VMock scores your resume based on Impact, Presentation and Competency. Impact and Presentation adjustments generally require you to reformat areas, add information, and make slight changes in wording such as verb choice. Competency refers to specific transferable skills that employers desire no matter the industry, company or job title. This requires you to think about your experiences and describe them in ways that relate to an employer’s needs. The competencies that VMock is scoring are: Analytical, Communication, Leadership, Teamwork, and Initiative.
These competencies are not random. Each year, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (a group of university career centers and industry recruiters who recruit new grads), surveys employers to find out what they are looking for in their new hires. These competencies that VMock is scoring, along with professionalism and work ethic, are always listed among the top 10 qualities that employers desire. To improve your score in these competencies, you first want to understand what each means, then think about your own experiences, courses, and skills as they relate. Finally, you need to select the appropriate language to describe these competencies. The rest of this post will define the competencies and give you some ideas for adding to your own document in these areas:
Analytical
Analytical skills mean problem solving. Tailoring your bullets to reflect instances where you analyzed a situation to determine problem/issue and then identified ways to reach a solution in your past experiences will improve your score in this area. Using verbs that reflect researching or investigating information or problems, analyzing or evaluating information, and creating strategies for overcoming obstacles are all recommended for this competency area.
Communication
Communication refers to your ability to articulate your thoughts, ideas, or knowledge to others in a clear and concise way either through verbal, written, or visual means. This could include presentations you have given, papers you have written, art you have created, or times when you have coordinated with or motivated others to accomplish a task. You may also think of times when you have had to teach or explain information to others, when you have had to promote ideas or events, or times when you have had to negotiate, mediate, or persuade.
Leadership
Leadership includes times when you have lead or managed others but can also refer to planning and organizing or being the point person for events, projects, or information. You may be assigned a leadership role or it may be less formal. Showing leadership skills generally involves describing positive results that came from your efforts.
Teamwork
Teamwork is different than leadership in that is focuses more on your interpersonal interactions and how well you work with others to accomplish a common goal. You may not have initiated the project, but your participation and ability to get along with others was crucial to the success of a project.
Initiative
Initiative refers to your ability to problem solve and go above and beyond what is required to get the job done. This may include thinking of a way to solve a problem even if you weren’t asked to do so. It could also mean formally or informally helping others to do the best job they possibly can through mentoring.
As you read through the above competencies, and as you look at your own resume and experiences, you may noticed that many of these competencies overlap with one another. Often when we are doing good work, we exhibit many of these skills. In order to increase your VMock score in one competency area, you may need to think about your verb choices and you may end up increasing your score in several of the competency areas at once!
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