Skills, Skills, Skills!
There are lots of places you can go for advice on what you should do during your job hunt, covering how you should write your resume, how you should apply for the job, what to play up or play down during an interview, etc. etc. For the most part, advice from one source will agree with many of the others. The variation will lie mostly in who cares to address what specific topics on any given day. Really, if you're looking for work, read as many of these articles as you can. After a few dozen, you'll get a feel for the common themes to which you'll want to be attentive.
One thing they all keep coming back to, regardless of whether they suggest you brew up a wildly innovative video resume on YouTube or opt for the most buttoned-down conservative suit & tie and resume on fancy linen paper you can imagine, is this:
Employers are looking for applicants with skills.
Of course it's important that you get the attention of potential employers, and there are lots of good stories about people who have gotten their dream jobs with really creative efforts. Just remember, these stories are the extreme outliers, and the people behind them had the skills to back up their unorthodox applications.
Not everyone has the talent to make one of those resumes, and not every job demands that kind of creativity. Draw what inspiration you can from them, but before you decide to pour hours into something you hope will go viral, spend some serious time examining your complete skill set. Sit down and make a list of everything you know how to do. You'll probably be amazed.
When you create your profile on Cuttlefish, you can add any skills you want, as tags attached to your professional experiences, your eduction, or even free-form, outside of any specific experience. (For example, learning to drive a car.) When you look for jobs matching your skill set, or when employers are looking for leads into qualified applicants, the more skills you have the better. (Of course, if you don't want to be notified about certain kinds of work, feel free to leave your skills in those areas off your resume.)
Don't be afraid to be specific! If you're a programmer, you can enter every programming language as its own skill tag. If you're a medical professional, list all of your certifications, qualifications, and procedures you're familiar with. Warehouse workers, get into what product lines you're familiar with. Never had a job before, but you're really good at makeup? Or tracking sports stats? Or building models? Put it on there! Avocations skills count too, and you never know what kind of work there might be out there for you.







