{"id":2565,"date":"2022-12-19T10:00:12","date_gmt":"2022-12-19T10:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/?p=2565"},"modified":"2025-10-22T15:14:26","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T14:14:26","slug":"a-very-particular-set-of-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/2022\/12\/19\/a-very-particular-set-of-skills\/","title":{"rendered":"A very particular set of skills"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You might know <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jZOywn1qArI\">that famous scene in <em>Taken<\/em><\/a> where Liam Neeson says, \u2018What I do have are a very particular set of skills.\u2019 Which skills do you mean, Liam? \u2018Skills I have acquired over a very long career.\u2019 Hard skills? Soft skills? Are they transferable? Are they mentioned in the job description? \u2018Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.\u2019 Okay, now I\u2019m <em>definitely <\/em>not offering you the job.<\/p>\n<p>My point here is you are not Liam Neeson in <em>Taken <\/em>and there is no advantage to being vague on a job application. It\u2019s not enough to just <em>say<\/em> you have the necessary skills for the job \u2013 you need to <em>show<\/em> the employer how. Consider these two examples:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Used various skills to assist the director with a variety of tasks.<\/li>\n<li>Assisting the director, used interpersonal skills to negotiate a new rota, resulting in an increase in productivity across the team.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The second example only focuses on one task and one skill, but that\u2019s okay. An employer gets nothing out of knowing you have \u2018a variety\u2019 of skills if they don\u2019t know what those skills are.<\/p>\n<h2>But if everything\u2019s already on my CV, what will I talk about at the interview?<\/h2>\n<p>It\u2019s tempting to be vague on a job application to create mystery, intrigue (or, in <em>Taken, <\/em>pure, blood-chilling fear). But employers are only going to know what you tell them, and won\u2019t spend any time pondering over what isn\u2019t there. It\u2019s not worth leaving something important off your CV, expecting to elaborate on it at the interview stage.<\/p>\n<p>Many employers have a set list of questions which they use at interviews. So if you fail to mention something relevant, hoping you can squeeze it into the interview, you may be disappointed. Rest assured, they will have plenty of things to ask you!<\/p>\n<p>You don\u2019t have to include <em>everything<\/em> you\u2019ve ever done on your application. A good, tailored CV should be concise but specific, drawing on the most relevant examples and explaining how they make you a good fit for the role.<\/p>\n<h2>But what if I\u2019m stating the obvious?<\/h2>\n<p>Don\u2019t worry. You\u2019re not. It\u2019s obvious to <em>you<\/em> because these are your skills. Your experiences. Your degree. The person reading your CV knows nothing about you. If your internship demonstrated your teamworking skills, it\u2019s okay \u2013 crucial, even \u2013 for you to say this.<\/p>\n<p>Some students worry that by mirroring the language on the job description, they come across as lazy or unoriginal. This simply isn\u2019t true! Applicant tracking systems scan applications for <em>the exact words<\/em> in the job description, so by using the same terminology, you boost your chances of passing this first stage. Furthermore, recruiters sift through <em>a lot<\/em> of applications. They\u2019d much rather see evidence of \u2018teamwork\u2019 than \u2018successful collaborative efforts with peers from my department\u2019. It makes their job a lot easier!<\/p>\n<p>You could consider \u2018frontloading\u2019 the bullet points on your CV with relevant skills, or using bold to make them stand out, like this:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Written communication: <\/strong>used writing skills to regularly contribute to the Careers Service blog, which received hundreds of views and was shared on the central university Twitter account.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now consider this example:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Written communication: <\/strong>wrote blogs, emails, etc<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It\u2019s so much better to \u2018state the obvious\u2019 than fall back on words like \u2018etc\u2019 (or \u2018et cetera\u2019). It\u2019s vague, and implies the reader should know what you are referring to, when in fact they probably don\u2019t. If it\u2019s relevant, talk about it! And if it\u2019s not relevant, take it out \u2013 don\u2019t fall back on \u2018etc\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019d like feedback on your CV or cover letter, go to <a href=\"https:\/\/unihub.bath.ac.uk\/s\/myfuture\">MyFuture<\/a> to book a CV and Application Advice Appointment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You might know that famous scene in Taken where Liam Neeson says, \u2018What I do have are a very particular set of skills.\u2019 Which skills do you mean, Liam? \u2018Skills I have acquired over a very long career.\u2019 Hard skills?...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1443,"featured_media":2567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[748],"tags":[687,16,22,386],"class_list":["post-2565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive","tag-application-tips","tag-applications","tag-cv","tag-language"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/82\/2022\/12\/afif-ramdhasuma-RjqCk9MqhNg-unsplash-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1443"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/careers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}