When I see the words "I am an excellent communicator" I think to myself, "are you?". How do I know? How does any potential employer know? This empty statement doesn't provide me with any information and there is the additional problem that we all have different perceptions of what excellence might be.

So, how do you get around this kind of statement and make your applications stronger? Quantitative statements. "A what?" I hear you cry. A quantitative statement gives the reader information that allows them to quantify the statement they are reading. Let's take my earlier example:

"I am an excellent communicator"

We could change this to give a stronger example by providing some context

"Invited to present my research to an audience of 200 people at the Joliot-Curie Conference where I received positive feedback from the delegates"

The second statement tells me that you were confident to present to a large group and that your presentation skills must be good enough to have been invited, backed up by the positive feedback you received. You haven't need to tell me that you were an excellent communicator as you have given me that information anyway.

You could also add in a portfolio of your work e.g. a link to your publications, blog or any articles you have written; this is especially important if you are applying for a role which needs written communication skills.

There are three common ways to give context to your application:

1. budgets - are you a budget holder? If so, how much are you responsible for?
2. people - do you manage anyone? If so, how many? This could also include training others, demonstrating, supervising etc.
3. streamlining - saving time or money by making a process more effective - can you quantify it?

These examples can be from work, study, hobbies, voluntary work - there is no restrictions on how you share your skills.

An added bonus of preparing these examples for your CV/application form is that you then have a bank of examples for your interview too.