Core Skills Resume Template

$12.00

5.0/5

Win a Competitive Edge & Get Hired Faster With This Standout Skills-Based Resume Template

Super easy to edit and customize skills-based resume template. Professionally designed, premium Word template that is perfect for career changers and people with work history gaps. Win a  competitive edge and land the job you want!

  • Premium templates designed by an award-winning, nationally recognized resume expert.
  • Results-proven, recruiter-approved, and created for real-world use.
  • Leave the generic-looking templates to others. Quickly create a resume as unique as you are. Nobody will ever guess you used a template!
  • Fast and easy to use. Flexible and simple to customize. Multiple color options. Video tutorials and pro tips & writing prompts included.
  • Yes, unlike most templates, Distinctive Resume Templates follow all modern best practice "rules" and are ATS-friendly! (This is SO important!)

$12.00

Save 10% on Coordinating Templates

Core Skills Coordinating Documents

Biography, resume addendum, references, and cover letter templates from our Core Skills Collection.  Microsoft Word is REQUIRED to use our templates.

ATS-FRIENDLY...EASY TO USE & CUSTOMIZE...EYE-CATCHING, MODERN FORMATS

CREATE A JOB-WINNING RESUME IN MINUTES WITH CUSTOM-DESIGNED SKILLS-BASED RESUME TEMPLATE

Professionally Designed Skills-Based Resume Template for MS Word

From our Core Skills Collection, this skills-based resume template is super easy to use and customize. Just follow the writing prompts and tips throughout the premium resume template to easily create an impressive skills-based resume quickly and easily.

This skills-based resume template provides you with an excellent format to showcase your abilities and highlight your strengths.

Unlike a traditional chronological resume, which focuses on work history and job titles, a skills-based resume emphasizes the skills you have acquired throughout your career, no matter where or when you acquired them.

You can even use this skills-based resume template format to include experience and skills gained outside of employment. For example, skills you have developed through volunteering or in an internship.

Resumes with this skills-based focus can be especially useful for making a career change and for professionals with employment gaps. It can also be useful for other situations. For example, a stay-at-home parent may use a skills-based resume template when he/she is ready to return to the workforce.

A skills-based resume is similar to what is called a functional resume. The difference is that a purely functional resume format would have no employment dates or chronological work history on it. Recruiters and hiring managers really hate functional resume formats because they are often used to hide things and don't provide full work history information.

A skill-based resume, on the other hand, does start with a strong resume summary and skills section and places a strong focus on things such as key skills mentioned in the job description, transferable skills, soft skills, and other relevant skills

This is followed by a section similar to the traditional reverse chronological resume. But, this chronological work history is not the focus of the resume. The education section will usually be included at the end of your resume, as it is in this resume template.

The Core Skills Collection includes an optional bundle of matching documents, including a resume addendum with prompts for additional qualifications and skills, a professional biography, references, and even a cover letter template.

See the full collection:

All of our templates are created to make it easy for you to customize them and make them your own. You can easily add or remove sections, rename sections, or even swap sections around. Changing the color scheme is equally easy, and we include video tutorials with every resume purchase, to show you how to do this. Here are just some of the many vibrant resume color schemes available when you use our resume template and the other matching career templates in the collection.

Easily Change the Color Scheme of All Our Resume Templates

Skills based resume template color choices

Microsoft Word is REQUIRED. Due to the digital nature of this template, all sales are final. For more information on licensing rights, please review our licensing terms.

Frequently Asked Questions

As the creator of Distinctive Resume Templates (Michelle Dumas), I’ve seen other resume templates and virtually all of them are NOT ATS compatible. This is a major reason I was finally convinced to make these templates available. ATS compatibility is a necessity for almost every job search. If your resume is not compatible, it may become a jumbled mess in the ATS and you’ll never even know it (except that you never get a call!). It was really disturbing to talk to so many people who were using one of these templates and lost weeks or months of time, missing out on opportunities because they didn’t know better.

This is why I have done everything in my power to ensure my Distinctive Resume Templates are ATS “friendly.” There are many different types of applicant tracking systems and it is impossible to ensure compatibility with every single one of them. However, my templates are mostly ATS-friendly and will work well for you in most cases.

There is a lot of misinformation out there regarding ATS-friendly resume templates. Much of this information is outdated. Having an eye-catching, well-designed resume that is also ATS friendly is absolutely possible as long as the designer understands ATS standards. To learn more, I encourage you to read the many articles about resume design and applicant tracking systems on our blog.

Absolutely! In fact, I encourage you to change the color and make it your own. Remember, the last thing you want is for your resume to look like you used a template. That is a primary advantage of Distinctive Resume Templates. They are custom-designed for real-world use, and changing the color scheme is a fast and easy way to make your resume completely unique–just like you!

And, don’t worry. It truly is easy! You don’t need any design experience and don’t even need to know which colors look good together because you will have preset schemes to choose from. I include some videos along with the templates to show you how to easily change colors. It takes just a couple of mouse clicks and the entire color scheme is changed instantly and automatically

If you would like, you may even download an example free resume template and see for yourself how easy our ATS-friendly resume templates are to use.

Yes, of course! Again, this is a key feature that differentiates Distinctive Resume Templates from other templates. As a professional resume writer, I (Michelle Dumas, the creator of all the templates you find here) have spent the past 25+ years working with tens of thousands of job hunters, helping them create successful resumes that have repeatedly produced real-world results.

A major problem with other resume templates on the market is their inflexibility. The layouts are so complex that they are virtually impossible to customize (not to mention that this complexity causes serious problems in ATS). When you try to use one of these templates you are forced to enter your very unique career experience in their pre-set format. You can’t add or subtract anything, You can’t move things around. Sometimes you can’t even rename the sections. The end result is a resume that doesn’t do you justice, doesn’t promote your qualifications as it should, and that makes your resume look completely cookie-cutter.

Distinctive Resume Templates are different. I have based the designs and layouts and formats of Distinctive Resume Templates on real-world, results-proven resume designs. While you can easily use them exactly as they are, they are also super easy to customize and I include video tutorials with every resume template purchase, to show you how to do so.

The templates are also easily adaptable whether you are an entry-level candidate or a top C-level executive. Just delete and/or copy/paste sections as you need to. Most of the templates are two-page templates and some of them are one-page templates. However, any of them could be easily modified to whatever length you need.

If you’d like to see how easy the templates are to work with, you may download a free example resume template here.

Yes! Distinctive Resume Templates were created primarily to meet the needs of professional resume writers seeking a solution that allows them to do what they do best…WRITE while feeling confident they are delivering to their clients eye-popping, custom-designed, ATS-friendly resume templates and other documents that will get them extraordinary results. Our Distinctive Resume Templates Insiders program provides professional resume writers, career coaches, recruiters, and others who work with job seekers with new template collections every month, plus personal support in using them.

If you are a job hunter, remember that great resumes always begin with great content. But if your resume is already written and you are happy with the content, Distinctive Resume Templates are for you. It will be easy for you to copy the content from your plain resume and paste it into the templates.

The structure of the templates may also give you some great ideas about how you can improve your own content too. For example, many of our templates include a “Snapshot” section in each position to summarize the value you delivered to your employer. This is a feature that recruiters love.

Many of our templates also include tips and prompts throughout the template. These make it especially easy for DIY resume writers to write their own resume.

Yes. These are Microsoft Word templates. Many people already have this application, but if you don’t I’ll tell you how to get it for approximately $9/month. Microsoft Word is a necessary application for all job seekers, as many recruiters and employers require that your resume be submitted in this format.

All Distinctive Resume Templates designed by Michelle Dumas, a Nationally Certified Resume Writer and multi-time TORI Nominee & Award Winner

NRWA National Resume Writers Association Member
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CDI member
TORI Winner

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USER REVIEWS

WHAT OUR TEMPLATE USERS SAY

Insiders
Appearances matter, even with the written word, and how a document looks can make an immediate impact on the decision to read it or toss it aside. I train and mentor many excellent resume writers who have mastered the art of crafting highly effective resume content, but who lack the basic MS Word skills to create eye-catching, ATS compatible and uniquely branded documents. Distinctive Templates are the perfect solution for easily transforming well-written content into works of art that capture attention, generate interest, and motivate the recipient to read every word.
Norine Dagliano, NCRW, NCOPE, CPRW, CFRW/CC
Phil Hurd
While I primarily write resumes from scratch for each of my clients, I have also used Michelle’s templates and received great feedback. I find the templates are especially helpful to organize my thinking for those clients who have an overabundance of important information that still must fit in an ATS-friendly, 2-page format without looking cluttered or disorganized.
Phil Hurd, NCRW, NCOPE, CPRW, www.catalystresumes.com
alison
When I was starting out with resume writing a little over a year ago, one of the most intimidating aspects was visual design of resumes. I didn’t want to have to learn graphic design to stand out—and with these templates, I didn’t need to! I was a little hesitant at first because I thought the templates might be too rigid or generic. In actuality, they are incredibly flexible and easy to play around with. I can customize any template with my client’s favorite colors in just two clicks—which means they never look exactly the same, even if I use them for multiple clients. Using the templates means I can just do what I do best—write—and then plug the text right into the appropriate section. It saves me literal HOURS of work and hassle. One of the best parts about purchasing from Michelle is that she is extremely responsive to questions. There’s a private Facebook group where she records screen share tutorials about how to switch up certain elements in the templates, and she's always been responsive to my emailed questions. My clients are completely thrilled with the unique, modern design of their resume, and I’m thrilled that I'm saving time and don’t have to learn graphic design!
Bob Janitz
I love Michelle’s resume templates! The designs are eye-catching and easy to use. I highly recommend these templates for anyone who finds that designing a creative, contemporary formatted resume is a challenge. They’re a huge time-saver.
Bob Janitz, NCRW, www.janitz.com
amber f
I used the “Pivot” template to create a combination functional/chronological resume for my first big client. Her words when she saw the finished product: “THIS IS AMAZING!” I’m a writer, not a designer. My resumes aren’t unprofessional, but they needed a “wow” factor – and now they have it. Thank you, Michelle, for offering such affordably priced tools!
Amber Fernandez, Freelance Writer

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