The purpose of your resume is to get you an interview with your potential employer. In addition, once you are invited for an interview, the recruiter will almost certainly use your resume to find out more information about you.

When you are writing your resume you will have highlighted the areas that you thought were important to the employer, such as your academic achievements or your previous employment experience. However, the employer may be interested in other areas that are also relevant to the job, particularly any transferable skills that you have. You must therefore spend sufficient time when you are writing your resume to include your transferable skills as well.

There is a balance to be struck when writing your resume, as you have to project the correct image and get the message across on one or two pages that you will be a valuable asset to the company, but you also have to avoid going overboard.

Your resume forms the first impression for the company and it is essential that you take this opportunity to present yourself in a professional manner to get companies interested in learning more about you.

Recent surveys have shown that close to 80 percent of all resumes do not make it on to the first short list. This makes it essential that you pay extra attention to content, presentation and formatting when writing your resume, and think specifically about what qualities or abilities you have that will make you stand out from the crowd.

It is also well known that many recruiters do not spend more than 30 seconds on each resume. You should therefore consider including a concise career or experience summary at the top of your resume to catch the recruiter's attention and encourage them to keep reading. This can also include a brief bullet point summary of your transferable skills.

In today's job market, there are around 30 applications for every vacancy, which puts more emphasis on the resume as a way of getting your foot in the door. You should think specifically about the transferable skills that the recruiter would use to decide which of the candidates they are going to interview, and make sure you can demonstrate in your resume that you have these skills.

So, do you know what transferable skills you have?

The easiest way to work out what skills you have is to make a list of all the activities that you have been involved in, and the tasks or duties you undertook to complete these activities.

Once you have done this, identify what skills you acquired or demonstrated when you were carrying out these tasks or duties, and group these under the categories of transferable skills that employers look for.

The main skills that employers look for can be summarized into 10 broad categories, which are:
1. Planning and organizing
2. Organizational Awareness (i.e. understanding of the company)
3. Communication (oral and written)
4. Interpersonal skills
5. Analytical ability
6. Problem solving
7. Customer service
8. Teamwork
9. Leadership / Influencing skills
10. Personal motivation and development

You will see from this list of transferable skills that you are likely to have achievements in the majority of these categories. These are generic transferable competencies that employers use to determine job requirements and compile job specifications.

This works to your advantage, as you will have had the chance to demonstrate these skills in many walks of life, not just work related areas - and now you can include these transferable skills when writing your resume.

Visit www.Resumes360.com for an easy, step by step process to transform your resume and make sure that you are the successful candidate.