Self taught skills on resume

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Goblin

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Hi,
I am in process of updating my resume….do u guys think it would be good idea to mention self taught skills in the resume even though I have no project experience on that skill or mentioning it would appear like cheating and fake.
 
By self taught skills …I meant something like a language VBA/macros..or some other database tool or some other skill which I have learnt on my own. I don’t think it would be a good idea to add them in hobbies….or even add a hobbies section. Some of the finance resume templates I came across on Google were straight to the point….name, experience , knowledge and skills and education.
 
Yes add them to your skills. Have you used VBA in your job at all to improve a process or do anything? Add that to your CV.
 
Depends on how profound your knowledgs in said skills is. If you claim to be proficient in say VBA or SAP you better live up to that. Nothing worse than some noob who claimed to be good to land the job only to run around annoying colleagues with stupid questions later on.
The same is true for languages, although you usually get documentation about your skills from course providers. In Europe we have CERS for that, I guess theres something similar globally.
In general I would refrain from listing skills for which you have no documentation (except MS office maybe).
A CV without hobbies is just what you found on google - a template. Nobody hires templates or socially reclusive people.
 
Vandelay Industries wrote:
Why would you not put them on your resume? There’s certainly no shame in self instruction
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Agreed. I suspect that most people that are competent in VBA, SQL, R, Matlab, etc are primarily self-taught, and have no piece of paper proving their competence.
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Conversely, if you’ve taken a 1 day course in financial modelling and have never practiced it on your own, you shouldn’t claim to be skilled at financial modelling, because you’re not. You can’t learn to do such things well in a classroom setting.
 
L2_Again wrote:
Vandelay Industries wrote:
Why would you not put them on your resume? There’s certainly no shame in self instruction
Click to expand...
Agreed. I suspect that most people that are competent in VBA, SQL, R, Matlab, etc are primarily self-taught, and have no piece of paper proving their competence. . Conversely, if you’ve taken a 1 day course in financial modelling and have never practiced it on your own, you shouldn’t claim to be skilled at financial modelling, because you’re not. You can’t learn to do such things well in a classroom setting.
Click to expand...
Agree with L2. Something like a computer language or a spoken language are typically picked up as needed and would almost look weird to have some certificate to “prove” that you know it, unless you specifically had programming classes in your curriculum (and most people who program have not had formal training, I would venture to guess from what I’ve seen – just as most people fluent in German have probably learned most of it outside of school).
Clearly, you can demonstrate something like a foreign language in the interview, if it is important to the interviewer. For something like VBA, be aware that if it is required for the job, they may test you on the spot to see that you can pull certain commands out of your head or that you know your way around the VB editor. It is helpful if you have a substantial VBA-based project or application that you can produce for the interviewer to show how you have created something with a little more meat than some sloppily-thrown-together piece of code via the macro recorder.
One other thing, OP – if you mean skills like say, Bloomberg or Morningstar proficiency, these types of systems typically have certification courses which you can take for free if you have a login, and in this sense, you can “prove” that you “know Bloomberg” or whatever. If you don’t have a login and can’t get certified, then I would still list your ability to use these systems, especially if you are proficient with using the API calls to automate data extraction into Excel.
 
yes add them, but do realize that until you proev those skills, it will be viewed as uncertain.
 
Thnx for the responses…….the thing I am afraid of is that if I mention a self learnt skill with expert proficiency I don’t have anything to back it like a certification or an on job experience…..and if I mention the proficiency as a beginner…. It may sound like that I mentioned that skill just for the sake that it was one of the required skills in job description.
 
well if you can prove it that should be no problem, just dont make yourself look better than you are.
still, I tend to avoid putting anything on my cv for which I dont have documentation. maybe that’s just a response to recent trends in my labor market. people put all kinds of things in their cv because they knew it was required and in most cases nobody checked. there were many cases with people claiming to have intricate knowledge of SAP, which is required by large consulting firms, but many know that hardly anyone has to apply that skill in the workplace. those people did learn quite some basics from books and self-study videos, but eventually one had to optimize the workflow in a galvanizing plant, completely fucked up the SAP system and caused a firm-wide standstill of 4 days. after that people got cautious.
a friend told me about this girl who went to work for BCG as a marketing consultant and mentioned proficient photoshop skills in her cv. she got the job, despite knowing only basic picture optimization techniques and was then put into the design department. she originally wanted to specialize in relationship management, but there were no vacancies and she figured she could switch later on. some months in she was tasked to design a billboard ad for this hip new healthy beverage and rumor has it that the final draft looked much like the foto collage of a 14 year-old. naturally she was fired and because the big four tend to share info about their former employees she couldnt land a job at the other three.
what I was trying to illustrate is that the skills you mention in your cv may determine which tasks you will be assigned to. have a clear idea of what you want to be doing and put only skills relevant to that in your cv. spicing up your cv with skills you dont really have just gets you into trouble.
 
I_am_the_Highway wrote:
well if you can prove it that should be no problem, just dont make yourself look better than you are.
still, I tend to avoid putting anything on my cv for which I dont have documentation. maybe that’s just a response to recent trends in my labor market. people put all kinds of things in their cv because they knew it was required and in most cases nobody checked. there were many cases with people claiming to have intricate knowledge of SAP, which is required by large consulting firms, but many know that hardly anyone has to apply that skill in the workplace. those people did learn quite some basics from books and self-study videos, but eventually one had to optimize the workflow in a galvanizing plant, completely fucked up the SAP system and caused a firm-wide standstill of 4 days. after that people got cautious.
a friend told me about this girl who went to work for BCG as a marketing consultant and mentioned proficient photoshop skills in her cv. she got the job, despite knowing only basic picture optimization techniques and was then put into the design department. she originally wanted to specialize in relationship management, but there were no vacancies and she figured she could switch later on. some months in she was tasked to design a billboard ad for this hip new healthy beverage and rumor has it that the final draft looked much like the foto collage of a 14 year-old. naturally she was fired and because the big four tend to share info about their former employees she couldnt land a job at the other three.
what I was trying to illustrate is that the skills you mention in your cv may determine which tasks you will be assigned to. have a clear idea of what you want to be doing and put only skills relevant to that in your cv. spicing up your cv with skills you dont really have just gets you into trouble.
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some people would probably say that it’s better to get the job and get fired than never get the job at all. (I’m not saying it, just saying I think many would)
 
I_am_the_Highway wrote:
what I was trying to illustrate is that the skills you mention in your cv may determine which tasks you will be assigned to. have a clear idea of what you want to be doing and put only skills relevant to that in your cv. spicing up your cv with skills you dont really have just gets you into trouble.
Click to expand...
So I should not mention any of those skills which I know and I am good at it..if I do not want to work on those in my next job. Lol sorry I am bugging u guys on this but I really don’t want to get it wrong.
 
I would definately put self-taught skills. The one guy who interviewed me said he was impressed that someone could teach themself finance and accounting using the CFA program and Excel, particularly 3-statement modeling, using google and youtube videos. It shows that you are motivated and can figure out things on your own, without supervision.
 
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