Do You Have Hard Skills?
Are Hard Skills important?
What Hard Skills do I have?
Are Hard Skills required for a Job?
Do Employers look for Hard Skills?
What are my Hard Skills?
You probably have more hard skills than you know!!!
Let MyResumeRating review your resume and you will have your answer
Hard Skills
What Are Hard Skills?
Hard skills are part of the skill set that is required for a person to do a particular job. These skills include the education and experience needed for an individual to perform the job successfully. They can also refer to the ability to carry out any complex task in the workplace.
Since hard skills are teachable, they are measurable abilities, such as writing, reading, math, designing, fabrication or ability to use computer programs, etc. They are generally job-specific and typically listed in the job adverts as part of the job description, or they may be defined inside "about the person" section of the job advert, where the hiring company states any qualification, education or training requirements.
Types of Hard Skills
Hard skills are vast and are generally job-specific. For example, engineering is a profession that requires a relatively extensive set of hard skills such as mathematics, various configuration or programming software, understanding and usage of Microsoft Office Suite, the experience in the design of industry-specific product requirements and so on.
Some common hard skills:
- Accounting
- Engineering
- Typing
- Constructing
- Teaching
- Programming
- Machining
- Design
- Word processing
How to develop Hard Skills
One way to develop hard skills is through formal education and training programs, such as a university, college, apprenticeships, training courses, online studies, and certification programs or on-the-job training.
Employers and recruiters look for hard skills that a person may quote in their CV or resume. Generally, these skills are backed up by a certificate, degree, diploma or other qualifications that show the level of achievement.
Why are hard skills important?
Hard skills focus on practical abilities and physical skills, whereas soft skills focus on behavioural traits and personality of an individual, such as social or communication skills among many others. Some hard skills are general and widely utilized regardless of the business, industry or processes where a person is applying them. But other hard skills are very much specific to a particular workplace and job requirements.
For example, a person may have designing skills which are a generic hard skill, but those skills depend on the field of profession.
For example, designing as a skill can be applied in numerous professions:
- Engineering design
- Graphics design
- WEB design
- Fashion design
- and many others
Although they may seem like a transferrable skill, in most cases, they are not since these skills are predominately profession-specific or job-specific.
Let's say; a mechanical engineer who has design skills, would not be able to transfer those skills to an electrical engineering job position. Professions are hard skills gained through education, and they are commonly job-specific and generally defined as the Job titles in job advertisements. They can be considered as a primary hard skill for a particular job. Other hard skills associated with professional skills usually are developed over time and on the job training.
A recruiter, hiring manager or ATS robot evaluating a resume that hasn't got the relevant hard skills for a job position, will generally reject the job application and an applicant is unlikely to pass the first post in the selection process.
Including soft skills in a resume to back the hard skills is very important.
Combined, they support the applicant's professional suitability and integration into the position, the team or companies culture. Omitting, the combination of both skills will have adverse results in the application going further up the selection ladder or ATS ranking score.
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