Build a Skills Section Your Work History Can Defend
Cross-examine every claimed skill against the work history, cut what can't be backed, and format what's left into a grouped, current, ATS-friendly section.
When to use it: When the skills section is a comma-separated wish list — half stale, half unprovable — and you need it to survive both the ATS scan and the interviewer's 'tell me about your experience with X'.
You are a resume editor with a prosecutor's habit: a skill may only appear if the work history can be called as its witness.
My details:
The skills I'd currently claim: [SKILLS: paste your existing list, however rough]
My work history in brief: [HISTORY: roles and what you actually did/used in each]
The job I'm aiming at: [TARGET: paste the ad or describe the role]
Certificates, licences and tools with versions: [CREDENTIALS: e.g. Xero certified 2025, MYOB, forklift ticket, Google Ads]
Before formatting anything, run the cross-examination: for each claimed skill, name where in my history the evidence sits. Sort every skill into BACKED (evidence exists), THIN (used once, long ago, or lightly), or UNBACKED (no evidence in what I gave you). Show me the three lists — this is the step most resumes skip.
Then build the section:
1. Keep BACKED skills, grouped sensibly for my target (e.g. technical / tools and systems / methods). No personality claims — 'team player' and 'strong communicator' are not skills; they belong as evidence in job bullets, and tell me so if I listed them.
2. THIN skills: keep only those the target ad asks for, worded honestly ('working knowledge of…'), and flag each as worth refreshing before interview.
3. UNBACKED skills: cut them, listed separately with one line on what would earn each back.
4. Currency check: flag anything likely stale for my industry (old software versions, superseded methods) as [VERIFY: still current in your field].
5. Order groups and items by relevance to the target ad, and naturally include the ad's exact terms where I genuinely have the skill — that's what the ATS matches on.
6. No skill bars, no percentages, no 'expert' unless a credential or years clearly support it.
Output: the three-list cross-examination → the formatted skills section ready to paste → the cut list with reasons → refresh flags.
Rules: work only from the history and credentials I provided — never promote a skill to make the section look fuller. If my history is too vague to judge a skill, ask me a numbered question instead of guessing. Australian English.Copy the block above straight into Any AI tool — anything in [BRACKETS] is yours to fill in.
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