What does it mean to be proficient?
Many resumes have a section titled “skills.” Being a first-year undergraduate student, this section is often hard to fill. Many individuals like me, turn towards the “basics” that they believe that they are proficient in. The “skills” section is filled with the Microsoft Suite — a.k.a. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. However, I’ve learned that these softwares have features that go above and beyond the essentials that are utilized in school.
Working as a business development associate for over a month now, I’ve had my fair share with Excel and Word. I undertook projects on Excel, that included the utilization of spreadsheets to create a barcode attendance system. However, during that project, I learned that excel has its own coding language and that the software is filled with functions and booleans. In fact, you can even create If…Then… statements in Excel.
In Word, it is possible to create documents with fancy borders, graphics, patterns, and other elements of visual design. It’s possible to import subdocuments, merge documents, and create bookmarks inside of Word. It is also possible to configure Outlook with Word to utilizes mail merge.
Looking back at my resume, I would remove Microsoft Suite from my resume, until I learn more about the programs.