Why you should NEVER put a list of ‘skill levels’ on your resume
They keep popping up more and more on the resumes of applicants: a list of skills with a form of level indicator. Some use a list of stars as an indicator, some use bullets and some even use words like basic, advanced and expert. I myself used to have this on a curriculum vitae at a previous company and thought that it was rather useful. But oh boy, after seeing several of them appear on resumes from people with different skill levels I have come to the conclusion that you should never include them. Those skill lists with level indicators are an absolute nightmare and here is why:
1. You can never know the maximum level
If you have three amazing months of experience in a particular field how on earth can you score yourself an 8 out of 10? You don’t even know halve of what is out there. Even if you have twenty or more years of experience it is very likely that you still don’t know everything to give yourself a remotely accurate score.
Take HTML for example. As a front-end developer HTML is considered one of the core competencies of which you are expected to have a decent base knowledge. Building something with HTML is fairly straight-forward since the basics are not that hard to grasp. Chances are that if you speak to a random 14 year old girl who spends most of her time behind a computer that she will be able to build something with it. If you would ask her level out of 10 on HTML she would give it somewhere between 7 and 9 most likely. And I would never hold it against her because she is able to use it without too much trouble!
But as a professional you should be fully aware that there is a lot more out there than you yourself can master. When sticking with the HTML example: Do you for example know which ARIA-roles when to use (aria-atomic, aria-relevant, etc.) or what effects certain elements have on a document outline. I don’t, but I know they exist. Should knowing those things exist but not knowing how they work lower your ‘score’?
UPDATE: And so it appears that the thing I tried to describe here is already a well known phenomenon called the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a type of cognitive bias in which people believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are. Essentially, low ability people do not possess the skills needed to recognise their own incompetence. The combination of poor self-awareness and low cognitive ability leads them to overestimate their own capabilities.
Simply put there is no way to put yourself on the correct position of the chart. Scoring yourself high on your resumé, without the evidence to back up your claims, will only imply that your knowledge of the field is most likely low.
2. You can never be at the maximum level
Even if you were the inventor and creator of your own programming language you still wouldn’t know nearly enough to make it to a 10 out of 10. I would bet that Brendan Eich does not know how to integrate the (new) service worker api without looking up the documentation. Sure, he could tweet you into oblivion about how strings, objects and functions work but is that enough to tick more than 8 out of 10 stars on a resume?
3. You can’t compare different skills
Some of you might be thinking by now that I’m overreacting (which is most likely true) and that those skills with scores are just an indication. But in that case I will ask what that indication exactly is? It surely isn’t an indication of individual skills (see points 1 and 2) and it is neither an indication of which skills are better than others. I’m fairly confident that I know quite a bit about git (just for the sake of argument), but there isn’t a whole lot out there to know (I think) when comparing it to JavaScript for example. You simply can’t compare them.
So for the love of everything that is holy do not put up a list of skills on your resume with an indicator of skill level. The more experienced you will get the more you should acknowledge you don’t know and the lower your scores should get. Please choose to write a list of things you’re comfortable using, a list of things you’re really passionate about, a list of things you want to learn or anything really as long as you don’t decorate them with meaningless stars!
So if you would consider to apply as a Front-End Developer at the ANWB and you deliberately choose to include a skill list with a ‘level indicator’ make sure you come prepared…
All kidding aside we would love to speak with you regardless. 😉
