When you’re working toward a degree in the liberal arts, you’re not just training for a single profession. Instead, you’re developing a powerful set of skills—such as clear communication, critical thinking, collaboration, innovation, and cultural agility—that qualify you for a wide range of careers.
But because these are often called “soft skills,” many people assume they’re less valuable when it comes to getting a job. That couldn’t be further from the truth, as they’re the skills employers say they look for most in prospective employees. Sarah Heath, director of the UVM Career Center, calls them “power skills” (a term she borrowed from author and journalist George Anders) because they’re like master keys that can help you land—and succeed in—a wide variety of jobs.
In UVM’s College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), every course you take helps you master eight core competencies:
- Intercultural/global fluency and foreign language skills
- Ethical reasoning and decision making
- Analytical and critical thinking
- Quantitative reasoning/applied data interpretation
- Creative expression and innovation
- Teamwork, collaboration, and leadership
- Written, visual, and oral communication
- Information and digital literacy
These competencies align beautifully with sought-after career skills, and knowing that can make your job search easier from start to finish. “Once you realize the skills you’ve learned by studying the liberal arts are the very same skills that employers are looking for, you’re better positioned to talk about them,” Heath says.
And talk about them you should. But what’s the most effective way to do that? We sat down with Heath to explore the best ways to highlight these valuable skills to potential employers.
College of Arts and Sciences: How do you bring these power skills into the conversation when applying for a job?
Sarah Heath: The trick is to prepare concise STAR vignettes. The acronym stands for Situation, Task, Action, Result—in other words, the scenario, the tasks you were called upon to do, the action you took, and the result of that action. So, think about a time when you overcame a challenge or accomplished a really cool project (like studying abroad), then prepare two or three of those examples using the STAR framework.
Know, too, that each challenge you’ve overcome and project you’ve accomplished typically require more than one competency. You may have had to use some leadership, some critical thinking, some communication, even some intercultural fluency. Because of this, one story can go a long way.
Once you’ve prepared your stories, you'll be able to answer most interview questions in a way that really showcases all the important skills you’ve acquired.
CAS: How can these skills be incorporated on a resume?
SH: Preparing these stories can also help you craft really effective bullets for your resume. One trap many students get stuck in is simply listing their skills, like “I'm a good critical thinker, I'm good at creative expression, and I'm good at teamwork.” But if you just say the words, it doesn’t mean a lot. So, show, don't tell. Let’s take creative expression. Where did you develop that skill? How did you exercise it? Is there some outcome you could point to, maybe even something you can link to on your LinkedIn profile?
Say, for example, that you spent one summer as a lifeguard. What sorts of skills did you have to exercise in order to maintain the safety of patrons in a high-volume environment? Did you use leadership and communication skills in having to speak with pool users about the rules? Was there an emergency in which you called on critical thinking skills? Did you rely on problem solving to sort out a disagreement between patrons? Think about all the competencies you had to use in order to do your job.
CAS: What is the best way to bring these skills up during the interview?
SH: You should walk into every interview clear on three things that you want them to know before you leave. So, what are the stories you want to tell and the skills you want to make sure you get to talk about? If you haven’t had a chance to bring them up yet, they can be incorporated into the questions you ask at the end. Having an insightful set of questions can make or break an interview—they say so much about you and your readiness for that position.
I also recommend giving a strong closing to the interview, something like, “Thank you so much for your time today. I'm really excited about this position and hope I’ve conveyed to you that I bring bang, bang, bang [your top three skills], which I think would really add a lot of value. I can't wait to hear from you.”
CAS: Is it okay to bring notes?
SH: Yes, it’s completely appropriate to have notes written in your portfolio that you refer to during the interview. It shows that you're prepared, that you've done some homework, that you care about this interview. You're not just winging it. Your notes should include the three talking points you want to be sure to mention, a reminder about your STAR vignettes, and the questions you’re going to ask them.
Then, take notes during the interview. Interviewers often ask layered questions, so take a moment to jot them down so you can be sure get to all those pieces in your response. Nobody's going to fault you. You're going to look and feel composed.
CAS: What should you include in a cover letter?
SH: Those same STAR vignettes can also be incorporated into the cover letter. Of course, you want to tailor your cover letter to the position description, making sure you’re addressing the things they say they want. But something students often overlook is the opportunity to speak to mission alignment. What has the company or the organization you're applying to said on their website about their mission, and how does that align with who you are and what you're about? Because this is another opportunity to talk about those power skills—here's who I am and why I think I'm a good fit for this company.
CAS: What about LinkedIn?
SH: Many people now put their LinkedIn URL on their resume, encouraging prospective employers to look there for the summary of their skills and what sets them apart. Don’t forget that the summary on your LinkedIn profile allows a certain number of characters and then you have to click “read more” to see the rest. That's such key real estate— what do you want to communicate in those opening two lines? Many students write profiles that say things like, “I'm a junior studying at UVM in the math department.” But employers can find out all that information elsewhere. Tell them something they don't know, something that’s not evident. Talk about one of the competencies you really want to highlight, or your experience studying abroad, or your personal mission statement.
CAS: The Career Center has all sorts of resources like sample resumes and cover letters, correct?
SH: Yes! And we have Career Center drop-in hours so any student can just pop in with their resume, cover letter, or LinkedIn profile and we'll look at it with them. You can also submit them online through our Brightspace and get virtual feedback.
In addition, we just launched a new tool called Career Launch, which is free to all UVM students. It’s a self-assessment of the eight most sought-after skills in recruiting according to the National Association of Colleges + Employers (NACE)—they’re essentially the same set of competencies as the ones CAS uses. Students go through and rate themselves on things like communication, teamwork, and leadership and can track how they grow in those areas.
But what we're most excited about is doing it in connection with work learning experiences, where students and their site supervisors fill out the same evaluation. So, let’s say you think you’re a great leader, but your site supervisor says there’s room for growth—then you know it’s something you can work on. And by the time you’re a senior and you go into an interview, you’re confident that you’re not just saying you’re a good leader—you’ve actually developed that skill in a work environment.
The other cool thing is that if you do an internship, for example, and your supervisor rates you as being excellent on any one of the eight competencies, you’ll receive a badge validated by the employer to put on your LinkedIn profile. That won’t just communicate valuable information to prospective employers, but it’s a skill other people have affirmed they see in you, so now you can talk about it more confidently.
CAS: What is one thing that a student can do to boost their self-confidence before they walk into an interview?
SH: There are two things. First, as I mentioned earlier, identify and write down the three things you want to be sure to tell. So, whatever happens in the interview, you have this grounding that you can come back to and close with.
The other thing is to prepare yourself physically. Dress the part and be comfortable in what you're wearing. Stand up, roll your shoulders back, take a deep breath, physically ground yourself, know that you've got your notes with you, and then just allow it to be.
Okay, there’s one more: Don’t forget that it's a conversation. You are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you.