Getting ready to pursue a career in HVAC & Refrigeration service? Wondering what to include on your resume to boost your chances of landing an interview? Here’s a smart idea: consider gaming skills. On your resume, highlight skills you’ve learned from gaming that HVAC technicians need, but that might not appear on the average entry-level HVAC technician resume.
Chances are you’ve spent years building the following skills and qualities through gaming. Now you can use them to help you land an HVAC technician position.
Highlight these gaming skills on your HVAC technician resume
1. Resilience
Resilience is the ability to recover quickly from failure and keep at it until you succeed. In gaming, you often fail when you’re trying an unfamiliar game or attempting to beat a challenging level or mission. But you dive back in and try again!
That’s an extremely valuable skill in HVAC. As a service technician, you’ll regularly encounter new situations and difficult problems you need to solve. Especially in the beginning, you won’t get it right the first time. But it’s critically important to have the resilience to keep at it until you’ve learned how to solve the problem.
2. Diagnostics and problem solving
Speaking of problem-solving, that’s another essential HVAC service skill you build through gaming. As a technician, you will need to hone in on the possible causes of a problem, use judgment and experience to identify the most likely causes, and work through potential solutions one at a time until you’ve figured it out.
You learn diagnostic and problem-solving skills not only in the process of playing video games, but also when you fix technology issues with your rig.
3. Patience
Of course you often need patience to succeed in gaming. You also need patience to wait until game prices go down instead of rushing to get the latest new release. When you do, you get rewarded by saving money and having a more enjoyable playing experience with extra DLC and game fixes.
Patience is like a muscle: the more you work it, the stronger it gets. As an HVAC technician, your patience will come in handy when you’re faced with a tough problem, a traffic jam on your way to an appointment, or a difficult customer.
4. Keen observation
Without a doubt, paying careful attention to what’s happening around you helps you succeed in gaming. It also helps you succeed as an HVAC technician. There are many subtle signs and symptoms of heating and air conditioning problems that are easy to miss. If you’re the technician who can notice both the big picture and the details, you have a chance to become an expert at your craft.
5. Time management
Time management is about both being aware of time passing and using time wisely. In gaming, sometimes you need to make decisions and act fast to achieve your objective. Also, you may be trying to stay within a certain amount of allotted gaming time each day. In both cases, you need to focus on your priorities and overlook distractions to achieve your goals.
As an HVAC service technician, having time management skills can make you a sought-after employee. Being good at solving problems may not be enough if you can’t do it fast enough. Those who are both efficient and effective can go far in this industry.
6. Communication
In multi-player games, you often need to communicate with other players, either verbally or in writing. Over time, you learn not to waste words or use the wrong words. You communicate directly and so that others clearly understand the message.
HVAC service technicians need to do that every day. You’ll be communicating verbally and in writing with dispatchers, managers, other technicians, and customers. You need to be clear, efficient, and also respectful. Technicians who are effective communicators avoid causing problems for their employers and are popular with coworkers and customers, too.
7. Teamwork
Team games teach you to work together with others to achieve common goals. As a team member, you have an assigned role and (ideally) are expected to complete tasks aligned with your strengths and abilities. You also build relationships with team members that help you all do better.
Service technicians are also part of a team that works together to meet customers’ needs, whether that’s making a repair or installing new equipment. Your employer expects you to fit in with the team and support others, as well as completing the tasks assigned to you based on your skills. A strong team helps the whole company do better.
More help for creating an HVAC technician resume
Need more help creating your resume, especially for an entry-level position? Get more advice about what employers are looking for and download our handy HVAC technician resume template.
HVACR Career Connect NY was created to promote the exceptional quality-of-life benefits of a career in HVAC and Refrigeration service, and also to provide a clear path for getting started in the profession. In doing so, we serve as a resource for employers in the New York City metro area to find and hire smart and capable new technicians. We also serve as an educational resource to support business growth and to help service technicians succeed in their chosen profession.
Learn about technical careers in the HVAC & Refrigeration industry, how to get hired and tips to build your career.