Shipping and Receiving Jobs – Resume Help 101: Highlighting Your Skills
How to Make Your Skillset Stand Out
When you are searching for new shipping and receiving jobs, a standout resume is what will get your foot in the door. It is your personal advertisement and one of the few chances you get in life to shamelessly brag about your achievements. Almost 8 in 10 of the positions we fill require a resume for the hiring client to review.
Because of the fallout from COVID-19, with more than 36 million Americans having lost their jobs, competition is fiercer than ever. Creating a top-quality and tailored resume will boost your chances of landing an interview and taking a huge step ahead of other candidates.
One of the key sections on your resume is the skills section. In this article, we give a rapid rundown of how to boost this section to make it stand out from other resumes that land on the hiring manager’s desk.
Choosing Your Resume Format
Before you focus on the skills section of your resume, you will want to think about what resume format you should choose. In general, this comes down to three options:
- Reverse-Chronological
This format will generally be selected by those who have a strong career history in similar shipping and receiving jobs. It will help show your career path and give you a chance to display the skills you have learned to date. To create a reverse-chronological resume, you simply start at your current shipping and receiving job
and then work back. - Functional
If you are looking to make a career shift within the shipping and receiving industry, this may be the resume type for you. It allows you to focus on the skills and qualifications you have rather than job titles and history. It is also a good format to go with if you have gaps in your employment history. - Hybrid
As you may have figured out from the name, a hybrid resume format combines aspects of the two other mentioned formats. It focuses on specific qualifications and skills (taken from the functional format), but also uses professional experience in the key body of the resume (like the reverse-chronological format).
If you are well experienced and skilled in shipping and receiving jobs and going for a high-level position, this is probably the best format to choose.
Tailor Your Skills to The Shipping and Receiving Job You Are Applying For
An excellent strategy for making your skills stand out on your resume is to create a tailored resume for the job you are applying for. Find the key skills in the job description and be sure to intelligently include the relevant skills that you have throughout the skills section or personal statement of your resume.
60% of U.S. employers have job openings that stay vacant for 12 weeks or longer. In some part, this can be attributed to the skills gap. By highlighting your relevant skills, you stand a good chance of winning over the hiring manager – they really don’t want to be without key staff for three months or longer.
Creating a tailored resume will also show you have taken the time to fully read the job description, rather than simply sending out your resume to every job ad out there.
Using a Range of Hard and Soft Skills
Hiring managers are looking for skilled individuals for their shipping and receiving jobs. But what skills do you need to highlight? You should use a combination of soft and hard skills in your resume to impress the hiring manager:
Hard Skills
Hard skills include any concrete abilities you have. For example, in shipping and receiving this may
include the ability to operate heavy machinery, or strong mathematical or analytical ability.
Soft Skills
Soft skills, in contrast, are harder to quantify and are often more personal. This includes things such
as being a team player, ambition, empathy, patience, or focus.
However, you shouldn’t simply list your skills; this will not prove you have them. You should include where or how you obtained these skills, and demonstrate this by including meaningful results you have achieved using these skills (e.g. ‘I set up an Excel database that streamlined our process and reduced the paperwork cycle by 25%’). Also, include your key skills in your executive summary.
To Sum Up
Your resume is one of your most important tools in finding a new job. If you have a resume that isn’t performing, we can help you upgrade it so that it stands out from the crowd and highlights your most relevant skills. We’ll help you highlight the range of hard and soft skills that make you the exceptional candidate the employer would be mad to ignore. And that’s going to help you land the interview where you really get the chance to shine. You could be one contact away from the job you desire. Don’t delay, get in touch with Coast Personnel today.
