Tips for Showing Off Detail-Oriented Skills

Typically, “detail-oriented” is used as a positive, while “perfectionist” or “micromanager” is used as a negative. While these phrases may seem like just synonyms, the truth is that a detail-oriented team member cares about and pays active attention to the details, while a perfectionist is more likely to focus on the small details over the bigger picture. You can avoid being labeled a perfectionist or micromanager by striving to complete jobs and paying attention to timelines so that you don’t get too caught up in these details.

Yes. When you come in for a job interview, the interview questions will try to determine how much you care about different elements like paying attention to little details or paying attention to the big picture. If they can tell that you decisively are not detail-oriented, they might be worried that this could lead to making larger mistakes in the future. By showcasing your detail-oriented nature, you’re reassuring a hiring manager that you do care about the little things in your job, which will make it less likely that you’ll let the company down in the future.

If you’ve decided to include “detail-oriented” on your skills list, it’s important that you also distribute it throughout your resume and cover letter. You should only include “detail-oriented” on your skills list if you feel like it’s a skill that’s helped you significantly over the years. You should be able to list at least a few experiences in your past jobs where being detail-oriented helped you do better work. Examples may be that you caught a typo in a large advertising campaign or you fixed formatting issues to look better to the customer. If you can’t provide an example of how detail-oriented you are, you might want to consider listing a different skill instead.