It was sometime in the 1990s that hiring managers were looking for more effective ways to identify strong candidates by their résumés. That’s where soft skills—personal skills you use in approaching your work and the people you work with—made their big entrance.

Soft skills have always been of major importance on the job, and have always factored into performance reviews big time. So it would seem logical to trumpet these important skills on your résumé. Right?

Not so fast. There are a gazillion résumés out there these days, with job seekers professing qualities such as: “bottom-line–focused”; “results-driven”; and “customer-service–oriented”; not to forget “excellent verbal and written communication skills.”

The trouble with flat-out claims like these is (at least) twofold. For one, employers regard most of these competencies as a given; most people would list these claims as assets for most positions. Meaning: claims like the ones mentioned above are going to do little to set you apart from the rest.

More importantly, though, they hardly sound convincing by themselves. Employers who first read your résumé haven’t seen you at work—in real time, with real people, on real challenges. They will read a soft-skill claim such as “proactive self-starter” and think: “Says who?”; or, “Duh! What job seeker wouldn’t describe him- or herself that way?”

The trick is to choose—and embed—soft skills wisely. Start by googling lists for soft skills (a.k.a. personal skills or people skills), then identify some four skills you feel you possess in particular—skills that distinguish you.

Next, look at your executive summary (or summary of qualifications, or whatever else you call the “mini-résumé” section immediately following your professional headline). Here you already provide a broad overview of the more or less tangible and verifiable aspects of your profile. Now make sure they also reflect your distinctive competencies you just identified, so the reader gets clues about the way you approach your work and the people you work with.

Sometimes you don’t even have to expressly state the soft skill in question; the presentation can be more effective if you can point at results stories, which imply the soft skills behind them.

Here’s one example:

• Developed staff potential to increase productivity by 25% per year and staff retention by 40% over 8 years.

The soft skills are between the lines: It takes astute judgment of employees’ strong suits, considerable capacity for maintaining motivation and enthusiasm, and a significant amount of persistence to achieve results like these.

Here’s another example:

• Advanced community projects by initiating and fostering purposeful networking among 30+ local businesses, institutions, and government agencies.

The soft skills behind this accomplishment: a great deal of proactivity and tenacity, superior rapport building, active listening, the ability to elicit and qualify the needs of others, and persuasive and convincing communication to get the movers and shakers from other organizations enthusiastic about joining in concerted endeavors.

You can still expressly mention some of the critical soft skills by name; chances are your résumé will first be read by screening software, and that software will have been programmed to screen for specific soft skills. But the way of intertwining soft skills with (hints at) results stories is a very effective credibility builder. And it has another benefit:

Soft-skills presentation will pique the readers’ curiosity if it is connected to results stories. In the interview, they will probably follow up on that at some point:

“Okay, so tell me about a time you built staff to meet your department’s needs”; or, “Give me an example of how you developed a network within the community, and what effect that had.”

This type of behavioral question (recounting how you have done something in the past) is increasingly popular with interviewers. And since you should anticipate this type of question anyway, won’t it be kind of smart to feed the interviewer exactly those questions you want to be asked?

The other week, I received a LinkedIn invitation from someone in Singapore and another from someone in Cape Verde. Great! I am generally happy to connect with people from every nook of LinkedIn’s global village. In fact, I find that idea kind of cool.

Still, I clicked “Ignore” for both of those, just as I had done in response to that invitation from someone in the Netherlands several months earlier. Why, you ask? How does that jibe with the open mind I just paid lip service to?

Well, for one, those invitations were generic, containing nothing more than the default “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.” For another, I didn’t know those people, and it didn’t help that their profiles still didn’t tell me why I should connect with them. All that added up to break the deal.

A lot has already been said about how to invite people “properly” on LinkedIn. (Actually, here’s a recent thought-provoking article that has spawned some outspoken comments.) Mind you, not that I was offended by the invitations I mentioned; just as I don’t want anyone thinking I mean to offend by clicking “Ignore” as I see fit.

It seems the discussion is nowhere near settled—and how could it be, since we’re all coming from different cultures in LinkedIn’s global village. So I guess now would be the time for my two cents.

1. Inviting people you haven’t met before (in person or online) is generally fine.

LinkedIn is about visibility, approachability, and fruitful professional contact. Of course there will be new people turning up on your radar. How you approach them can make or break the invitation.

Perhaps most importantly: If people you haven’t met pop up under “People You May Know,” don’t just click “Connect.” Doing that sends a generic invitation immediately, which preempts any customization and thereby defeats the purpose. Click “Connect” on the person’s profile page instead, and take it from there. See below for more specifics.

2. Don’t say you’re a “friend” if you really aren’t.

So you haven’t been “colleagues” or “classmates,” and you haven’t “done business together.” (I once got an invitation from an insurance professional who said I had done business with their insurance when that wasn’t the case at all.) That makes it tempting to just claim to be a “friend,” right? Once you do that, LinkedIn won’t ask any more questions, and the invitation will be sent.

The thing is, many people (myself included) are taken aback by an unsubstantiated “friend” claim. Worse yet, it leaves the impression you were too lazy to do some legwork. The least you should do is find out the person’s e-mail address and use it when you choose the option “Other.”

The option “Groups” can work well. If you don’t already share a group, join a group the other person is part of. Specifying a shared group can immediately establish common ground.

3. Invitations should generally be personalized.

Allow the person to see what makes you want to connect with them specifically. If you don’t include a personal message and your LinkedIn profile doesn’t make it obvious enough why you should connect, then you may look like a “connections mill” who really just cares to make it past the magical 500+ connections quickly.

Unless the person is someone you are already pretty close to, with regular interaction, you should add a personal message. It doesn’t have to be long—in fact, it can’t be: there is a 300-character limit to that message. That’s two Tweets and some change. Give the person that two Tweets’ worth of your time. They will appreciate it.

If you haven’t met (in person or online), point out what you have in common (especially any shared connections). If you have met once, reference the occasion: e.g., “It was great to meet you at the Chamber of Commerce event last night/on the webinar yesterday.” Not only will that refresh the person’s mind quickly, it will show them you saw value in the encounter (meaning, in the person).

4. Don’t approach the person in real life about why they haven’t accepted.

Give the other person an out. Maybe your boss is the other person’s ex-boss, and they don’t see eye to eye. Maybe there is a perceived conflict of interest in the picture. There really could be the most miscellaneous reasons the other person wouldn’t connect with you.

In any case, pushing the other person in real life about connecting on LinkedIn is poor style and will effectively lower the chances of your invitation being accepted. Leaving it alone, on the other hand, can work in your favor: in one instance, I had a person accept my invitation after…wait for it…seven months!