Top 5 Tips on ‘How to present SEO skills effectively on a Resume?

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Skills in a resume are of paramount importance. Adding skills effectively on the resume make it shortlist worthy.

When it comes to incorporating skills on a resume, it is very important that you write it in a certain way that your skills shine out to get past the ATS.

Here are a few tips that will help in avoiding rejection and ascertaining the chances of getting an interview scheduled.

1. List all your SEO skills

Strategic placement of key skills sections plays a vital role in attracting the recruiter’s attention.

Choose a resume design template that displays all your skills under the summary section to grab the spotlight and shift the hiring manager’s focus towards the highlighted skills from the professional summary. 

An organized resume with a clear structure and precise design maximizes the chances to get the ATS clearance and helps the system in forwarding your resume straight to the hiring manager’s desk. 

Below are few things to keep in mind while writing the skills section:

• Customize the font to highlight your skills. For instance, use bolding to emphasize and italicize the technical skills below it
• Align the skills to the center for a more sophisticated look

The optimization of SEO skills on an SEO professional’s resume is as necessary as the optimization of pages.

2. Mention Job-specific skills

Job-specific skills are those capabilities that allow a candidate to get shortlisted for a particular job. Employers usually look for a particular skill set required for that specific job posting.The applicants whose skills closely match the required skills will have a greater chance of getting a call for the job interview 

It is very important that you avoid including unnecessary jargon of skills just for the sake of it. Especially the ones which have nothing to do with the job profile you are applying for as it might hinder the chances of your selection.

In case of a career change, the skills section becomes a pivotal point in optimizing your resume, and to revamp the same, try to include those skills that are relevant and align with the job profile.

Below are some key skills which can be used in an SEO resume

social media marketing, content marketing, on-page, and off-page optimization, link building, usability, writing, prioritization, web coding, etc.

3. Target soft skills 

Soft skills are generally non-technical skills that are required for the post posting. It generally includes the natural abilities of the candidate such as people skills, communication skills, interpersonal skills, decision-making skills, intelligence quotient, etc.

Including the basic skills of the targeted profile is a must, for that, identify the soft skills that the recruiter is looking for. 

Compare your skills with that of the recruiters’ required skill set. Apart from including your soft skills in a dedicated section, also try to incorporate them in your experience section to make them look professionally apt.

For instance, skipping ‘Communication skills’ for the post of a Counselor or a Customer Service Executive is a mistake that one should avoid making.

Adding fancy but irrelevant skills will not help in creating a stellar resume. One of the most common mistakes committed is by applicants is overloading their skill section while leaving out the elementary skills.

Here are a few soft skills that you can add to your resume according to the job you are applying for: Communication skills, teamwork, adaptability, problem-solving, decision making, creativity, time management, benchmark development, etc.

4. Categorize skills

When adding skills try to categorize them. Clustering all skills together might help you to make your resume ATS compliant but it may not put a great impression on the hiring manager.

Here is an example of how you can classify your SEO skills:

Key Skills: Social Media Marketing, Digital Marketing, Client Management, Team Mentoring

Technical Skills: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Google Analytics, Moz, Ahrefs, Adwords

Categorizing skills gives the resume a sophisticated look while making it crispier, orderly, and professional.

5. Include quantifiable achievements 

Incorporating the skills in the professional experience section will enhance the readability and relativity of the resume. 

Build the bullet points around the skills, while framing the bullets to show cause and effect.

For example as an SEO manager you can write:

Conducted market research and analyzed data of 10+ online stores to formulate branding strategies for domestic and international clients

Adding data that does not do justice to your skills will fade away the impact of your skills, the data added should have evidence to back it up.

Key Takeaways 

Writing a good resume by ascertaining a perfect balance of your experience and skills is a difficult task.

To ease out the process it is very important that you find out the skills that are relevant for the job and frame your resume accordingly, but any skills that you are putting up on your resume should be the skills that you truly possess.

Let us have a look at the key takeaways:

• Ensure the right positioning of skills on the resume in order to highlight them
• Include job-specific skills to make the resume ATS compliance
• Target basic skills that are of utmost importance for the targeted job
• Classify the skills to put them under specific categories to increase the chances of getting shortlisted
• Incorporate relevant skills in the summary and work experience section of the resume