Job Hunting Stuff - What a Surprise!
Jul. 19th, 2013 10:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebToday I visited the weekly job club meeting because they had a guest speaker. One interesting thing she said was that hard skills get you hired, soft skills get you fired. (Of course she means lack of soft skills. I think it would be better to say they get you promoted, but that doesn't rhyme.)
Hard skills are the specific things people normally list on their resumes--skills with specific systems or issues. You should make sure to use terms that your intended audience would understand, of course. Soft skills are the more general ones like team skills, creativity, leadership, and enthusiasm. She recommends you use your soft skills as a lens to describe your hard skills so that both come through in your application and interview.
I'm not sure I'm going to get anything out of that. But I'm currently in a situation where I probably should. I'm applying for a job where my qualifications are obvious from my resume. So what do I put in my cover letter? Normally I'm trying to explain how my unrelated-seeming jobs are actually applicable. In this case, that feels patronizing (not to mention boring). So I should probably switch to some sort of strategy where I talk about how excited I would be to be using these exact same skills again in their very exciting new environment! Or something.
I walked to and from that job club meeting because it's only 1.5 miles away and it's a morning meeting. (And I can use exercise and should not be polluting the air and putting wear and tear on my car.) But I get quite sweaty in both directions (and chilled in the meeting, though I put on a jacket). I felt used up by later in the afternoon, so maybe I should cut it with walking there in the summer.
But maybe it was from the house being 83 degrees. I think perhaps I start to go a little comatose above 82 degrees. So instead of turning off the A/C when Robin leaves, maybe I should just turn it up to 82 degrees if I'm home. Then still turn it back down before he comes home.
I may switch to weekly updates when all I'm really doing is exercising, job hunting, reading, and hanging with Robin.
Hard skills are the specific things people normally list on their resumes--skills with specific systems or issues. You should make sure to use terms that your intended audience would understand, of course. Soft skills are the more general ones like team skills, creativity, leadership, and enthusiasm. She recommends you use your soft skills as a lens to describe your hard skills so that both come through in your application and interview.
I'm not sure I'm going to get anything out of that. But I'm currently in a situation where I probably should. I'm applying for a job where my qualifications are obvious from my resume. So what do I put in my cover letter? Normally I'm trying to explain how my unrelated-seeming jobs are actually applicable. In this case, that feels patronizing (not to mention boring). So I should probably switch to some sort of strategy where I talk about how excited I would be to be using these exact same skills again in their very exciting new environment! Or something.
I walked to and from that job club meeting because it's only 1.5 miles away and it's a morning meeting. (And I can use exercise and should not be polluting the air and putting wear and tear on my car.) But I get quite sweaty in both directions (and chilled in the meeting, though I put on a jacket). I felt used up by later in the afternoon, so maybe I should cut it with walking there in the summer.
But maybe it was from the house being 83 degrees. I think perhaps I start to go a little comatose above 82 degrees. So instead of turning off the A/C when Robin leaves, maybe I should just turn it up to 82 degrees if I'm home. Then still turn it back down before he comes home.
I may switch to weekly updates when all I'm really doing is exercising, job hunting, reading, and hanging with Robin.