Applying to New Jobs? How To Best Highlight Your Skills

TradeManagement_HighlightYourSkills

TradeManagement_HighlightYourSkills

When applying for new jobs, you want the hiring managers to see how your skills are a fit for the role. Emphasizing your abilities in your cover letter, resume,  and during interviews is important. Showing you have what it takes to complete the work increases your odds of being offered a position.

Follow these guidelines to highlight your skills when applying for jobs.

Focus On Your Hard Skills

The technical skills required to perform the work must be reflected in your cover letter and resume. You likely learned these skills through education and training. Examples include carpentry, pipefitting, welding, plumbing, and painting.

Emphasize Your Soft Skills

Employers want to see how your interpersonal skills can benefit their company. Examples include communication, leadership, organization, adaptability, and time management. Such skills are extremely valuable because they cannot be taught. They must be developed through experience.

List Your Skills on Your Resume

Explain your hard and soft skills in your resume introduction, experience section, and skills section. Include skills listed in the job description. Use your top achievements to show how you created positive results. One of the best ways to accomplish this is the problem, action, result (PAR) method. State an issue or responsibility you had at work. Show how you used a skill to address it. Highlight the positive results of your action. Use the information to create bullet points focused on your achievements.

Quantify Your Accomplishments

Use data to clarify how you used your skills to positively impact a company. Numbers, percentages, and other concrete information provide a clear picture of your capabilities and value to an organization. For instance, “Hired and trained over 50 construction staff on safety standards when building a grocery store.” Be sure to use power words such as “collaborated,” “coached,” or “designed” to illustrate your impact.

Discuss Your Results

Share with the hiring manager specific ways your skills helped drive these projects to completion. Clarify what you did, what your results were, and how your employer felt about it. Keep your answers concise and focus on the value you provided. Demonstrate what the manager can gain by adding you to their team.

Work with a Recruiter

Partner with a recruiter from Trade Management to help with your job search. Apply with us today.

Proceed With Caution but Proceed Anyway – The Optimistic Outlook for 2021

Near the end of last year, construction industry experts predicted a slowdown in new construction starts in 2021. Fortunately, things are not turning out as expected, and the construction industry continues to move forward. However, the lack of skilled construction workers remains an issue. Because there are not enough experienced professionals taking the place of those who retire, many construction jobs remain unfilled. The good news is if you are looking for work in the industry, you should be able to secure a position.

Find out why the outlook for the construction industry is optimistic and how this can benefit you.

The Coronavirus Created Construction Opportunities

The spread of the coronavirus opened up many construction opportunities going into 2021. For instance, because people learned that the way they were occupying buildings often caused the virus to spread, leaders had to rethink how they wanted their workspaces organized. This created a need to remodel office buildings. Also, because millions of employees transitioned from working on-site to working from home, many homeowners realized they needed to separate their workspace from their living space. This created a need to remodel houses. Skilled construction workers are needed to fill these demands.

Construction Jobs Continue to Grow

The need for construction workers is on the rise. One reason is that historically low-interest rates have increased the demand for single-family homes. Because housing inventory is low in some areas and costs are increasing, many people are opting to build a home rather than buy a preexisting one. Also, many building owners have been modernizing their structures while employees work from home. Additionally, nonresidential construction remains stable because of the backlog going into the pandemic, and construction was declared an essential industry. These factors contribute to the increasing need for construction workers.

There Is a Construction Industry Labor Shortage

The number of trained professionals in construction fields continues to decrease. With a significant number of employees retiring after investing decades in the industry, not enough workers are taking their place. This is a huge problem in states that require licensing for specialty trades. The decreasing pool of skilled workers and increasing demand for construction and infrastructure repair and development create opportunities for you to secure a well-paying job right now.

Find a Construction Job

Work with a professional recruiter from Trade Management to find a construction job. We can match you with opportunities and help you start working in a short amount of time. Get started with us today