I'm putting my resume together and I wanted your opinion on special skills. Here's some things I'm thinking of.

These ones seem like they could be pertinent:
Horseback Riding (English & Western)
Driver’s License

These seem like anyone could do/or fake doing:
Drawing
Cooking
Bike Riding
Great with Kids (professional educator)
Public Speaking (let's hope most actors could pull this off, but I did do competitive Speech in school)

These seem super random. I can do them, but I'm no expert:
Lauhala Weaving (Hawaiian Fibers)
Celtic Harp
Some French Language
Some Hawaiian Language ('cause there are tons of scripts written in Hawaiian )
Hawaiian/Asian Pidgin (I look very hapa, not dark-skinned, so I don't think anyone would cast me for these roles anyhow, but yeah I can say, "You fat!" just like grandma)
BA (who cares? and I'm pretty sure that's not a skill)
Dance (jazz/contemporary, club, lyrical, ballet-- my dance skills are not super, but if I had a role in something like "Save the Last Dance" I could definitely do that. Good enough?)

Thanks for your feedback on this. On a somewhat resume-related note, what's your opinion on keeping your given name if it's tricky? My last name is Hawaiian. So, yeah it's long and has vowels back to back. I'd really like to keep it and I'm willing to shorten my first name if it helps. Thanks again!

List only those skills that could reasonably be related to something you'd actually be cast for.

You're obviously an Hawaiian/Pacific Islander type, so push that and celebrate it (slack-key guitar, hula and Pidgin English would be far better choices than Celtic harp, bike riding and marginal French, for example).

I'd keep your native Hawaiian name, unless it's impossible.

I've got to eat my Spam, rice and eggs right now, so I'm pau.

Good luck and Aloha!

www.robertkim.com
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0453647/

I just noticed that you're hapa...

Without knowing exactly what you look like, this advice may not be advantageous.

Aloha, anyway!

Mahalo nui Robert. I appreciate it.

Yes, I'm very ethnically ambiguous. I've gotten anything from part Chinese, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Black, Indian, French, "Oriental," and on and on. In reality, my coloring is very white-- fair skin with yellow tones, strawberry blonde hair, and light brown eyes and my features and build are more Japanese/Irish. The Hawaiian is there, but not so much. I think I would be cast as white, ambiguous, or even Hispanic before I'd be cast as Hawaiian. Keanu Reeves could be my brother. It's like that.

Thanks for your help! K den, send you one virtual plate lunch, super ono for you brada.

Hi! I'm sorry, can I get on this one?

I'm also interested on listing right things on resume, but a little bit confused. There is a lot of things that is extremely regular, like "riding a bike" or "playing basketball". I dunno, of course I could write them, but there will be a huge amount of those, cause for example I haven't been doing any of those profesionally, but I'm good at football, basketball, sking, skateboarding and tons of other things. I was just wondering if it is worth to mention all those if there would be like 50 of those "skills" which are pretty much regular? But also, I don't want everyone to think that I don't know how to ride a bike or play basketball if I won't mention it.

What are your suggestions? Thank you!

Hi Pavel...yes, those are my general questions, too. I've looked at a lot of people's resumes to try to get a better idea. Honestly some of the special skills listed were a surprise to me, such as Exercise, Aerobics, Cooking, etc. I do those things too, but I wouldn't consider it a special skill. From some of them it was clear that they weren't experts either-- it wasn't like Aerobics Instructor. So, it confused me a bit. I thought the point of special skills was to list things that you could do well, that maybe were not super typical, and could possibly be useful in a role-- say play the piano, at least a a bit anyhow. But I've seen all kinds of things.

Maybe special skills can act as conversation starters, too. In which case I can do the splits and bend my fingers backwards, but again why would you be cast for that? I guess we need help 'cause I'm a bit lost on this one.

I've been wondering about the special skills section as well... must they all be things we can do fluently/advanced-level?? for example: I've taken a year of American Sign Language, and also a class on deaf culture, so I understand ASL grammar, I can fingerspell and know most basic words and also I understand the deaf-world. it would be easy for me to pick up a script in sign if it were taught to me, although I couldn't personally translate the script from english to ASL. should I put that on my resume at all? how would I word it??

another thing is dance. right now I just have it listed "dance" and no specifics. I've taken 2 years of beginner's level tap (and I own tap shoes, worth mentioning?), 1 year of beginner's ballet, I was a cheerleader for 3 years in HS (so hip-hop type dance)... how should that be listed??

thanks so much for any answers!

quote:

Originally posted by revoltofagirl:
I've been wondering about the special skills section as well... must they all be things we can do fluently/advanced-level?? for example: I've taken a year of American Sign Language, and also a class on deaf culture, so I understand ASL grammar, I can fingerspell and know most basic words and also I understand the deaf-world. it would be easy for me to pick up a script in sign if it were taught to me, although I couldn't personally translate the script from english to ASL. should I put that on my resume at all? how would I word it??

another thing is dance. right now I just have it listed "dance" and no specifics. I've taken 2 years of beginner's level tap (and I own tap shoes, worth mentioning?), 1 year of beginner's ballet, I was a cheerleader for 3 years in HS (so hip-hop type dance)... how should that be listed??

thanks so much for any answers!

Just don't say that you're an expert on your resume. If you have some understanding, they might still hire you to fake it or wing it.

Say:
-basic American Sign Language
-Some Dance (Tap, ballet)
-Cheerleading

awesome, thanks!