In a recent blog post for the National Associations of Colleges and Employers, Kevin Collins offered “four ways to help students to showcase their full range of strengths in their applications and interviews.”
Read Between the Lines. Too many students overly focus on matching the qualifications and requirements listed within job postings and end up missing the implicit skills needed to succeed.
A well-written posting will weave both the essential hard and soft skills into the job description—and both are equally important. Some postings make it easy to identify these essential skills, others might take a bit of detective work.
Having students highlight the active verbs within the description can help with this process. If they have experience in using any of those skills listed, they should be highlighted in the cover letter and mentioned in interviews.