Suggested course level

Lower level undergraduate

Activity purpose

• Students will practice reading and interpreting a job advertisement.
• Students will analyze which skills would be required (or essential), “nice-to-have,” and transferrable.

Materials required

• Copies of a fictional resume
• Copies of a sample job advertisement (to match the fictional resume, it’s best to find an advertisement for a position in office management or administrative support)

Activity instructions

1. With the class, discuss and define “required” or “essential” qualifications, nice-to-have qualifications, and transferable skills.
2. Distribute handouts.
3. Place students in small groups.
4. Ask students to work with their group to discuss and decide what qualifications would be considered essential, nice-to-have, and transferable and why. Remind students to be prepared to share during the debrief.
5. Debrief the activity.

Debrief questions / activities

• What qualifications do you think are essential and why?
• What qualifications do you think are nice-to-have and why?
• What qualifications might be transferable and why?
• What did this review, discussion, and analysis reveal to you about job advertisements and interpreting them? (Highlight that job advertisements often list every single qualification the company would ideally like to have, but there is often opportunity to highlight what skills you have that are transferable and might be substitutable and/or equally valuable. This then often segues into a good discussion about and lesson on writing persuasively in employment documents.)

Activity variations

• This activity can be a precursor to a follow-up activity for students to write a cover letter for the fictional person in application for the provided job advertisement.

Additional resources / supplementary resources

• Ashman,Melissa_EmploymentSkillsAnalysis_ResumeHandout PDF
• Ashman,Melissa_EmploymentSkillsAnalysis_JobAdvertisementHandout PDF
• Ashman,Melissa_EmploymentSkillsAnalysis_ResumeHandout WORD Ashman,Melissa_EmploymentSkillsAnalysis_JobAdvertisementHandout WORD

Tags: employment communications, discussion, hands-on, small group, reading, job advertisement, resume, skills analysis, transferable skills