiring.
Test Engineer, Atos
Atos is looking for an Automation Tester in Amstelveen in the Netherlands who will be responsible for developing and maintaining automated test scripts and running tests at different 'levels' of its software stack.
The ideal hire has completed college education and has strong team-building skills, as well as certification in ISTQB or Tmap for software testing, among other requirements. Apply for the job today.
Business Development Analyst, EBA Clearing
The Service Development and Management Unit at EBA Clearing, which is responsible for maintaining the EURO1, STEP2, and RT1 payment services, is looking for a pro-active, cooperative, and communicative business development analyst.
They will support the team in the research and developments necessary for the delivery of service enhancements and new services.
The position is based in either the Brussels, Paris, or Frankfurt office. Full details on this role can be found here.
Junior and Senior DevOps-Engineer, Vecozo
Vecozo is looking for a junior and a senior DevOps engineer to work in a complete Cloud Only environment with the latest state-of-the-art technology.
In this Tilburg-based role, you’ll be responsible for both operational management and further development of the Azure platform.
The role will involve working with Azure resources, such as Application Gateway, API Management, Virtual WAN and Service Fabric clusters. Discover all the requirements now.
Interested in moving to a new role? See which companies are hiring on the Euronews Jobs Board
