100 Good Skills to Put on a Resume [Complete Guide]

Jeff Gillis 0 Comments

resume help skills and abilities

By Jeff Gillis

Updated 6/4/2022.

resume help skills and abilities

When you’re adding skills to a resume, you don’t just want to focus on what you’re good at. Instead, relevancy has to be part of the equation. After all, every job you’re trying to land requires a very specific skill set, one that you need to show that you have.

Choosing the skills to put on a resume when you’re applying to a role isn’t something you should do haphazardly. Instead, you want to use the job description, company mission, and company values as a guide, creating a sense of alignment.

Additionally, it never hurts to have a handy list of skills by your side, making it easier to explore your options. So, if you’re on the hunt for good skills to put on a resume, here’s what you need to know.

Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills

There are two basic types of skillsets that a job seeker can have and include on their resume: hard skills or soft skills.

Hard skills are the skills or abilities for a resume that are easily quantifiable…that can be learned through classroom work, apprenticeships, or other forms of learning. These include things like operating tools, computer programming, speaking foreign languages, or different kinds of technical prowess.

Soft skills are more subjective and harder to quantify and are often grouped together by what we know as “people skills.” Some examples of soft skills include communication, relationship building, self-awareness, and patience.

Which Skills Are More Important?

The debate rages on about which of these two types of skills is more important.

According to executive consultant and Forbes contributor Naz Beheshti , “…There is an ongoing debate about the relative importance of soft and hard skills that imply a competition between the two. However, they are both necessary and complementary to one another.”

On the one hand, job seekers with proficiency in a specific hard skill may get hired more quickly. Many employers want to hire people that can deliver value with fewer resources (ex., the need for training, etc.), making hard skills their priority.

However, we are also seeing that many hiring managers are choosing to hire candidates with highly developed soft skills.

In the end, as Indeed puts it, “soft skills are necessary to create a positive and functional work environment.” Plus, hiring managers feel that they can always train the candidate in the hard skill that is required to complete the job, but soft skills are often skills that cannot necessarily be taught.

So, what does this mean for you? Mainly that you can’t simply just pick one or the other and cross your fingers. Instead, the best strategy is to take a balanced approach and make sure that your resume contains both hard and soft skills.

How Do You Choose the Skills to List on a Resume?

Here’s the deal; there’s a good chance you know what you’re good at in a professional sense. Often, you can use your experience, duties, training, and education as a guide, giving you a strong foundation. Then, it’s about diving a bit deeper, looking at traits that could help you stand out, and comparing it all to the job description.

By using a simple process, you can make progress faster. Here’s a quick way to get started.

1. Make a List of the Skills You Know You Have

As mentioned above, the easiest way to get a grip on your current skills is to reflect on your academic and professional experiences. Consider the tasks you’ve taken on, the training you’ve completed, and the courses you had in school. In most cases, that’ll give you some solid ideas about your hard skills.

After that, it’s time for soft skills. Here, you want to think of traits or capabilities that help you engage with others and navigate professional relationships. Often, these are reflections of your personality, so use that as a jumping-off point.

2. “Mine” the Job Descriptions for Must-Have Skills

The next step is to take a look at the job description for the position you are applying for and make a list of the required skills it includes. Then, compare it to your capabilities. Are any of the skills on both of the lists you just created? If so, these are must-haves for your resume.

Now, notice if there are any skills on the job description that you don’t have. If there aren’t any, great!

But if there are…don’t panic. There are things you can do, which we’ll dig into shortly.

If you’re dealing with a vague job description, you aren’t stuck either. Here is a link to a ton of job descriptions that can give you an idea of the skills needed.

3. Tailor Your Skills to the Company/Position

As you may have read in our other blog articles, it is always very important to “tailor” your resume to the company and position you want to land. For an in-depth look into how to make that happen, check out our Tailoring Method article. 

If you want a quick overview, the idea is to focus on capabilities the company wants to find. Every job requires a unique skill set, and you want to show you have it. As a result, it is absolutely essential that skills from the job description make an appearance on your resume.

However, you also want to dig deeper. Spend some more time researching the company, including going through all of their various web properties, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube pages.

Why? Because they will leave clues about the types of people they hire. That gives you more ideas about the best skills to put on a resume to land a job there, particularly when it comes to soft skills you may not find in a job description.

100 Resume Skills Examples

If you’re struggling with coming up with a list of skills based on your past experience, it can be easier if you have existing resume skills lists to work with. You don’t have to think up every possible skill; you can simply review the list and find the matches.

Here is a list of resume skills examples, divided into hard skills and soft skills, that you can use when applying for a job.

Hard Skills for a Resume

  • Advanced Bookkeeping
  • Appointment Setting
  • Automotive Repair
  • Cold Calling
  • Computer Programming
  • Conversion Testing
  • Copywriting
  • Customer Engagement
  • Customer Service
  • Data Analysis
  • Digital Marketing
  • Electrical Engineering
  • Environmental Cleanup
  • Forklift Operating
  • Graphic Design
  • Heavy Machinery Operation
  • Installation
  • Landscaping
  • Mathematics
  • Medical Coding
  • Paid Online Traffic
  • Patient Care
  • Photo Editing
  • Picking and Packing
  • Project Management
  • Schedule Management
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Server Maintenance
  • Social Media
  • Spanish Fluency
  • Statistical Analysis
  • Systems Analysis
  • Technical Support
  • Telecommunications Systems
  • Travel Booking
  • Video Editing
  • Website Design
  • Word Processing

Soft Skills for a Resume

  • Accountability
  • Active Listening
  • Adaptability
  • Brainstorming
  • Business Etiquette
  • Collaboration
  • Communication
  • Conflict Resolution
  • Contextualizing
  • Critical Thinking
  • Decision Making
  • Emotional Intelligence
  • Flexibility
  • Goal-Setting
  • Handling Pressure
  • Influencing
  • Insightfulness
  • Interpreting
  • Negotiation
  • Open-Mindedness
  • Organization
  • Prioritization
  • Problem Solving
  • Relationship Building
  • Reliability
  • Resource Management
  • Responsibility
  • Self-Confidence
  • Strategical Thinking
  • Strong Work Ethic
  • Time Management

What If I Don’t Have the Required Skill?

Whether you need to possess a specific skill depends on the job and the skill in question. Usually, here’s where you have to be honest with yourself. If the skills required are part of the core competencies of doing the job, you may want to reconsider your application.

For example, if a golf course posts a job posting for a golf pro, you probably shouldn’t apply if you’ve never swung a golf club.

However, you will come across situations where what you bring to the table is close. In this case, moving forward might be okay.

You need to be able to demonstrate, using examples from your past, that you are capable of doing the required skill, even if you haven’t specially done it. So, go over your work history with a fine-tooth comb and try to come up with a few examples of you doing something in the right ballpark.

They are going to ask about it in your interview, so don’t think you can just wing it, and everything will be fine.

Also, many job descriptions have “nice-to-have” skills on the list. If you happen to possess them, great. But if not, don’t assume you shouldn’t apply if you have the must-have skills. In the end, those capabilities aren’t outright requirements, so don’t screen yourself out based on them.

How To List Skills on a Resume

There are a few different schools of thought when it comes to deciding where to put (or how to list) the skills on your resume.

According to our friends over at online resume-builder Zety.com , “…skills are so very, very important that they should show up all over your resume. Not just in the resume skills section.” In other words, it is imperative that there are elements of your skills throughout your resume, including your resume objective/summary and experience sections.

In addition, there isn’t one right answer for where to include your skill section because that depends on the industry, company, and position you’re trying to land. For example, for a job where technical competencies are of the utmost importance, it is often beneficial to list the skills closer to the top of the resume, right underneath the resume objective or resume summary statement.

However, if through your research you determine that the hiring manager will put more weight into your experience, you may want to lead with your experience. Then, put the skills section further down your resume.

At the end of the day, the selection of the skills themselves is the most important thing. After all, most hiring managers will easily find your skill section regardless of where it is on your resume.

What About Skills for My Job Application?

When you’re looking for skills to put on a job application, you do have to treat it a little differently than skills for a resume. Usually, you’re working with a finite amount of space on an application, not just in an overall sense but in each applicable section.

Since that’s the case, you need to lean heavily on the job description. Look for any capabilities that are listed as must-haves or that are repeated through the job ad. Then, make sure those skills are featured prominently in several areas, including in work history descriptions and skills areas.

If you have to answer essay questions, discuss those skills there, too, whenever possible. Use any other relevant capability as a supplement, treating it as supporting information instead of the primary point you’re sharing.

However, if an essay question asks about a skill that’s not in the job description, feel free to dig in a bit. It’s a capability that’s clearly on the hiring manager’s mind, so touch on it occasionally to show you shine in that area.

Putting It All Together

If you were wondering, “What are some good skills to put on a resume?” you should now have a solid answer. The most important thing to remember is to select skills that are relevant to the position you are interviewing for and, more important than that, skills that your company puts a tremendous amount of value in.

Once you get your skills straightened out, you should make sure that the rest of your resume is congruent with the skills you just selected, namely, that your experience shows that you both used those skills in a work environment and developed the skill with on-the-job tasks.

resume help skills and abilities

Co-founder and CTO of TheInterviewGuys.com. Jeff is a featured contributor delivering advice on job search, job interviews and career advancement, having published more than 50 pieces of unique content on the site , with his work being featured in top publications such as INC , ZDnet , MSN and more.

Learn more about The Interview Guys on our About Us page .

About The Author

Jeff gillis.

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Co-founder and CTO of TheInterviewGuys.com. Jeff is a featured contributor delivering advice on job search, job interviews and career advancement, having published more than 50 pieces of unique content on the site , with his work being featured in top publications such as INC , ZDnet , MSN and more. Learn more about The Interview Guys on our About Us page .

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resume help skills and abilities

How to List Skills on a Resume (Real Skill Examples)

This essential resume writing article is about how to list skills on a resume. For more resume writing help, visit our job seeker resource center .

EdgeWater Pharmacy just posted an opening for a Sales Associate right down the street from your home. You think you are the perfect fit for the job, so you submit your resume, but so do 30 other candidates.

Do you know who is going to get called in for an interview? 

The job seeker who looks like they have the most relevant skills for the job.

Make sure you’re getting the callback for an interview from a hiring manager by reading how to list your skills on a resume.

This essential job seekers’ guide will walk you through how to add the skills a hiring manager wants to see on your resume, along with 50+ real resume examples of skills you can use.

This article on how to include key skills on a resume covers:

  • What are professional skills?
  • Why are skills important on resumes?
  • Different types of skills for job seekers
  • Where and how to incorporate skills on a job application
  • Top 50+ skills hiring managers want to see on your resume
  • Fastest ways to gain new skills to get hired

What Are Skills? Why Are Skills Important?

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a skill is:

“the ability to use one’s knowledge effectively and readily in execution or performance”

“a learned power of doing something competently : a developed aptitude or ability”

When it comes to job hunting, your skills are what set you apart. Every human on earth has a set of skills that is unique to them. Likewise, every professional position has a unique set of skills that is required for performing the job.

Finding the perfect alignment between these two ideas is the key goal for every hiring manager.

If a hiring manager finds someone that already possesses the skills needed for their job, they won’t have to spend so much time and money on training. It also means that their new employee will be able to pull their own weight more quickly, providing a quicker return on their hiring investment.

But how do hiring managers know who has what it takes to perform well on the job?

The first and most important place hiring managers look is at your resume. On average, a hiring manager spends 6 seconds reviewing a resume and during that time they are scanning the pages to see if the skills required for the job jump out at them.

If they find what they are looking for, you get called in for an interview. If they don’t quickly see what they are looking for, your resume will most likely be discarded.

As a job seeker, it is your responsibility to make sure you know what skills hiring managers are looking for.

Once you identify those skills, it is also your responsibility to make sure those relevant skills are incorporated into your resume in a way that stands out.

If you do these two things accurately, you will be the one getting called in for an interview and will be that much closer to landing a new job.

Types of Professional Skills (Real Resume Examples)

Skills can be broken down into four main categories:

  • Hard skills
  • Soft skills
  • Transferable skills
  • Job-related skills.

Before you start writing your own list of skills, let’s go through each of these skill categories to see what the difference between them is.

Hard Skills vs Soft Skills

Hard skills are specific, teachable, and tangible. They can be measured and tested using assignments and assessments. Hard skills are learned, either through on-the-job training or through school, rather than coming naturally.

Examples of hard skills for a resume:

Soft skills are intangible and are harder to measure. They are personality traits and interpersonal skills that come naturally to humans, rather than being learned through school.

People are born with soft skills. These soft skills grow and develop over time from your upbringing, education, and experiences.   

Examples of soft skills:

Contrary to popular belief, hiring managers often care more about soft skills than hard skills, though both hard and soft skills contribute to your appeal as a candidate.

Hard skills, such as computer programming or accounting, can be taught using a combination of curriculum and hands-on practice. Whereas soft skills, such as a positive attitude or punctuality, are harder to teach.

Regardless of your background, hiring managers are usually flexible with teaching you the hard skills needed for their job, as long as you already have the right attitude along with the aptitude to learn.

Transferable Skills vs Job-Related Skills

Transferable skills can be carried with you from one job to the other. These skills can be a hard skill or soft skill, as long as they can be used in any type of role, regardless of the industry, company, or position.

Examples of transferable skills:

Job-related skills are usually always hard skills.  These job-related skills are specific to a certain type of role or position.

Examples of job-related skills:

How And Where To List Skills On Your Resume

Skills should be included throughout your resume, rather than confined to one area.

While scanning your resume, hiring managers will be looking over each resume section, starting with the top. Because of how people read resumes, you need to make sure they see your skills immediately.

Guarantee hiring managers will see your skills by listing them in four key areas of your resume:

  • Resume header
  • Professional summary
  • Summary of skills
  • Work Experience section

If you are writing a resume from scratch, try using this free and easy-to-use resume builder from Resume.com. The sections and formatting are already created for you, so all you need to worry about is filling in the blanks to finish a free printable resume.

1. Resume Header

At the top of your resume, directly below your name, write your job title along with the three most relevant skills you have as a candidate.

This is the first section hiring managers will be reading, so it is important to draw their attention using bold and large lettering.

If you’re using this resume builder , the ‘ Blue Skies ’, ‘ Three Blocks Digital ’, and ‘ van Deco ’ resume templates already have a header section included, which will make finishing your resume easier.

When writing your header, it is crucial that you customize the job title and skills to each job you’re applying for. Your job application needs to be consistent – you can read more about consistency in this article .

For example, if you write Java Developer in your resume header, but are applying for a .NET Developer position, a huge red flag will go up for the hiring manager.

When writing your top three skills in your header, make sure they align with the required skills listed in the job posting.

If you’re applying for a job at a large company or corporation, or you’re applying through a job board, it’s helpful to keep applicant tracking systems (ATS) in mind. Make sure your resume makes it past ATS software by listing your skills using the same wording as the job posting.  

Example of skills in the resume header: 

skills in resume header example

2. Professional Summary

Below your header and contact information, you will have a professional summary section. A professional summary used to be called an ‘objective’, but the modern resume writing approach is to replace your objective with a professional summary section.

Your professional summary should give an overview of your background, years of experience, and the top skills that set you apart. The skills in your professional summary should be written in sentence form, rather than listed out.

If using the resume builder , the ‘ My Employment ’, ‘ Apple Green ’, and ‘ Side Panel ’ resume templates have professional summary sections that are sure to draw attention to your most relevant skills.

Example of skills in the professional summary of a resume:

resume example of skills in professional summary

3. Summary of Skills

Below your professional summary, include a ‘summary of skills’ section. Alternative titles for this section could be ‘core competencies’, ‘key skills’, ‘professional skills’, or ‘relevant skills’.

If you have less than 10 skills, you can list them out in columns. 

Summary of skills resume example (less than 10 professional skills) :

resume example of skills in summary of skills

Summary of skills resume example (more than 10 professional skills) :

professional skills resume example

For your skills section, your skills should be listed, rather than written out in sentence form. This formatting choice helps hiring managers to pick out the key words quickly, which they can read about in more detail in the experience section after.

4. Experience Section

The ‘experience’ section usually comes after your summary of skills on a resume. Depending on your background, this could also be called ‘professional experience’, ‘work experience’, or ‘relevant experience’.

Your experience section is the perfect place to back your skills up with real-life examples of when you have used your skills, in addition to the results you have achieved.

When writing your experience section, give specific details about where, when, and with whom you have used your skills. When possible, use numbers and metrics to quantify your achievements.

Example of how to list skills in the experience section of a resume:

how to list skills in work experience resume example

How to List Skills On A Resume – Finding Relevant Skills For You

To figure out what skills you should include on your resume, follow these three simple steps.

Step #1: Create a master list of skills

Go through each category and create a master list of the skills in your toolbox. Don’t be afraid to list things that seem obvious, like computer skills or customer service.

Although they might seem like a given in your profession, many hiring managers still want to see these skills listed.

Never include skills that you are no longer familiar with. If you write a skill on your resume, hiring managers will be expecting that you can deliver on that activity.

If you are worried that a hiring manager will over or underestimate your level of proficiency, feel free to write ‘beginner’, ‘intermediate’, or ‘proficient’ next to each skill listed.

Step #2: Figure out the skills needed for the job

When applying for jobs, it is important to identify the set of skills that are needed. Picking out the needed skills will help you determine if you are a good fit for the role. It will also help you tailor your resume skills to the specific job you are applying for.

There are two main ways to determine the skills needed for a job.

The first is to dissect job descriptions and job postings that are posted on career websites and job boards. To do this, go through a job description and highlight each quality that describes the candidate the company is looking for.

For example, here is a job posting for a cashier position: 

how to find relevant skills in job posting for resume

Then create a list of all the qualities described, making sure to write each skill using the same wording that is used in the job posting.

The second way to figure out what skills are needed for a job is to search for people on LinkedIn who are already performing the role.

By searching for a certain job title in the search bar, you can find a list of professionals who are already in that job and then search through their profile to see what skills they have listed, both in their summary and experience sections.

Step #3: Match your master list with the skills needed for a job

The skills you write on your resume should be whatever overlaps between your master list and the list of skills you created from researching jobs.

By using this technique, you will be making sure that the skills you have listed on your resume are relevant to the jobs you are applying for.

A general rule of thumb is to never include skills that aren’t important for the job you are applying for.

For example, if you are applying for a project manager position, there is no need to list that you know yoga or CPR.

Top 50+ Skills Hiring Managers Look For On Resumes

A lot of research has been done as to what hiring managers look for on a resume. Many of the skills they seek are job-specific, while others are transferable.

To increase your chances of getting called in for an interview, include these top skills throughout your resume.

These professional skills are divided by category to help you find the skills that are relevant to you.

Soft Skills

Basic computer skills, customer service, project management, art & design, human resources, fastest ways to obtain new skills.

Are you looking for your first job? Are you missing some of the required skills on a job posting? If so, don’t worry. There are a range of ways for you to obtain the needed skills quickly.

If you are in need of a hard skill, this task is much easier. Hard skills are learned, so you can typically find an online resource, school, or curriculum to pick up the needed skills.

If you don’t have enough time to attend class in person, there are a number of online learning platforms with courses that you can take online, in your spare time. Some examples of popular eLearning platforms include Lynda, Udemy, and Skillshare.

Learning soft skills are a little trickier. These interpersonal and personality traits are hardwired into humans, so the only way to get better at them is to practice, practice, practice.

If you can’t practice soft skills while on a job, try to find some day-to-day activities that you can practice these skills during.

For example, if you need to work on punctuality, set a goal to arrive 5 minutes early wherever you need to be, no matter if it is for class or for coffee. Or if you need to work on your professionalism, pick up a volunteer job based in a professional, office setting.

More Skill-Related Articles For Resume Writing:

  • How To List Hard Skills On A Resume (50+ Technical Skill Examples)
  • How to List Computer Skills on a Resume (50+ Computer Skill Examples)

101 Essential Skills to Put on a Resume in 2024 [For Most Jobs]

Background Image

Listing skills on your resume is fairly easy. 

Listing the right skills in the right way is a little bit trickier.  

Are you mentioning the right skills for the job, or are you boring the HR manager with irrelevant information? 

The hiring manager for the software development team couldn’t care less about your expertise in marketing. What they’re dying to know, though, is your skill level in Python and how you get along with the team.

In this guide, we’re going to walk you through the process of putting skills on your resume from start to finish. We’ll explain how to identify the right skills and how to list them in a way that catches the hiring manager’s attention!

Here’s what you’re going to learn:

Hard Skills Vs Soft Skills - What’s the Difference?

  • Why Should You List Your Skills on a Resume? 
  • 8 Best Skills to Put on a Resume 
  • How to List Skills on a Resume 
  • 120+ Skills to Put on Your Resume (For 10+ Fields)

New to resume-making? Give our resumes 101 video a watch before diving into the article!

Skills are divided into hard skills and soft skills .

To create an effective job application, catch the hiring manager’s attention, and land your next job, you should mention both hard and soft skills in your resume.

But what exactly is the difference?

Hard skills involve the technical knowledge or know-how one can gain through experience, training, or education. For example: 

  • Machinery skills. E.g., operating a road roller, pallet-stalker, forklift, etc.
  • Software skills. Depending on the field, you need to know how to use different software, such as the Adobe Creative Suite for graphic designers or the Ableton Live Suite if you’re a DJ.
  • Tools. Say you’re a digital marketer . You’ll need to know how to use tools like Stethoscope, Google Search Console, Google Analytics, Ahrefs, and the sorts.
  • Multilingualism. The more customers you can communicate with, the more valuable you are as an employee. Some sought-after languages today include German, Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic.
  • Computer skills . If you’re a web developer, your hard skills will likely include coding languages such as Python, C++, etc. Even if you’re not though, most jobs will require that you have at least some basic computer knowledge in MS Office and G-Suite, emailing and presentations, etc.
  • Techniques. E.g. frequency analysis, Crystallization.
  • Mathematics. Many professions, such as accounting and finance, require mathematical skills.
  • Data analysis. Businesses are always looking for professionals who can gather and analyze data for various stakeholders, which makes data analysis a very in-demand hard skill.

…and just about any field-specific skill. While hard skills are essential to complete tasks in about any job, they’re also teachable and easily measurable.

hard skills

Soft skills , on the other hand, are attributes and habits that describe how you work individually or with others. They are typically not job-specific but rather transferable skills that indirectly help you adapt to the work environment and company culture. 

Some examples of the most in-demand soft skills include: 

  • Communication
  • Problem-solving
  • Organization
  • Adaptability

Like hard skills, you can also learn how to develop soft skills, although it’s significantly harder. 

While you can acquire computer skills through a technical course, you’ll need to work much harder to develop, say, your communication skills. 

In the workplace, for example, you’d need to practice active listening , learn how to notice nonverbal cues, and practice your oral communication skills as much as possible.

best soft skills

What’s the Difference Between Hard Skills and Soft Skills

Here are the two main differences between hard skills and soft skills: 

  • How you obtain them. You can obtain hard skills through work experience , education, training, and certification. Soft skills, on the other hand, can be gained through life experience, both on and off work.
  • How you use them. You apply hard skills directly to the job, whereas soft skills come into play indirectly and may often complement your hard skills. For example, you may be a communicative marketer or an office manager with great leadership qualities.

Why Should You List Skills on Your Resume?

The skills section is one of the 3 most important resume sections , with the other two being work experience and education sections. 

If written correctly, the skills section looks something like this:

skills section in a resume

By now, you’re probably thinking “ how hard can this be, right? All I have to do is list all my skills and call it a day! ”

Well, not exactly. The process of putting skills on your resume is a bit more nuanced than that, and we’re going to tell you why.

Most companies nowadays use Applicant Tracking Systems to help them go through the hundreds and thousands of resumes they receive every day.

ats skills in a resume

This software scans your resume for keywords relevant to the job you’re applying for, and if it doesn’t find them, the software automatically rejects the resume.

Say, for example, the job you’re applying to requires an Expert level in Java. If you haven’t mentioned Java as a skill on your resume, your resume can automatically get discarded.

In fact, 70%+ of resumes are rejected at this stage, never having even been seen by an HR professional. 

And, even if the company doesn’t use an ATS, there’s a good chance that the HR manager is going to skim through your resume looking for the right skill set.

So, whether you’re doing this for the ATS or the HR, it’s important to mention the right skills .

Below, we’re going to explain just how to do this in the best way possible. 

But first, let’s cover some of the best skills to mention in any resume, regardless of your profession. 

8 Best Skills to Put on a Resume

Every profession requires some role-specific hard skills if you want to do it properly. An accountant, for example, needs to know math to do their job right, just like a photographer needs to know how to use photo editing software like Photoshop. 

In most cases, it’s easy to identify such skills and understand whether you’re qualified enough for the job. 

The right soft skills for a job may be harder to point out, but they’re just as essential in today’s job market - 93% of employers say “ soft skills play a critical role in their decision about whom they want to hire. ” 

To give you an example, if you’re a project manager, you will need to have excellent organizational skills in addition to your project management skills. Or, if you’re a developer, you need to also be an apt problem solver. 

You can find lists of field-related, relevant soft and hard skills later in the article, but for now, here are the top soft and hard skills valued by hiring managers in most professions : 

#1. Communication skills

There are very few, if any, jobs out there that don’t require at least some level of communication skills.

Whether you’re a writer who needs to communicate a message to your readers, a marketing specialist who needs to communicate an advertising campaign to your client, or an office worker who must communicate with a colleague to complete a task, communication skills are vital. 

Communication is a multi-faceted skill that includes several skills, such as: 

  • Oral and written communication
  • Non-verbal communication
  • Active Listening
  • Presentation
  • Public-speaking
  • Negotiation

#2. Computer skills

By 2016, over 70% of US jobs required medium-to-high-level digital skills.  

This means that computer and technical skills are priceless assets even if your job isn’t centered around technology. As such, computer skills are almost always a great addition to any resume.

Here are some valuable computer skills for every professional: 

  • Office suites (MS Office, iWork)
  • Social media
  • Database management
  • Web (Internet savviness, basic HTML, CMS)
  • Troubleshooting
  • Equipment installation and configuration
  • Fast Typing

career masterclass

#3. Management skills

Management skills are usually associated with management positions, but in reality, that’s not usually the case. Any type of professional can benefit from strong management skills. 

In a nutshell, management skills involve being able to effectively handle people, resources, and processes, including your time, plans, projects, and so on.

Here are some of the most in-demand management skills: 

  • People management
  • Project management
  • Time management
  • Risk management
  • Action planning
  • Conflict Resolution

#4. Problem-solving skills

Problem-solving means you’re able to identify problems successfully, find the root cause behind them, and come up with creative solutions.

Considering there isn’t a single job where you won’t face problems in one way or another, problem-solving skills are a great asset to have. When it comes to managerial, professional, and technical positions , problem-solving skills are essential. 

Problem-solving is a set of skills that includes: 

  • Research skills
  • Analytical skills
  • Critical thinking
  • Decision-making skills
  • Attention to detail

#5. Organizational skills

Organizational skills are a set of soft skills that help you keep track of information, materials, and even your time in such a way that you can tackle short and long-term tasks efficiently.

Organizational skills are among the top skills recruiters are looking for in 2022, primarily because they help employees be more productive, save companies time and money, and facilitate a more positive work environment. 

Here is what organizational skills consist of: 

  • Physical organization
  • Prioritization
  • Goal setting

#6. Leadership skills 

Leadership includes both the ability to manage and inspire others. Managers are not always great leaders, but leaders almost always make good managers. 

People who’re good at leading are emotionally intelligent, good communicators, and natural-born influencers. They can motivate others to reach their full potential and work together towards common goals. This makes leadership another great skill to have for many professions out there. 

Some important soft skills related to leadership include: 

  • Relationship-building
  • Strategic thinking

#7. Customer service skills

A big part of jobs out there involve dealing with customers. 

From customer support representatives to cashiers, customer service skills are a great asset to have in 2024. Particularly, that’s because it encompasses a number of other valuable skills, such as:

  • Persuasion skills
  • Product knowledge

#8. Interpersonal skills 

Interpersonal skills refer to how well you can understand and get along with other people. 

It goes without saying that they’re extremely useful for team-oriented or customer-facing roles, as a big chunk of the work involves communicating with other people.

Such skills, however, are also useful for roles where you don’t get to interact as much with people.

Take, for example, writers. To be a really good writer, you need to be able to:

  • Understand and communicate with your audience
  • Collaborate with your publishing team
  • Understand what people are like

Just like most other transferable skills on our list, interpersonal skills are multi-faceted. Here is what they consist of: 

How to List Skills on a Resume (And Stand Out)

Now that you have a clear understanding of how important skills are - and how some are more relevant than others - let’s talk about how you should list them on your resume. 

There are several things you need to do to stand out: 

#1. Tailor Your Skills to the Job

Relevance is key; the customer service skills you acquired working as a server during college won’t come in too handy when you start work as, say, a data analyst . 

So, the first thing you should remember is to only list skills that are useful for the job you are applying for . To find out what these skills are, you should scan the job listing.

Job ads usually list a set of requirements or skills they expect a good candidate to have. Make sure you don’t leave any of those out on your resume.

For example, imagine you are applying for a line cook position in a restaurant:

  • “Here at ‘ABCD’ we are committed to creating a one-of-a-kind experience for our guests . Our French restaurant is looking for a professional line cook for the summer season to work directly under the supervision of our chef. Responsibilities include prepping and cleaning food, creating and cooking meals, and cleaning up the working area . Impeccable attention to detail in food cooking and presentation is needed.”

The underlined bits in this job description are the role’s responsibilities. By paying a closer look, you can understand that ABCD is looking for someone who:

  • Is committed to excellence and is highly professional
  • Works well under supervision, and with others
  • Can prep, clean, and cook food
  • Pays great attention to detail in cooking and presentation

Based on this, some of the skills you should definitely mention in your resume can include teamwork, attention to detail, communication, food prepping, and culinary skills. 

As a given, you wouldn’t mention anything that isn’t directly related to the job. As a line cook, you’re not going to be using a lot of tech, so you wouldn’t include your computer skills in your resume (even though such skills are relevant for a ton of other jobs).

#2. Create a Skills Section

Once you’ve identified all the right skills to add to your resume, create a “Skills” section to list them under. This way, the hiring manager will be able to check whether you have the right skills more easily and the ATS software won’t disqualify your resume. 

skills section in a resume template

Here’s what you should remember while making this section:

  • Be specific. “Verbal and written communication” sounds significantly better than “communication.” 
  • Sort your skills by relevance. Order your skills based on how critical they are for the role. More important skills go on top, and the nice-to-have ones go on the bottom.
  • Don’t lie or exaggerate. It goes without saying that you should never, ever, lie about your skills. The employer will know you lied the moment you have to work on a task that requires that very skill.

#3. Match Each Skill With Your Proficiency Level

For each skill that you list on your resume, use the competencies proficiency scale to show your proficiency level:

  • Beginner. You are just starting to learn or have not practiced the skill through experience (usually fresh graduates that only understand concepts through theories or classroom experience).
  • Intermediate. You have applied the skill in practice, and require assistance with it on rare or special occasions. You still have room to grow.
  • Advanced. You know your stuff! You don’t need help with the skill anymore. You can also teach beginners how to use it.
  • Expert. You are a recognized authority on this skill, the go-to person if anyone has any questions. You have consistently proved to be excellent in this skill. You could even write a whole book about it!

#4. Back-Up Your Skills in Other Resume Sections

Listing your skills in a separate section will only get you so far. After all, everyone else is also doing exactly the same thing. 

To take your resume from good to great, you want your most critical skills to “pop” from the get-go and to prove to the hiring manager that you actually possess them.

Here is where the resume summary and work experience sections come in. 

The resume summary is a short, 2-3 sentence-long summary of your resume that, done right, shows hiring managers your strongest points as a candidate the moment they lay eyes on your resume. 

skills in the resume summary

Positioned right under your contact information section , this is the first place where you can mention that you possess one or two of the most role-critical skills listed in the job description. 

Here’s how the resume summary of the line cook example we mentioned above would look in practice: 

  • Detail-oriented line cook with over 5 years of experience prepping and cooking over 200 Mediterranean cuisine recipes. Collaborative professional who puts the needs of the team first. In my last position, was able to help the chef handle rush hour work of over 100 tables with 100% accuracy and approval rate from our customers. 

Once you’ve grabbed the hiring manager’s attention by including your top skills on your resume summary, it’s time to prove that you have them . 

The best way to do that? List some accomplishments in your work experience section and explain how utilizing a particular skill helped you achieve them. 

Here’s how that would look like in practice: 

  • Prepped and helped cook food for over 500 customers in the past two years, receiving high praise and positive recommendations for the restaurant continuously. 
  • Helped restaurant to receive positive reviews for 3 years in a row from Gastronomica magazine for attention to detail and food aesthetics and presentation.

#5. Put Transferable Skills to Use 

If you’re an entry-level candidate or if you’re switching careers , you should definitely put transferable skills to use. Transferable skills are not directly related to the job you are applying to but are still useful, as well as relevant to most jobs. 

Let’s say, for example, that you’re going for a career change from sales to copywriting. You can benefit from listing at least some of the skills acquired in sales in your copywriter resume , such as: 

  • Written communication. Both roles involve communication via text. A salesperson needs to send cold emails, while a copywriter has to write newsletter emails.
  • Persuasion. A copywriter needs to create copy that drives sales, while a salesperson needs to be persuasive in person.
  • Computer skills. Both jobs require some degree of computer knowledge. For a salesperson, that’s using Customer Management Software, while for a copywriter, that’s publishing content online.

150+ Must-Have Skills (for Every Field)

Are you still not sure which skills to mention in your resume? We’ve got you covered.

We compiled a list of some of the most relevant skills on the market in 2024, for all sorts of different fields!

If you happen to possess some of these skills, make sure to mention them in your resume. If not, it’s never too late to learn something new!

#1. Soft Skills 

Soft skills are essential for just about any job out there. While they’re not necessarily critical to doing your job well, they ensure that you get along with your coworkers and foster a positive work environment.

When evaluating two candidates with equal hard skills, the hiring manager is always going to pick the one that has better soft skills.

So, it’s very important to mention your soft skills in your resume.

Here are some of the most in-demand soft skills today:

  • Effective communication
  • Emotional intelligence
  • Conflict management
  • Teamwork skills
  • Stress management
  • Productivity & Organization

#2. Marketing Skills

With new technologies developing faster than ever, it becomes essential to move beyond the basics of traditional marketing. Here are some of the most relevant marketing skills these days, including both cutting-edge online tools, as well as classic marketing skills:

  • Data analysis
  • Web analytics 
  • Email marketing
  • Web scraping
  • CRO and A/B Testing
  • Data visualization & pattern-finding through critical thinking
  • Search Engine and Keyword Optimization
  • Project/campaign management
  • Social media and mobile marketing 
  • Paid social media advertisements
  • B2B Marketing
  • The 4 P-s of Marketing
  • Consumer Behavior Drivers
  • Brand management
  • Copywriting
  • Storytelling

#3. Management Skills

As a manager , you need to have the right mix of soft and hard skills.

Below are the management skills needed to not only get the job but to also enhance employee and company productivity in the long run.

  • Six Sigma techniques
  • The McKinsey 7s Framework
  • Porter’s Five Forces
  • Emotional Intelligence
  • Dealing with work-related stress
  • Task delegation
  • Technological savviness
  • Business Development
  • Strategic Management
  • Negotiation 
  • Proposal writing

#4. Sales Skills

The art of selling has stayed the same despite technological advancements. Humans still strive for contact with other humans. Despite channels of communication becoming digital, communication and empathetic skills take priority in the sales industry. 

A comprehensive must-have skill list for salespeople includes:

  • Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
  • Cold-calling
  • Public speaking
  • Lead generation
  • Buyer-Responsive selling
  • Buyer engagement
  • Effective communication and sociability
  • Social media/digital communication

#5. Design Skills

Today, knowing the basics of design does not suffice anymore. To get hired as a designer, you must know how to create killer branded content for the web and for social media channels. 

Some of the most important design skills for your resume are:

  • Adobe Creative Suite: Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop
  • Dreamweaver
  • Infographics
  • Photo Editing 
  • Typography: spacing, line height, layout, choosing fonts
  • Storyboarding
  • Targeting and marketing through visual communications
  • Logo creation
  • Digital printing
  • Integration of visual communication in social media platforms
  • Attention to detail & aesthetics
  • Interactive media design
  • Color sense & theory
  • Active listening

#6. Basic Technical Skills

These are skills that almost everyone working in an office should know. You can put these skills on your resume if you are applying as a secretary, office clerk, or any other type of office employee.

The basic technical office skills include:

  • Microsoft Office Pack: Word, Excel, Access, Publisher, Outlook, Powerpoint
  • Filing and paper management
  • Bookkeeping through Excel or TurboTax
  • Research and data analysis
  • Basic knowledge of user interface communication
  • Technical writing
  • Cloud networking and file sharing

#7. Accounting & Finance Skills

Goodbye, filing by hand. Hello, countless platforms and apps. Accountants and financial specialists should familiarize themselves with these skills in order to have a successful career:

  • Microsoft Excel (Advanced)
  • Enterprise Resource Planning 
  • Big Data Analysis & SQL
  • Know Your Customers (KYC)
  • Cognos Analytics (IBM)
  • Visual Basic
  • Accounting Software
  • Revenue recognition
  • Anti Money Laundering
  • Clear communication
  • General business knowledge
  • Numerical competence

#8. Education Skills

How many times have you witnessed a 50-year-old honorary doctor with three PhDs struggle to play a YouTube video during undergrad or grad school? Teaching methods have evolved, and so have the required skills to be part of the education industry.

Some of the most essential educational skills are:

  • Updated curriculum knowledge
  • Research & Data analysis
  • Educational platforms (software like Elearn)
  • Technological & digital literacy

#9. Web Development Skills

It seems like there’s new technology popping up every other second now, a good enough reason for web developers to keep updating their skills. 

That said, if you are proficient in HTML, CSS, and Java, you pretty much have a leg up on the competition. All other skills on this list derive from or build upon the three basic programming languages. You can learn or improve your web development skills here.

  • CSS preprocessors
  • Graphic User Interfaces (GUI)
  • Git/Version control (Github, GitLab)
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Application Programming Interface (API)
  • Adobe Photoshop, InDesign
  • Content Management Systems (CMS)
  • Testing/Debugging
  • Responsive design principles

#10. Business Analytics

BAs are very in demand right now by businesses, and for a good reason! They perform an almost magical task of analyzing past and present data to give future predictions. To perform their magic, they need some analytical spells:

  • SQL (a must) and Hive (optional)
  • Programming language (R, Python, Scala, Matlab)
  • STATA, SPSS, SAS 
  • Data Mapping
  • Entity Relationship Diagrams
  • Big Data tools 
  • Microsoft Visio
  • Agile Business Analysis
  • Machine learning 
  • System Context Diagrams
  • Business Process Modeling
  • Technical and non-technical communication

#11. Nursing & Healthcare Skills

More than any other profession, healthcare professionals need to stay constantly updated with new technologies, medicine, and techniques. The skills nursing requires are countless and specific, but the most basic ones boil down to:

  • Mathematics
  • Patient care and assistance
  • Paperwork/record-keeping abilities
  • Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS)
  • Physical endurance 
  • Infection control
  • Surgery preparation

Bonus Infographic: Skills to Put on a Resume

Skills to Put on a Resume Infographic

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you still have some questions about what skills you should put on your resume (and how)? Check out the answers below:

1. What kind of skills should I include in my resume?

Your resume should include a combination of two types of skills: hard skills and soft skills .

Hard skills involve job-specific skills that are acquired through education, training, or work experience, while soft skills involve personality traits that can be indirectly useful at the workplace and help you adapt to the company culture better.

Depending on your industry, some examples of hard skills you can list on your resume include copywriting, database management, graphic design, multilingualism, public speaking, SEO, etc.

Meanwhile, examples of soft skills are communication, creativity, leadership, teamwork, time management, conflict resolution, etc.  

2. What top skills do employers look for?

The top hard skills recruiters are on the lookout for include blockchain development, SEO, virtual reality development, data analysis, artificial intelligence, business analysis, Java development, affiliate marketing, UX design, machine learning, project management, video production and editing, sales, and business development. 

The top soft skills hiring managers are looking for , on the other hand, are creativity, collaboration, persuasion, adaptability, and emotional intelligence.

3. How can I identify my skills?

Some effective ways to identify your skills before adding them to your resume include:

  • Consider your achievements. Did you ever get recognized for a specific achievement? What skills helped you do it? You are probably still skilled in those areas.   
  • Ask friends and coworkers. Sometimes, it’s easier for others to recognize the strengths that you don't see. Colleagues can definitely be of help but if you’re fresh into the professional world, former professors and classmates can also give you some insight.

4. Where do skills go on a resume?

Skills go under a separate ‘Skills’ section on a resume, typically placed right below, or on the side, of the work experience section.

That said, you can further prove that you possess the skills you list in this section, by weaving the most relevant skills for the job in other resume sections, such as the resume summary and the work experience sections. 

5. How many skills to include in my resume?

The number of skills to add to your resume depends on the job you’re applying for, as well as your level of expertise and work history.

If you’re a seasoned professional with plenty of work-related skills, you should definitely include them in your resume. Also, if the job you’re applying for requires a number of skills you possess, it’s safe to include them all in your resume. 

As a rule of thumb, listing up to ten skills on your resume is typically a safe choice, as long as they don’t make your resume spill over to page 2 .

6. What are the best skills for a candidate with no experience?

Candidates with no experience and few job-specific skills can benefit from adding transferable skills to their resumes. These are skills that can be applied to many jobs across several industries.

Some examples of good skills for a no-experience resume include communication, organization, problem-solving, teamwork, adaptability, work ethic, and computer skills. 

7. What’s the best way to list skills on a resume in 2024?

To really impress with your skills in 2024, don’t just list some random skills under a separate section and call it a day! Instead, make them more credible by:

  • Finding out more about the company culture.
  • Tailoring your skills to the job description.
  • Mentioning the most critical skills on your resume summary or resume objective .
  • Using your achievements to explain exactly how you used your skills to your advantage.

Key Takeaways

Let’s sum up everything we’ve learned about putting skills in your resume:

  • You must have a section in your resume devoted entirely to your skills. This helps you pass through applicant tracking systems and get noticed by the HR manager.
  • The differences between hard skills and soft skills are in the way they are applied (directly vs. indirectly) and the way they are obtained (through education and practice vs. personality traits and experience)
  • On your resume, list only skills that are relevant to the job, scan the job listing for must-have skills and list those (if you have them), pair each skill with a responding proficiency level, back up your skills with other resume sections, and mention transferable and universal skills.

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150 Top Skills for Your Resume + How to List Skills in 2024

Stephen Greet

  • Best General Skills

Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills

  • How to Include Skills on Your Resume
  • Job-Specific Skills
  • Skills FAQs

When it comes to your resume skills, the more specific you can get, the better. That’s why we broke down the  most in-demand job skills by career type .

Still, it can be helpful to start by looking at the skills employers generally might be wanting right now.

We analyzed countless job descriptions across all careers and identified 150 of the most sought-after and widely applicable skills you can put on your resume (like this one) in 2024.

Software Engineer Resume

or download as PDF

Software engineer resume example with 12 years experience

20 Good Skills to Put on a Resume

Young man in front of his laptop reading his resume

While we’re going to give you plenty of job-specific resume skills, there are some that work across just about any field. These can add value for candidates who either lack work history or are creating an  entry-level resume .

  • Data Analysis
  • Problem-solving
  • Collaborative
  • Detail-oriented
  • Written Communication
  • Public Speaking
  • Critical Thinking
  • Multi-tasking
  • Interpersonal Skills
  • Time Management
  • Accountable
  • Results-oriented
  • Project Management
  • Compassionate/ Empathetic

A PC monitor and laptop showing well written resumes.

Before we jump into which skills to put on your resume, we need to get some definitions out of the way:

  • Hard skills  are the tools and software you use to get your job done. Excel and QuickBooks are examples of hard skills.
  • Soft skills  are those that are hard to measure or prove expertise in. “Communication” is a textbook example of a soft skill.

Quickly distinguish between hard and soft skills by asking, “Is there a specific tool or software associated with the skill?” If “yes,” you’re likely dealing with a hard skill. If not, you’re talking about a soft skill.

As we explained earlier, companies often use an ATS to filter out job applicants based on whether they include the right skills on their resumes.

The ATS filters are looking primarily for hard skills; they want to be sure the people they end up hiring know the right tools and software needed to succeed.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you should exclude soft skills from your resume. Why? After the ATS approves your resume, it’s passed on to the human hiring manager. They’ll likely want to see soft skills depending on the kind of industry and role you’re applying to.

Try out this quick guide to determine whether to put soft skills on your resume:

Should I include soft skills on my resume?

If you answer “yes” to any of these questions, you should likely include soft skills on your resume (we’ll detail how in the next section). 

  • Technical roles are those primarily dominated by hard skills (software engineering, data science, accounting, etc.)
  • Just listing soft skills on your resume isn’t as impactful as  showing how you used them to do your job .
  • For example, if you’re in sales or customer service, you need the ability to communicate persuasively with customers!

Examples of hard skills according to industry

  • Predictive Modeling (Finance)
  • eQUEST (Energy)
  • Crop Rotation (Agriculture)
  • eZee Frontdesk (Hospitality)
  • Google Classroom (Education)
  • X-ray Diagnostics (Healthcare)
  • Mailchimp (Marketing)
  • AutoCAD (Engineering)

Examples of soft skills

  • Self-starter
  • Conflict Resolution
  • Attentive to Details

How to List Skills on Your Resume

Young man sitting behind his computer screen happily typing away.

Now that you know whether you should put hard skills, soft skills, or a combination on your resume, how do you actually include them?

  • When it comes to your resume skills, the presentation can matter just as much as the content! 
  • Before we get to structure,  a word of warning :

Don’t list too many skills  in your skills section! While it’s all right to dump all sorts of skills into your  resume outline , it’s a big red flag to the hiring manager if they see a resume where an applicant lists 15+ skills.

First, it might mean the applicant is exaggerating their skillset (a big no-no). Second, a hiring manager would rather hire someone who’s a master of a few skills than a novice in many.

Different  resume formats  may display your skills in various ways, but regardless of the layout you choose,  there are three places you should mention your most important skills : 

  • In your resume objective or resume summary (if you include this section)
  • In a dedicated “skills” section on your resume
  • In your work experience or projects ( show how you used your skills to do your job)

Your resume objective should only be two to three sentences , so you should include your top one to two skills most relevant to the job you’re applying for here. In addition to our objective sample below, we’ve got plenty more great examples of how to mention your best skills in your  resume objective  or  resume summary .

Organized, considerate administrative assistant with a history of remaining cool under high-pressure situations where multiple priorities are managed. Genoa Telepsychiatry is doing invaluable work for underserved housing populations, and I would be an asset in enabling Ms. Garcia to focus on that mission by alleviating her organizational burden.

resume help skills and abilities

How to organize skills on your resume

When it comes to skills for a resume, there are a couple of ways you can structure them:

  • By skill category (technology type, soft skills vs. hard skills)
  • Experience level

These kinds of breakdowns aren’t mandatory. You can just list all of your skills in your skills section, provided you keep the number to under 10.

First,  you can break up your skills by category . This is most appropriate if you’re applying for a technical role since you can group different technologies you use by type.

For example, as a data analyst, you might want to divide your skills by the different facets of your job (programming, modeling, and data visualization).

Data analyst skills be different facets

This breakdown of your skills can also work well if soft skills are your biggest strength. For example, you can chunk your soft skills into categories like leadership, customer service, communication, etc.

Another way to classify your skills on your resume is by your experience level . Convey your expertise either in terms of years of expertise with that skill or by a rating you choose (beginner, intermediate, expert, for instance).

Here’s an example of this skills breakdown in action:

Resume skills organized by proficiency

And again, you can also just list all of your skills without categories like the example below if there are fewer than 10:

Resume skills without categories

Let your work experience vouch for your job skills

Now that you’ve got your top one to two skills in your resume objective and a dedicated skills section, it’s time to talk about how you’ve used your skills in your previous roles and projects.

This is especially important for soft skills.  Put yourself in the shoes of the hiring manager .

Does seeing that someone described themselves as “attentive to detail” in their skills section mean much without seeing that skill in action?

It’s much more valuable if you highlight a time you were attentive to detail in a previous job. So, if you’re an administrative assistant, you might say you “re-organized thousands of customer contacts in HubSpot without losing any customer data.”

Remember, it’s one thing to say you have a skill, but  showing your knowledge of that skill in a work or personal project carries far more weight  in the eyes of the hiring manager.

Let’s make this practical with an example: This software engineer lists NodeJS and Django in her resume skills list.

Software engineer resume skills example

This won’t be the last we see of these skills, though. Take a look at this job seeker’s work experience at MarketSmart. For instance, see how she weaves NodeJS into improving CTR? And even her intern experience shows how Django played a role in increasing reporting speed.

Software engineer skills in resume work experience

Pro tip: Try starting with specific work experience and then work backward to determine which skills you used instead of the other way around.

Regarding technical skills, try to be specific about what you did with the tool/ software you’re describing. Microsoft Excel is a program that can be used for many different applications, for example. Discuss specifically which functionality you used to accomplish your task (pivot tables, vlookups, etc.).

resume help skills and abilities

Match your resume skills to the job description

How can you identify the most common skills for the industry or role you’re applying for? The best way is to look at job ads for positions that grab your attention.

Try this two-step process to list skills on your resume:

  • Look across 5-10 different job descriptions for roles you’re interested in and identify the 10-15 most common skills in those job listings.
  • For each specific role you apply to, choose the 5-7 skills from your list that are most relevant to that job .

Yup, this means you’ll have to  customize your resume  for each role. Customizing your skills section, however, will vault you into the top five percent of applicants and is the quickest way to increase the number of interviews you get!

Let’s walk through an example of how to customize your skills for a specific job.

Say you’re looking for a position as a digital marketer, and after looking at some job descriptions, you notice the most common skills employers are looking for are the following:

  • CRM: HubSpot, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Pipedrive
  • Web Analytics: Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Mixpanel, Heap
  • General Tools: Microsoft Excel/ Word/ PowerPoint, Google Sheets/ Docs/ Slides
  • Optimization: A/B testing, customer segmentation, attribution modeling
  • Paid Ads: Facebook, AdWords, LinkedIn, Google Display Network, retargeting
  • Social Media: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn
  • Email Marketing: Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Drip
  • SEO: Content creation, keyword research, backlink building

Now, you’re specifically interested in a digital marketing role at Barnes and Noble with the following job description:

Digital marketing manager

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:

  • Develop and execute data-driven marketing strategies and campaigns with a strong focus on driving acquisition, engagement, and retention across multiple channels (e.g., SMS, mobile, email, social media, etc.) on time and on budget.
  • Aim to generate revenue and deliver on key business objectives, ROI, and KPI targets.
  • Own, measure, deliver, and optimize key metrics and reporting on marketing activities across channels and platforms.
  • Identify trends and insights, optimize segments, spend, and performance based on data.
  • Utilize strong analytical ability to evaluate end-to-end customer experience across multiple channels and customer touchpoints and work cross-functionally to drive qualified traffic, improve conversion, and identify new opportunities to boost user engagement and retention through A/B and multivariate testing.

REQUIREMENTS:

  • Minimum 5-7 years of digital marketing experience with a minimum of 3 years demonstrated success in mobile, email, social media, PPC, and SEM marketing from concept to completion with a proven track record of success.
  • Results-driven mentality with exceptional detail orientation and knowledge of metrics, A/B testing, and ROI analysis.
  • Experience with testing and optimization platforms.
  • Strong track record of distilling actionable insights from data to improve multi-channel marketing strategies.
  • In-depth familiarity with email service providers and knowledge of marketing automation platforms.
  • Solid understanding of website analytics tools (Google Analytics, Amplitude, Appsflyer), email systems (Sailthru, Salesforce Marketing Cloud), and ad-serving tools (Adroll, Facebook.)

Finally, we cross-reference our list of 10-15 skills with the skills this specific job is looking for (underlined above). This leaves us with the remaining five key skills:

  • Optimization: A/B Testing, Segmentation
  • CRM: Salesforce
  • Web Analytics: Google Analytics
  • Paid Ads: Facebook
  • Social Media: Email Marketing

There you have it! These skills are what will make up your skills list for this specific role. Don’t forget to include the seemingly most essential skills in your resume objective (for this position, we’d say those are optimization and A/B testing) and mention relevant work experience where you used some of these skills.

Remember, it’s important to be truthful about which skills you know and which you don’t. A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself whether you’d be comfortable being interviewed about a skill. If the answer is “yes,” then include it. Otherwise, it’s best to leave it off your resume. 

And for the grand finale to this digital marketing example: Check out how this resume integrates key skills into the career objective, skills section, and work experience.

Digital Marketing Manager Resume

Digital marketing manager resume with 8 years experience

Why this resume works

  • Starting with the most obvious section—the skills section—Giselle lists skills important to Barnes & Noble, grouping them in easy-to-read categories.
  • Don’t be deterred, even if you lack experience in an area or two! Demonstrating a willingness to learn is highly valuable.
  • The work experience section is a prime opportunity to showcase skills in action. Like Giselle, start with active verbs to show how you used skills, software, and tools to impact the company positively. 

Job-Specific Resume Skills

Job specific resume skills.

We promised an extensive list of resume skills, organized by profession, and we’re not ones to break our promises!

Below, you’ll find countless role-related skills you can put on your resume, along with informational tidbits for each profession.

Remember that honesty is critical when  building your resume , so we stand behind a shorter list of genuine skills rather than a slew of half-truths you’ll blush over later in an interview.

resume help skills and abilities

Web developer skills for your resume

Web developers build the web apps we interact with in our everyday lives. From banking to transportation to Netflix, it’s hard to find a facet of life that isn’t touched by web development.

We did an  extensive analysis of the top web developer skills  employers are looking for in 2024, and below are the results in order of those most in demand.

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Top web developer skills

  • JavaScript (React, Angular, Vue)
  • SQL (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, Oracle)
  • Cloud Storage (GCP, AWS, Azure)

resume help skills and abilities

Data analyst skills for resume

Companies are currently swimming in large pools of data. Marketing, product, engineering, and executive teams all rely on data to make the most effective decisions in the face of uncertainty.

That’s where data analysts come in. To be a successful data analyst, you need the right skills to clean, organize, visualize, and make actionable recommendations from data.

We analyzed over 100 job openings and determined the  most in-demand data analyst skills  needed to get a data analyst position in 2024. Below are the results in order of the most popular skills.

Top data analyst skills

  • Business Intelligence Tools (Tableau, PowerBI, Qlik, Looker)
  • Excel/ Google Sheets
  • Python (Pandas, Matplotlib, Scikit-learn, Numpy)
  • R (Dplyr, ggplot2)

resume help skills and abilities

Marketing skills for resume

No matter how great a product or website—unless a successful marketing campaign drives customers to that product, it won’t succeed.

Marketers must strike a balance between creativity and science to reach the right people at the right time to make them customers.

To do this successfully, marketers need a wide range of skills.

Top marketing skills

  • CRM: Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Pipedrive, HubSpot
  • Web Analytics: Adobe Analytics, Mixpanel, Heap, Google Analytics
  • General Tools: Google Sheets/ Docs/ Slides, Microsoft Excel/ Word/ PowerPoint
  • Optimization: Customer Segmentation, Attribution Modeling, A/B Testing
  • Paid Ads: AdWords, LinkedIn, Google Display Network, Retargeting, Facebook
  • Social Media: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter
  • Email Marketing: ConvertKit, Drip, Mailchimp
  • SEO: Keyword Research, Backlink Building, Content Creation
  • Direct Mail

resume help skills and abilities

Customer service skills for resume

When a customer has a problem or a question, they need to get a prompt and accurate answer to ensure they remain a customer.

More than that, a strong customer service representative will build relationships with customers to help identify potential new features or directions to take a product.

To do this successfully, you need a potent blend of people skills while also knowing the tools of the trade.

Top customer service skills

  • Strong Communication & Interpersonal Skills
  • Curious, Empathetic, and Professional
  • Willing to Learn
  • Goal-oriented
  • Enterprise Software
  • Experience with Business Processes
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Zendesk, HubSpot, Helpscout

resume help skills and abilities

Management skills for resume

No matter how effective a person is as an individual contributor, management is an entirely different job that requires an altogether different skill set.

To be an effective manager, you must first understand and relate to your employees while ensuring company initiatives are hit on time. To get this done, you need a mix of different skills.

Top management skills

  • Financial Analysis
  • Self-motivation
  • Conflict Resolution & Management
  • Managing Career Growth
  • Performance Reviews
  • Ability to Motivate
  • Foster Team Environment
  • Ability to Work Under Pressure
  • Result-driven

resume help skills and abilities

Accounting skills for resume

Accountants are the unsung heroes of any well-oiled company. A company is only as successful as it can demonstrate through its financial reports.

Accountants need to be wizards with reporting and data while maintaining a culture of rigorous organization. Accounting is a field that requires knowledge of particular hard skills.

Top accounting skills

  • Financial Reporting
  • General Ledger Accounting
  • Quarterly Close Processes
  • Quarterly Financial Statements
  • Tax Accounting
  • GAAP Accounting Principles
  • Expense Reporting
  • Accounts Payable & Receivable
  • Account Reconciliation

resume help skills and abilities

Project manager skills for resume

Project managers keep the trains on the rails. To be a successful project manager, you must know how to ensure deadlines are met on time and on budget.

In this role, you’ll need the ability to communicate with diverse teams and technical knowledge to help engineers remove roadblocks they encounter that will prevent them from getting their job done.

Top project manager skills

  • Project Management Software (Jira, Trello)
  • Microsoft Office/Google Suite (Excel/Google Sheets, PowerPoint/Slides)
  • Project Management Frameworks and Methodologies (Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, Kanban)
  • Programming Languages and Frameworks (JavaScript, Node.js, Python, Django)
  • CRM Experience (HubSpot, Salesforce)
  • Digital Marketing

resume help skills and abilities

Sales skills for resume

An effective salesperson can form meaningful relationships with new sales prospects very quickly.

To be able to sell a new customer on your product or tool, you first need to intimately understand their pain points and what they’re trying to solve.

In addition to solid soft skills, you need to know the technical tools to track and manage prospects through the sales pipeline.

Top sales skills

  • Strong Communication
  • Negotiation
  • CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce)
  • Presentation Skills
  • Lead Generation (LinkedIn, Email)
  • Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)

resume help skills and abilities

Administrative assistant skills for resume

When it comes to a career as an administrative assistant, there’s no skill more valuable than organization. How can you help others be at their best without ensuring all ducks are in a row?

Of course, other skills are needed to succeed as an administrative assistant, and we’ve analyzed numerous administrative assistant job openings to determine the most in-demand skills for this career.

Top administrative assistant skills

  • Microsoft Excel/Google Sheets
  • Microsoft Word/Google Docs
  • Microsoft PowerPoint/Google Slides
  • Scheduling (Microsoft Outlook/Google Calendar)
  • Words per Minute you Type
  • Languages you Speak
  • Database Management
  • CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot)
  • Personable and Welcoming

resume help skills and abilities

Nursing skills for resume

The value of nurses in our society has never been more apparent than during the COVID-19 crisis.

A good nurse must have a rigorous understanding of the medical procedures and documentation they need to complete while also maintaining the soft skills necessary to build trust and understanding with patients.

It’s a very tricky balance to strike. To help you pursue a new job in nursing, we compiled the most popular skills employers are looking for across a wide range of nursing disciplines.

Top nursing skills

  • EMR Systems
  • Ambulatory Care
  • Emergency Care
  • CPR Certified
  • Best Practices
  • Long-term Patient Care
  • Compassionate
  • Organized & Reliable
  • Infant & Child Care
  • Medical Documentation

resume help skills and abilities

Teacher skills for resume

With the shift to remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the skills required to be an effective teacher from afar are also changing.

Teachers now need to be more in tune with the technologies used for remote learning to reach students.

Still, there are some skills required to be a great teacher that haven’t changed. Based on our analysis, here are the top skills schools want when they hire teachers.

Top teacher skills

  • Lesson Planning
  • Blackboard/Moodle
  • Google Apps (Gmail, Sheets, Slides)
  • SMART Boards
  • Remote Teaching (Zoom)
  • Safe, Supportive Classrooms
  • Accountability
  • Communication with Parents and Students
  • Organization
  • Focused on Student Performance

Software engineer skills for resume

Software engineer is a broad, all-encompassing term. There are hundreds of specific disciplines within this umbrella that require different skills.

Still, there are fundamental and common skills that all developers must have. First and foremost, you need to be able to program! 

We collected the most in-demand skills for software developers to help you make the best resume possible.

Top software engineer skills

  • Python (Django)
  • Java (Spring)
  • Ruby (Ruby on Rails)
  • PHP (Laravel)
  • JavaScript (Node, React, Vue, jQuery)
  • SQL (MySQL, PostgreSQL, NoSQL)
  • AWS, GCS, Azure

Business analyst (BA) skills for resume

Business analysts combine skills from many areas to help drive outcomes that materially improve a customer’s core metrics.

A BA is a great communicator, a robust data analyst, and an effective project manager. After a project is complete, the BA then has to be able to communicate the outcomes to the executive team.

Top business analyst skills

  • SQL (MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, SQL Server)
  • Excel, Google Sheets
  • PowerPoint, Google Slides
  • Tableau, Looker, Chartio
  • Salesforce, NetSuite, HubSpot, Pipedrive
  • A/B testing, Linear Regression, Logistic Regression
  • Project Management (JIRA, Trello)

resume help skills and abilities

Student skills for resume

When you’re a student, it can be challenging to know which of your skills you should highlight when applying for your first job or internship.

It varies depending on the position, but at this point in your career, hiring managers don’t expect you to be an expert in all the tools you’ll need for the job.

The key is to mention which skills you have some familiarity with and express an openness to learning on the job.

Top student skills

  • Microsoft Outlook/Gmail
  • Hard-working
  • Social Media
  • Collaboration

Data scientist skills for resume

Data scientists are hybrid programmers and statisticians. It can be tough to figure out which of your technical skill sets should be the focus of your resume.

Touch on your primary programming language and put context around the modeling techniques you use regularly.

After studying over 100 data scientist job openings, here are the top skills employers are looking for in these roles.

Top data scientist skills

  • Python (Numpy, Pandas, Scikit-learn, Keras, Flask)
  • R (Dplyr, Shiny)
  • SQL (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle)
  • AWS (Redshift)
  • Supervised Learning (Linear and Logistic Regression, Decision Trees, Support Vector Machines, Recommendation Engines)
  • Unsupervised Learning (K-Means Clustering, Principal Component Analysis)
  • Customer Segmentation, Price Optimization

resume help skills and abilities

Human resources (HR) skills for resume

When it comes to the skills you need to get your next job as a human resources manager, it’s important to demonstrate a combination of people skills (it’s in the job title, after all), but you also have to show command of the tools needed to get the job done.

You should demonstrate which phases of HR you have experience in. Whether that’s recruiting, benefits, compensation, or a combination thereof, these should be clear.

Top human resources skills

  • ATS (Workday, Jobvite, Greenhouse)
  • Compensation & Benefits
  • Performance Management
  • Recruiting (Sourcing & Interviewing)
  • Employee Onboarding
  • Benefits Planning & Administration
  • Employee Coaching
  • LOA, FMLA, PLOA, Disability
  • Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint
  • Recruiting Coordination
  • Compliance (OFFCP, FLSA, Unemployment)
  • Employee Retention
  • Organizational Strategy
  • Labor Relations
  • Succession Planning
  • HR Analytics

Product manager skills for resume

Product managers help steer the direction of a company by working to understand new features and products customers are looking for.

A successful PM should have the technical skills to communicate fluently with engineers. They also need strong data analysis skills to determine whether new feature launches are working.

Top product manager skills

  • Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, Mixpanel
  • Google Tag Manager
  • A/B Testing
  • Optimizely, Google Optimize
  • Basic Python scripting, APIs
  • Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, Kaban
  • Jira, Github, Confluence
  • Google Analytics, Microsoft Excel

Recruiter skills for resume

Since recruiters are the first people prospective employees interact with in a company, they must have strong people skills.

Outside of that, a recruiter needs to be familiar with using an ATS to keep track of candidates as they go through the application funnel.

In addition, they need to know various tools to effectively source prospective candidates for a job opening.

Top recruiter skills

  • Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Word
  • HR Information Systems (Workday, Oracle HCM, Zoho, SAP)
  • ATS (Greenhouse, Lever, Workable, Breezy HR, BambooHR)
  • Sourcing Tools (LinkedIn Recruiter, TalentNest, Connectifier)
  • Full Cycle Recruiting, Intakes, Sourcing, Screening, Evaluating Talent
  • CRM (HubSpot, Marketo, Hootsuite)

Scrum Master skills for resume

As a Scrum Master, it’s vital you demonstrate which project management frameworks you have experience in on your resume.

Scrum Masters help ensure project deadlines are hit by establishing and monitoring incremental goals along the way.

Communication and management skills are must-haves, in addition to a few technical tools.

Top Scrum Master skills

  • Agile Development & Best Practices
  • Agile Frameworks—Scrum, Kanban, XP
  • JIRA & JIRA Portfolio
  • Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Project, Visio
  • User Stories, ATDD, TDD, Continuous Integration, Automated Testing
  • Project Planning & Scoping

resume help skills and abilities

Social media manager skills for resume

As the name implies, a social media manager must show prospective employers they can use social media to drive customers toward a business.

It’s not enough, however, to demonstrate experience with various social media platforms. You must also clearly understand data and analytics to prove that your campaigns can and will work for a business.

Top social media manager skills

  • Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok
  • Sprout Social, Hootsuite
  • Google Analytics
  • Google Docs/Microsoft Word
  • Google Sheets/Microsoft Excel
  • Paid Social Media Advertising
  • Data Analytics

resume help skills and abilities

IT manager skills for resume

IT managers need to possess razor-sharp technical skills while demonstrating the ability to mentor and guide employees under their leadership.

Since the number of potential technical skills an IT manager can have is vast, you must demonstrate a firm command of at least a few skills.

On your resume, it’s much better to demonstrate expertise in a few skills than a weak command of a large number of tools.

Top IT manager skills

  • Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
  • Agile/Lean Methodologies
  • Network Infrastructure (DNS, DHCP, SSL)
  • Linux/ Unix

resume help skills and abilities

Design skills for resume

As you might imagine, designers need to convince the hiring manager reviewing their resume of their creative ability. This is usually done via a portfolio.

Outside of your creativity, you also need to quickly and effectively communicate which tools you use to complete your design work. One of the first things a prospective employer will check is whether you have the technical skills they’re looking for in a designer.

Top design skills

  • Design Principles
  • Color Theory
  • Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign)
  • Storytelling
  • Canva, Vectr
  • Print Design
  • Photography

Your skills should directly correlate with the job you’re applying for so recruiters can tell what makes you special at a glance. Refer to the job description for keywords or mission statements that show what the organization values and what the job role emphasizes. Prioritize skills that relate directly to your profession over those that could enhance your qualifications for other fields.

Try to limit your array of abilities to just 6 to 10 skills per resume. If you have more to choose from, choose to meet the optimal resume skill range with abilities that specifically answer the call of the job description. You don’t want a skills list that looks too “hodgepodge,” so hone your skills to a trade-specific edge that demonstrates your expertise.

Soft skills are the tools you use to socially function with grace and efficiency. They refer to your interpersonal abilities like negotiation, communication, and team delegation (just to name a few!). Keep in mind that you don’t want to overdo your skills list and appear disorganized, so select only the most relevant soft skills to list. You can use them as context for your professional experiences.

Technical skills, or hard skills, can refer to anything from software proficiency to specialized actions or tasks you can perform that relate to your job. Physical technology or machinery, digital meeting programs, and the ability to interpret industry-specific data all count! These important skills show off your specialties and highlight your unique candidacy for the job role.

Every skills list should be technical, but yours especially so: This is your opportunity to demonstrate your expertise instantly. By naming precisely which software programs you use (think: Adobe Photoshop, AutoCAD, or Salesforce to name a few) instead of generalizing, you effectively spotlight your skills ahead of time. Recruiters often skim the skills list first since they move fast, so seize the chance to align yourself with the job!

Honestly, that depends on you! Which of your resume sections is the strongest: skills, experience, internships, or stuff like your degree and academic achievements? Resume layouts with a side column can put your skills list in a highly visible space. If your experiences are super strong, you can also list your skills at the bottom of the page. Just make sure your best qualities are the most eye-catching!

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100+ Key Skills for a Resume in 2022 (Examples for any Job)

Learn how to professionally and efficiently list your skills on a resume.

Katerina Frye

How to List Skills on a Resume 

Your skills are just as important as your work experiences. Skills show a recruiter what you can do for the company -- without taking up too much space in your resume. 

Skills can be anything from “creativity” (a soft skill) to “JavaScript” (a hard skill). It’s important to include a mix of both on your resume.

Don’t know what skills you have? Read on to learn the difference between “soft” and “hard” skills, or skim our 250+ skills for each industry to jump right into the resume writing process. 

Beautiful resume templates to land your dream job

Financial Analyst

Soft Skills vs Hard Skills

“Soft” skills are those that are not quantifiable, such as leadership. These skills also cannot be learned, but  are rather a facet of your personality. Nevertheless, soft skills are still critical to have, for they demonstrate that you are personable and competent.

Top Soft Skills to include on your resume

‍ Tip: Use some of the soft skills as adjectives when writing your profile summary . For example, try “enthusiastic entrepreneur,” “empathic childcare worker,” “organized nurses’ aid,” “supportive administration assistant” or “detail-oriented sales associate.”

The resume below is for a Childcare Worker and includes many soft skills that companies look for, including Creativity and Organizational skills.

Childcare Worker

In contrast, “Hard” skills are those that are learned -- either in school or through a certification program. These skills are quantifiable and can be continuously expanded upon through further education. Today, most hard skills have to do with computer technology, such as SEO, CSS/HTML, or Microsoft Suite. Even if you aren’t tech-savvy, chances are you still have a few hard skills.

Top Hard Skills to include on your resume

Tip: Be specific about your hard skills. Instead of listing “Programming Languages,” specify which ones you know -- Python, Java, C, etc. Same with photo editing software and any other platforms you are familiar with.

The resume below is for a Content Marketing Associate, and includes manyhard skills that companies in the marketing industry look for, including experience with Social Media tools. Remember, it's important to be specific in terms of defining and listing what softwares you know.

Content Marketing Associate

How to List Your Skills

Whether you’re a jack of all trades or a master of one, you absolutely must list some skills on your resume. Skills offer additional insight into what you can offer the company as an employee, and may just push your resume over the edge and into the interview pile. 

  • Only list relevant skills . If you’re applying for a position as an engineer, don’t brag about your marketing abilities. Instead, save the space to list the software and programming languages that you know. 
  • List around 5 Skills . Writing too many skills on your resume can be an overwhelming experience for the recruiter. He or she may not fully register your skills, and instead just blankly skim the long list. Conversely, listing too few skills is only selling yourself short. You definitely have more than two skills -- no matter your experience level! So shoot for around 5 skills, with a little wriggle room. 
  • Include both hard and soft skills . Even if your profession seems to rely on soft skills more than hard skills -- or vice versa -- including both makes your resume stronger. For example, if you’re applying to work as a laboratory assistant, list soft skills such as “teamwork,” “problem-solving,” “time management,” or “organization.” If you’re in a more creative field, hard skills include softwares such as “Adobe Creative Suite” and talents such as “photography,” “writing & editing,” or “videography.” 
  • Note your experience level . With each skill, specify whether you are a “beginner,” “expert,” or somewhere in between (using words like “intermediate” and “moderate”). Our resume templates have bars beneath each skill that you can toggle to reflect your expertise. 

The resume below is for a Human Resources Manager, and includes all of the above tips.

Human Resources Manager

250+ Skills for Each Industry  

Although we’ve split these skills up by industry, please note that many skills are applicable to a variety of careers. For example, someone working in marketing might find knowledge of JavaScript just as useful as someone working in the computer science field. 

Let’s jump in!

100+ Key Skills to include on your resume infographic

Office and Administrative Job Skills

  • Answering Phones
  • Bookkeeping (Excel, Turbotax)
  • Office Equipment
  • Welcoming Visitors
  • Calendar Management
  • Organization 
  • Time Management 
  • Problem Solving
  • Attention To Detail
  • Adaptability 
  • Written Communication 
  • Email Platforms (E.G., Gmail And iCloud Mail)
  • Word Processing Software (E.G., Google Docs)
  • Spreadsheet Software
  • Digital Calendars
  • Prioritization 

Sales, Retail, and Customer Service Job Skills

  • Product Knowledge
  • Lead Qualification
  • Lead Prospecting 
  • Customer Needs Analysis
  • Referral Marketing
  • Contract Negotiation
  • Self Motivation
  • Increasing Customer Lifetime Value (Clv)
  • Reducing Customer Acquisition Cost (Cac)
  • CRM Software (Salesforce, Hubspot, Zoho, Freshsales)
  • Cashier Skills
  • Knowledge Of Products And Services 
  • Customer Service
  • Communication (More Specifically -- Verbal Communication Skills, Listening Skills, Interpersonal Skills, Written Communication Skills, Public Speaking Skills, Presentation Skills)
  • Math Skills
  • Negotiation 
  • Persuasion  
  • Diplomacy  
  • Cold Calling
  • Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
  • Lead Generation
  • Buyer-responsive Selling
  • Buyer Engagement

Nursing and Healthcare Job Skills

  • Patient Assessment
  • Taking Vital Signs
  • Patient Care
  • Recording Patient Medical History
  • Wound Dressing And Care
  • Urgent And Emergency Care
  • Record-keeping
  • Patient Education
  • NIH Stroke Scale Patient Assessment
  • Electronic Medical Record (EMR)
  • Medicine Administration
  • Blood Pressure Monitoring
  • Rehabilitation Therapy
  • Hygiene Assistance
  • Use Of X-ray, MRI, Cat Scans
  • Glucose Checks
  • Electronic Heart Record (EHR)
  • Decision-Making Ability 
  • Critical Thinking
  • Leadership 
  • Thorough Understanding Of HIPPA And Privacy Policies
  • Ability To Take And Record Vital Signs
  • CPR And First-Aid Certifications
  • Perform And Evaluate Diagnostic Tests
  • Maintain Patient Charts

IT Job Skills

  • Programming Languages
  • Web Development
  • Data Structures
  • Open Source Experience
  • Machine Learning
  • Front-End & Back-End Development
  • Cloud Management
  • Agile Development
  • CSS Preprocessors
  • Graphic User Interfaces (GUI)
  • Git/Version Control (Github, gitlab)
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
  • Application Programming Interface (API)
  • Adobe Photoshop, InDesign
  • Content Management Systems (CMS)
  • Testing/Debugging
  • Responsive Design Principles
  • Mobile and Web Development (e.g. iOS, Android)

Engineering & Technical Job Skills

  • STEM Skills
  • Prototyping
  • Troubleshooting
  • Project Launch
  • Lean Manufacturing
  • Workflow Development
  • Computer Skills
  • Technical Report Writing
  • Programming Languages HTML, CSS, CRM tools

Advertising & Marketing Job Skills

  • SEO (SEMRush, WordPress, and Ahrefs)
  • SEM (i.e., Google Adwords)
  • CRO and A/B Testing
  • Social Media Marketing and Paid Social Media Advertising
  • Sales Funnel Management
  • CMS Tools (WordPress, Weebly)
  • Graphic Design Skills (Adobe Creative Suite)
  • Email Marketing (MailChimp, Constant Contact)
  • Email Automation
  • Data Visualization
  • Print Design
  • Photography and Branding
  • Communication 
  • Creativity 
  • Data Analytics (Google Analytics )
  • Web Analytics
  • Email Writing 
  • Google Adwords
  • Social Media And Mobile Marketing 
  • Paid Social Media Advertisements
  • Consumer Behavior Drivers
  • Brand Management
  • B2b Marketing
  •  Writing Advertising Copy
  • Soliciting Feedback From Customers
  • Cutting Costs
  • Leadership skills
  • Task Delegation 
  • Strategic Management
  • Proposal writing
  • Problem-solving
  • Problem solving
  • Website Management
  • Social Media Outreach
  • Video Production
  • Campaign Management
  • Photo Editing
  • Logo Creation
  • Digital Printing
  • Interactive Media Design 
  • Color Sense & Theory
  • Social Media Publishing
  • Storytelling
  • Financial Analysis
  • Consumer Research
  • Statistical Analysis
  • Videography 
  • Technical Writing 

General Management and Project Management Job Skills

  • Agile Project Management (Kanban)
  • Managing Cross-Functional Teams
  • Scrum Management
  • Performance Tracking
  • Financial Modelling
  • Ideation Leadership
  • Feature Definition
  • Forecasting
  • Profit and Loss
  • Scope Management
  • Project Lifecycle Management 
  • Meeting Facilitation
  • Risk Management 
  • Cost Management 
  • Data Analysis 
  • Collaborative 
  • Collaborative Programs (Slack, WhatsApp, Dropbox)
  • Adobe Creative Suite

Browse more resume templates that fit your role

Katerina Frye

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Skills to Put on a Resume: 100 Best Examples of Hard & Soft Skills

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Hannah Yang

Resume Skills Title

If you’re applying to jobs, you’ll need to craft a resume that showcases your most valuable skills.

Your resume will be a document that represents you throughout the recruitment process, from your initial application to your final interview .

Hiring managers are looking for specific skills on your resume that will demonstrate your ability to succeed in the role.

So how do you choose the right skills to include?

This article will explain the most important skills to include on your resume, and some resume skills examples.

Where Do I Include Skills on My Resume?

Why is it important to include the right resume skills, what’s the difference between technical skills and soft skills, how do i decide which skills to put on my resume, best hard & soft skills for a resume (with examples).

Most resumes are organized into the following sections:

  • Contact information
  • Resume summary / objective (optional)
  • Work experience
  • Hobbies / interests (optional)

The purpose of the skills section of your resume is to provide a concise list of the abilities you can offer.

The main section of a resume

In the skills section, you can mention each of the skills you have that might be relevant to the job, from language fluency to coding abilities.

You can also use a scale to show your level of expertise for each skill (e.g. beginner, intermediate, advanced, expert).

Here’s an example of what that might look like in your skills section:

  • Programming languages: C (expert), Java (expert), Python (advanced)
  • Leadership skills: people management (expert), Agile methodology (advanced)

But here’s the twist: your key skills should be included throughout the resume, not just in the skills section.

Purpose of the skill section

To really impress your hiring manager, you should mention your key skills in your work experience section, along with numbers to back them up.

Show the specific instances you’ve used those skills and how they’ve brought value to your previous employers.

Here’s an example of what that might look like in your work experience section:

  • Led an Agile team of 12 software developers to build an innovative music education app using Java and Python

Choosing the right skills to include in your resume is important because employers are looking for specific skills that you’ll need to succeed.

Many companies use ATS (Applicant Tracking System) to screen applicants’ resumes before passing them on to the hiring manager.

The software looks for specific keywords, and if you have those in your skills section, you can get past the screening.

If you don’t, your resume will get discarded without ever being seen by human eyes.

Definition of ATS

Even if the company still uses a traditional system, the hiring manager will likely only look at your resume for seven seconds before making the decision of whether or not you progress to the next step.

Having the right skills in a prominent position will get you an interview, or maybe even the job.

Technical skills, also known as "hard skills," are skills that you’ve learned through practice and training.

You can measure your proficiency with a technical skill by taking a test or passing a class.

What are hard skills

Examples of technical skills include:

  • The ability to speak French
  • The ability to fix a car engine
  • Familiarity with ProWritingAid software

Soft skills are skills that you gain from life experience rather than formal education or work experience, such as communication skills and interpersonal skills.

Soft skills are harder to test, since they’re more qualitative than quantitative.

What are soft skills

Examples of soft skills include:

  • Problem-solving

As a general rule, you should include more technical skills than soft skills on your resume.

Since soft skills are harder to measure, they tend to make less of an impact on your resume, even if they’re just as important in the workplace.

Anyone can claim that they’re excellent at teamwork, but this skill is hard to confirm or deny in a quantifiable way.

On the other hand, someone who claims they can fix a car engine is more likely to be able to measure that ability, and to back it up with a certification or with experience fixing cars.

You might be tempted to copy and paste the hottest keywords, but that will make your resume look generic at best and inaccurate at worst.

Your goal is to give the hiring managers an accurate picture of what you can do and how your abilities can bring value to the role.

Every skill you include on your resume should have the following three traits:

  • It should be relevant to the role you’re applying for
  • It should be a skill you’ve demonstrated repeatedly
  • It should be a specific skill, not a generic one

Idenitfy the best resume skills

Let’s take a closer look at each of these traits.

Choose Resume Skills that Are Relevant to the Role You’re Applying for

You should always tailor your skills to the specific role you’re applying for.

Even if you’re a world-class photographer, that skill won’t make a difference to hiring managers if you’re applying for a job with no photography involved.

So how do you find the job skills that will bring value to the role?

One great place to look for relevant skills to demonstrate is your job description.

Most likely, your job description will mention specific skills that they’d like to see from candidates. Look for keywords and phrases that require specific abilities.

For example, say you’re a graphic designer and the job description you’re looking at includes the following sentence:

The perfect candidate for this job will have experience with Adobe Creative Suite and Dreamweaver. Experience with logo design is a plus.

Looking at this sentence, you can pick out some of the top skills your position needs: Adobe Creative Suite, Dreamweaver, and logo design.

Here’s how that might look in your skills section:

  • Adobe Creative Suite: Photoshop (expert), Dreamweaver (expert), Illustrator (advanced), InDesign (advanced)
  • Art: logo design (expert), color theory (advanced), typography (intermediate)

In addition to looking at the job description you’re applying for, you can also look at the job description for a similar role at a different company.

It will most likely mention other relevant skills that you can consider including.

Another tip is to look at related LinkedIn profiles. LinkedIn is a great resource for useful skills, as many people will list their job skills on their profiles.

Where to find resume skills

Choose Resume Skills that You’ve Demonstrated Repeatedly

Your skills section shouldn’t feel separate from the rest of your resume.

Instead, it should work cohesively with your education and experience sections to highlight the abilities you’ve demonstrated in the past.

Each skill you list should be supported by evidence.

One way to do this is to look through your work experience section and see which skills stand out.

For example, if you led a team project at your past company using Agile methodology, you can consider including Agile methodology (a hard skill) and team leadership (a soft skill) in your skills section.

If you need to narrow down your list, you can rank all your skills as beginner, proficient, advanced, or expert. Prioritize the ones in the advanced or expert categories.

How to rank resume skills

You might be applying to a role that’s different from the roles you’ve had before. In that case, it’s useful to look for transferable skills from your previous experiences.

For example, if you’re applying to a health insurance job and you’ve worked in car insurance before, you can pick out the skills that are related to insurance, not the ones that are related to the transportation industry.

That way, your skills section can help tie your past experiences to your new role.

How to select resume skills

Choose Resume Skills That Are as Specific as Possible

The last criterion for choosing your job skills is specificity.

Some skills are universal and can apply to almost any role, such as problem-solving skills, communication skills, and familiarity with Microsoft Office.

You can include these if you’d like, but they don’t tell the hiring manager as much as more specific skills do.

For example, "communication skills" is a vague soft skill.

Use ProWritingAid’s Word Explorer to help you make this vague skill more specific. The common 2-word phrase suggestions are particularly useful in this situation.

ProWritingAid's Word Explorer

Instead of "communication skills," you can say "personal communication," "verbal communication," or "mass communication."

Similarly, "programming languages" is a vague hard skill. Instead of "programming languages," you can say "Javascript," "Python," "HTML" or the other specific programming languages you’ve used in the past.

Generic and specific skills

If you’re looking for more skills to include in your skills section, you’re in the right place.

We’ve compiled a list of professional skills for each of the following job sectors:

  • Data analysis
  • Finance / Accounting
  • Software development

Relevant Skills for a Data Analysis Role

Here are some of the hard skills you could include for a data analysis role:

  • SQL and Hive
  • Programming languages (R, Python, Scala, Matlab)
  • STATA, SPSS, SAS
  • Data Mapping
  • Entity Relationship Diagrams
  • Big Data tools
  • Microsoft Visio
  • Machine learning

Here are some of the soft skills you could include for a data analysis role:

  • Problem-solving skills
  • Technical and non-technical communication
  • Analytical ability
  • Time management
  • Attention to detail
  • Capacity for innovation

Relevant Skills for a Design Role

Here are some of the hard skills you could include for a design role:

  • Adobe Creative Suite: Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop
  • Dreamweaver
  • Infographics
  • Color sense & theory
  • Photo editing
  • Typography: spacing, line height, layout, choosing fonts
  • Interactive media design
  • Targeting and marketing through visual communications

Here are some of the soft skills you could include for a design role:

  • Eye for aesthetics
  • Communication
  • Active listening
  • Persistence
  • Storytelling

Relevant Skills for an Education Role

Here are some of the hard skills you could include for an education role:

  • Updated curriculum knowledge
  • Foreign languages (Spanish, Mandarin, etc.)
  • Research & data analysis
  • WebCT or Blackboard Teaching skills
  • File management
  • Electronic presentation skills
  • Video conferencing skills (software like Zoom)
  • Educational platforms (software like Elearn)

Here are some of the soft skills you could include for an education role:

  • Organization
  • Imagination
  • Conflict resolution
  • Critical thinking

Relevant Skills for a Finance / Accounting Role

Here are some of the hard skills you could include for a finance role:

  • Microsoft Excel (Advanced)
  • Enterprise Resource Planning
  • Big Data Analysis & SQL
  • Know Your Customers (KYC)
  • Cognos Analytics (IBM)
  • Visual Basic
  • Accounting Software
  • Cash flow management

Here are some of the soft skills you could include for a finance role:

  • Clear communication
  • Business knowledge
  • Numerical competence

Relevant Skills for a Healthcare Role

Here are some of the hard skills you could include for a healthcare role:

  • Paperwork / record-keeping abilities
  • Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS)
  • Infection control
  • Surgery preparation

Here are some of the soft skills you could include for a healthcare role:

  • Patient care and assistance
  • Physical endurance
  • Flexibility

Relevant Skills for a Management Role

Here are some of the hard skills you could include for a management role:

  • Data management and analytics
  • Agile project management
  • Six Sigma techniques
  • The McKinsey 7s Framework
  • Porter’s Five Forces
  • Proposal writing

Here are some of the soft skills you could include for a management role:

  • Emotional intelligence
  • Task delegation
  • People management
  • Negotiation

Relevant Skills for a Marketing Role

Here are some of the hard skills you could include for a marketing role:

  • Search engine optimization (SEO)
  • Conversion rate optimization (CRO)
  • A/B testing
  • HTML & CSS
  • Social media and mobile marketing
  • Email marketing

Here are some of the soft skills you could include for a marketing role:

  • Multitasking

Relevant Skills for a Retail Role

Here are some of the hard skills you could include for a retail role:

  • Loss prevention
  • Product knowledge
  • Visual merchandising
  • Window displays
  • Cash registers
  • Point of sale (POS) systems

Here are some of the soft skills you could include for a retail role:

  • Customer service skills
  • Resolving complaints
  • Friendliness

Relevant Skills for a Software Development Role

Here are some of the hard skills you could include for a software development role:

  • Programming languages (R, Python, Java, Javascript, C)
  • Object-oriented design (OOD)
  • Software testing and debugging
  • Git/Version control (Github, gitlab)
  • Graphic User Interfaces (GUI)
  • Application Programming Interface (API)
  • Content Management Systems (CMS)
  • Responsive design principles

Here are some of the soft skills you could include for a software development role:

  • Problem solving

The Most In-Demand Technical Skills Right Now

Finally, we’ve also researched the skills that are most in demand right now.

The need for different skills evolves quickly, and the ones employers are looking for have changed a lot over the years.

A 2020 LinkedIn Talent blog survey found that ten of the top technical skills today are:

  • Cloud and Distributed Computing
  • Statistical Analysis and Data Mining
  • Middleware and Integration Software
  • Web Architecture and Development Framework
  • Software Revision Control Systems
  • Data Presentation
  • SEO / SEM Marketing
  • Mobile Development
  • Network and Information Security

The most in demand hard skills

If any of these hard and soft skills might be relevant to your role, it could be a great idea to include them on your resume.

Don’t worry, however, if these skills aren’t applicable to the role you’re applying for.

Employers won’t care about skills that aren’t relevant. You should focus on the ones that are most useful for you.

The Most In-Demand Soft Skills Right Now

According to The Ladders , the seven soft skills employers are looking for are:

  • Adaptability

Given the pandemic, adaptability is likely to be a key skill. Companies are looking for employees who are flexible and can roll with the punches.

Emotional intelligence includes empathy, motivation, and self-awareness. These are increasingly important in the workplace today.

The most in demand soft skills

Mentioning some of these soft skills on your resume could show your hiring manager how well you’d fit into the company culture.

Final Words

There you have it: a complete guide for choosing which skills to include on your resume.

Let us know in the comments if there are any important skills you’d recommend including. Best of luck with your job search!

Want to learn more great business writing hacks? Download this free book now:

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Check every email, essay, or story for grammar mistakes. Fix them before you press send.

Hannah Yang is a speculative fiction writer who writes about all things strange and surreal. Her work has appeared in Analog Science Fiction, Apex Magazine, The Dark, and elsewhere, and two of her stories have been finalists for the Locus Award. Her favorite hobbies include watercolor painting, playing guitar, and rock climbing. You can follow her work on hannahyang.com, or subscribe to her newsletter for publication updates.

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Advergize

List of 81+ Skills and Abilities for Resume

list-of-skills-and-abilities-for-resume

Whenever you are making resumes when applying for jobs, there is a list of skills and abilities for resume that employers expect to see on all applications they receive.

These skills are known as general skills that are valid for almost every job that exists. One needs to make sure that they mention and include these skills and abilities for resume when searching for jobs.

Table of Contents

Why Listing the Essential Skills and Abilities for Resume Are Important?

What are the most important skills and abilities for resume? Which set of skills will get you the job? Do you know what the difference between hard skills and soft skills is? How will you able to share your skills, accomplishments and expertise with your prospective employers? The perfect place to highlight your strengths and abilities is your resume, along with your experience history.

These skills can be used by you throughout the process of searching for a job. First of all, you can use these skills and abilities for a resume.

Secondly, these skills and abilities can also be used in your cover letter. They can be mentioned in the body of your letter. Be time specific about your skills and elaborate when you demonstrated them at work.

Obviously every job has a specific requirement criteria of the skills and abilities for a resume, so you need to make sure that you go through the job descriptions thoroughly. Focus on the list of skills emphasized on by the employer.

In order to gain attention, highlight the skills and abilities in your resume while describing your previous positions. If possible, then do so in a separate section of skills and abilities for a resume.

List of Good Skills to Put on a Resume

The list you are going to be reading now is what is sought for mostly when it comes to the skills and abilities for a resume. The day you include these skills and abilities in your resume, you will surely attract their attention.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x24JTn0w1d4

Moreover, it is not just about writing about the skills. The point here is that the job management wants proof as well.

That is why it is wise to include example on how you go about them, rather than just stating them. For instance “ Possess great communication skills .”

1. Communication​​

Before anything else, you need to focus on what your verbal and written skills of communication are, along with your listening abilities sharpness. Once you have highlighted all these critical skills about yourself in your resume, it will shine. Play a track of your strong communication that you have had previously with your colleagues, customers and managers.

2. Multitasking

The status quo these days for most of the employees is to have the ability to manage several tasks at once. For instance, playing around with different tasks, projects and management of a good relationship between both your colleagues and clients. Note down all the tasks and situations that you have handled, along with their types and elaborate how you managed them so calmly and efficiently.

3. Prioritize

Working in a fast paced environment, how would you prioritize your work? Employees need to often tackle multiple tasks and projects at the same time and a lot of requests come bashing through regularly. In such a case, you need to operate with a lot of grace under fire. Elaborate the details on how you prioritize your requests and projects. The last thing any employer wants is an employee who gets flustered easily.

4. Organization

An impressive resume is that which shows how organized you are when it comes to the projects and tasks you are assigned. Whether you are just a receptionist who needs to handle call logs and appointments at short notices or a web developer whose job is to update multiple sites in a go. Highlight what your approach is towards the organization of work.

5. Technical skills

Mention all the technical knowledge that you have related to the job you are applying for. A lot of jobs require you to have a background knowledge and expertise on most of the latest software.

6. Interpersonal skills

A clear differentiation can be made among candidates on the basis of soft skills. The fact is that most employers claim that it is a lot more difficult to teach interpersonal skills compared to the technical skills. Depending on whichever job you are applying for, you might note down your abilities to maintain a good relationship with your employees or customers at every level of the company.

7. Abilities to solve problems and initiate

You need to prove how important you were in the past to your managers by elaborating every example in which you were the initiator towards solving the problems during the special projects.

List of 21+ Soft Skills & Abilities for Resume

So we’ve compiled a quick list of soft skills and abilities for you to put on your resume.  However, you can refer to our post about the list of soft skills that can help you improve your professional life for more details.

  • Adaptability
  • Communication
  • Capability to Work Under Pressure
  • Conflict Resolution
  • Decision Making
  • Self-motivation
  • Time Management
  • Problem Solving
  • Collaboration
  • Strong Work Ethic
  • Critical Thinking
  • Self-Confidence
  • Handling Pressure
  • Negotiation
  • Self Driven
  • Client Service Skills
  • Presentation Skills
  • Business Etiquette
  • Taking Ownership
  • Taking Responsibility

List of 35+ Hard Skills & Abilities for Resume

We’ve also compiled a list of hard skills and abilities for resume and CVs that you can highlight when mentioning your experience for the roles that you are applying for.

  • Advanced Bookkeeping
  • Automotive Repair
  • Bookkeeping
  • Computer Languages
  • Conversion Testing
  • Copywriting
  • Data Analysis
  • Digital Marketing
  • Electrical Engineering
  • Environmental Cleanup
  • Foreign Languages
  • Graphic Design
  • Heavy Machinery Operation
  • Lansdscaping
  • Legal Research
  • Legal Transcription
  • Marketing Strategy
  • Mathematics
  • Media Buying
  • Media Planning
  • Medical Coding
  • Office Administration
  • Paid Online Traffic
  • Phone Handling
  • Planning / Event Planning
  • Schedule Management
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • SEO / SEM Marketing
  • Social Media Strategy
  • Systems Analysis
  • Website Design
  • Word Processing

List of Communication Skills Resume

Here is a list of few good points that you can add to your “ communication skills ” resume (You can read up about key communication barriers )

  • Approach all the activities deliberately and make sure that all the tasks have been completed in the best manner possible.
  • Mark my goals, stay focused and achieve great levels of multitasking. Complete several tasks simultaneously in a go and reach all targets.
  • Never stop striving to learn something new. Stay up to date with the latest technologies and skills.
  • Always willing to keep a good attitude with my peers , working hard enough to set and achieve my targeted goals.
  • Always open towards criticism and suggestions for peers, bosses, teachers to strengthen all weaknesses wherever needed and possible.
  • Perform all duties better than what is asked for. Ensure utter satisfaction by maintaining high personal standards of the produced work.
  • Adapt to all the situations coming your way by developing solutions according to each client’s satisfaction.
  • Have a flexible approach towards the solutions for every challenge , solving problems in the most efficient way possible.
  • Respond very logically and calmly when pressurize by the obstacles and developing changes.
  • Come up with adaptable methodologies in order to manage time constraints and schedules that are unpredictable.
  • Revise all my sale strategies accordingly with the new customer trends.
  • Adapted to every new standard of the industry, ensuring that our business is compliant with every guideline.
  • In order to strengthen the brand’s awareness, foster a strong customer relationship.

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11 Best Communication Skills for Your Resume (With Examples)

11 min read · Updated on February 13, 2024

Ken Chase

Are you properly conveying communication skills in your resume?

When it comes to employment skills, few are more important than the ability to effectively communicate with others. No matter your profession, chances are that you'll need some level of communication skill to interact with co-workers, managers, subordinates, and customers. As a result, employers who are evaluating potential hires always want to see evidence of communication skills in a resume.

But which communication skills should you include in your resume to make the best possible impression on employers?

In this post, we'll explain why you need to highlight these skills in your resume, examine 11 of the top communication skills, and offer tips to help you demonstrate those abilities. We'll also provide examples that show you how to include this critical information.

Why should you include communication skills in your resume?

While your hard skills - specific, measurable, job-related abilities - typically form the core of any job description's required qualifications, soft skills cannot be overlooked in your resume. In fact, those interpersonal abilities can play a significant role in any hiring decision that involves two otherwise equally competent candidates. If you're competing for a job against someone with equivalent technical capabilities and experience, that difference in soft skills may determine who gets hired.

When you include communication skills in your resume, you're letting an employer know that you have interpersonal abilities that can make you a valuable member of their team. That's an important consideration for any employer, of course. Companies want new hires who can do more than just fulfill their duties; they want team players who fit well within their organization.

Related post : The Essential Steps of Your Communication Process

Types of communication skills

It's important to understand what we mean when we talk about communication skills. For our purposes, we can categorize these skills into three distinct types:

Verbal skills . These communication skills include everything from conveying information or persuading others to public speaking and dealing with customer complaints.

Written skills . Many jobs require the ability to write in a concise and informative manner. These skills can include everything from informal emails to professional briefs, client presentations, and detailed reports for superiors.

Interpersonal skills . The third type of communication skill involves all those abilities that you use to interact with others. They can include things like empathy, active listening, and conflict resolution.

  What are the top 11 communication skills employers want to see?

Below are 11 of the top communication skills for resumes. As you might expect, there are many others that you might want to consider as well. However, these 11 skills are among the most sought-after that employers are looking for in job candidates.

1.     Active listening

Active listening is a prized communication skill. This ability goes well beyond simply hearing what others say, and instead involves the ability to actively understand their message. People with these skills can connect with others, build trust, and participate in collaborative problem-solving efforts.

Active listening includes a host of other skills, including the ability to ask probing questions, provide nonverbal and verbal cues that show that you're paying attention, and paraphrase what you're hearing to confirm your understanding of the message.

Related post : What are the Types of Listening Skills? 8 Types Explained

2.     Empathy

Empathy is a vital interpersonal trait and one of the most important leadership communication skills. People with empathy tend to be more curious and open-minded, have a keener sense of self-awareness, and are less likely to be hostage to their own natural biases and preconceptions. They value other people's perspectives and are willing to entertain ideas that challenge their beliefs.

3.     Conflict management and resolution

Conflict is an inevitable feature of human interaction - including in the workplace. If you have excellent conflict resolution skills, it's important to highlight them in your resume. Employers will be interested in knowing that you're capable of resolving interpersonal conflict in your work setting, since that can have a direct and positive impact on productivity and workplace harmony.

4.     Presentation skills

There are many jobs that require the ability to make presentations to superiors, customers, shareholders, or even coworkers. Good presentation skills enable you to compellingly convey information to others, persuade them to consider your point of view, or simply keep your target audience apprised of relevant developments.

5.     Writing skills

Effective writing skills are important in virtually every industry and a wide variety of roles. Obviously, many jobs will require simple writing tasks like composing emails, but there are a whole host of other writing abilities that employers may be looking for. These can include everything from legal briefs or technical writing to advertising copy, marketing presentations, contract creation, and more. Depending on the job you're seeking, including these important communication skills in your resume could be vital.

6.     Team building

The ability to build and work with teams is another important leadership communication skill for your resume. Whether you're interested in a managerial or executive role, this skill set is something that you'll need to succeed in that leadership position. Effective team builders know how to work with others to solve problems, are skilled in delegating work to competent subordinates, and know how to help team members reach their full potential.

Related post : 20 Key Leadership Competencies for Success (Plus Tips!)

7.     Motivation

Employers also appreciate candidates who possess useful motivational skills. While the ability to set goals, maintain a positive attitude, and rally others to achieve a shared objective is essential for leadership, it can also be an invaluable skill for anyone who works in a collaborative setting. By including these communication skills in your resume, you can ensure that employers recognize your ability to inspire others and drive productivity in the workplace.

Related post : 6 Qualities of Managers Who Practice Inspiring Leadership

8.     Openness to feedback

Hiring managers also want to see that you're capable of receiving feedback, whether it's constructive criticism or praise. These skills reflect a commitment to teamwork and continual improvement, both of which are highly prized by today's employers. It's a bonus if you're also adept at providing feedback to others. That desire to develop as an employee and help others to reach their full potential can make you an attractive candidate for many jobs.

9.     Honesty

You might not think of honesty as a communication skill, but it is. Whether you're an entry-level worker or a manager, it's important for others to know that they can trust your words. Of course, honesty encompasses more than just being truthful. It also includes character traits like trustworthiness, responsibility, accountability, and reliability. Honest people are seen as authentic and confident, traits that all good leaders possess.

10.  Emotional intelligence

As the workplace has grown more complex in recent years, hiring managers have placed greater emphasis on employees' emotional intelligence. That's a fancy term that simply describes your ability to manage your own emotions, understand your own interactions with others, and use that knowledge and insight to control stress, relate to others, communicate in a clear and effective way, and manage conflict.

People with high emotional intelligence often excel at interpersonal relations in the workplace and tend to be competent leaders. Their ability to recognize their own emotions and the feelings of others around them can help them to make more informed decisions. Including examples of your use of emotional intelligence can help to highlight those critical interpersonal communication skills in your resume.

11.  Negotiating

Negotiation skills are also highly prized in most industries, so make sure that you highlight these abilities in your resume too. Successful negotiators are adept at problem-solving, persuasive communication, and conflict resolution - skills that are useful in nearly every industry. Include an achievement in your professional experience section that highlights your negotiation skills, demonstrating how those abilities provided measurable value to a previous employer. 

Tips you can use to highlight these skills in your resume

Of course, being familiar with these different communication skills is just the first step. You also need to know how to highlight them in your resume. The following tips can help you with that process.

Match your skills to keywords in the job posting

Always make sure that you review the job posting to identify specific communication-related skills that are listed as job requirements. Wherever possible, use those exact terms in your resume as you describe various communication skills that you've used in previous jobs. That will help to ensure that your resume is found by an applicant tracking system when an employer conducts a search.

Focus on measurable achievements

Don't just say that you have certain communication skills. Show that you have them by including them as achievements in your resume summary or professional experience section. Make sure that you describe how you used those skills to produce measurable value for your employer. Use real numbers to help the reader understand the type of value you can provide as a potential hire.

Always be brief and to the point

Brevity is important, since hiring managers often sift through dozens or even hundreds of resumes. Make sure that you highlight communication skills and other abilities as concisely as possible to optimize space in your resume. Remember also that your writing skills will be on full display as you create the resume, so you probably won't need to spend much time boasting about them.

Communication skills: resume examples you can use

As we noted, there are several ways that you can highlight communication skills in your resume. You can include mention of them in your resume summary, list several within your core competencies section, and highlight examples of their use in your professional experience section. Below are some examples to show you how this is done.

Communication skills in your resume summary

Detail-oriented Office Manager with 10 years of experience managing office operations and interdepartmental communications. Managed 21-person team responsible for accounts totaling $123 million a year. Researched, drafted, and implemented interoffice communication changes that reduced waste by 22%, expedited internal processing and increased departmental revenue by 19% in the first year.

Communication skills in your skills section

Including these communication skills in your core competencies, or skills, section is a simple matter. Pick the skills that most closely align with the job requirements, and list them in bullet point form alongside other key soft skills and your technical proficiencies. For example:

Copywriting

Email management

Media communications

Presentations

Team building

Training management

Office management

Organization

Time management

Decision-making

Communication skills in your work experience section

When it comes to including your communication skills in a work experience section, you again need to focus on notable achievements. Use real numbers that demonstrate value and create several bullet point accomplishment examples for each job listing in this section. You only need to include a couple of examples of how you used your communication skills, of course, since you'll likely also want to highlight other core job-related skills too. Here are some examples that show how to do this:

Reorganized office information flow to speed up client onboarding and account management, resulting in growth of 12% in client acquisition and an increase of 40% in retention

Created an innovative training program for new office transfers, focused on new skills and employee growth. Program resulted in 60% drop in employee attrition, contributing to a 13% increase in revenues in the first quarter of implementation

Negotiated resolution to client conflict that saved a $2 million project contract and led to a 30% expansion in business with the customer over the next two years

Related post : 47 Accomplishment Examples for Your Resume: Expert Picks

Achieve job search success by including communication skills in your resume

Much of your resume will be devoted to highlighting your job-related skills and experiences, but that's no reason to neglect these important soft skills. Conveying effective communication skills in your resume can be a terrific way to demonstrate that you're the best candidate for any job, and may be just what you need to differentiate yourself from your competition!

Are you still not sure if you've properly included your communication skills in your resume? Get a free resume review from our team of experts today!

Recommended reading:

Soft Skills Explained - and the Top 7 for Your Resume

What Are Skills? (With Examples and Tips on How to Improve Them)

These 14 Leadership Traits Can Fuel Your Career Success

Related Articles:

How to Write a Cover Letter (With Example)

Do Hiring Managers Actually Read Cover Letters?

How to Create a Resume With No Education

See how your resume stacks up.

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13 skills examples for resumes that grab recruiters’ attention

What skills should you put on your resume.

Write a resume as unique as you

You have a distinctive and impressive skillset that sets you apart from other candidates, making you the best fit for a new role. But how can you effectively showcase your exceptional abilities and capture the attention of recruiters?

If you’re ready to make a career move, it’s time to dust off your resume. And when you’re adding your latest professional experience, you should also highlight your innate talents and special skills — these attributes make your application exciting and memorable. 

Of course, crafting a compelling resume can be challenging. The stakes are high, and resumes follow a fairly strict format, meaning you don’t have much creative (or spatial) leeway.

Deciding on the right unique skills for your resume can make or break the success of an application. Sit down, open your laptop, and seize this opportunity to stand out in the job market.

The best skills to put on a resume are the ones that best describe you. Don’t stretch the truth — keep descriptions accurate. But don’t be shy to show off what makes you an unbeatable fit for the role. 

If you’re struggling to brainstorm, we can help. Check out these 13 attention-grabbing hard and soft skills:

Hard skills

Hard skills are learned abilities, often technical or creative. These are key skills to put on a resume because they demonstrate how well you’ll be able to meet and exceed the granular, day-to-day expectations of a position. 

If you’re applying for a UX position and have graphic design skills, adding this tidbit to your resume tips off a hiring manager and tells them you would bring a keen visual eye to the role. Similarly, highlighting strong editing skills for a marketing job could be a plus, as you’ll likely have to produce snappy copy. 

Here are a few essential hard skills to consider adding to your resume: 

Writing: Most roles, particularly ones that involve client interactions, demand excellent writing skills. Whether you expect to craft perfect emails to customers or generate blurbs for social media, having a solid understanding of style and grammar is worth highlighting on your resume.

woman-writing-with-pen-on-notebook-at-home-unique-skills-on-resume

If you’re applying for a writing-forward position, such as SEO content generation, advertising your skills in this area is a must. Include what type of content you’ve generated, the publications or companies you’ve worked with, and any relevant metrics that demonstrate the content’s success.

Project management: While it’s obvious that a project manager needs to highlight this skill, any person applying for a leadership or tech role should include this point on their resume.

Consider a software developer: they may spend most of their time coding but likely also participate in Agile sprints or similar project management structures. And working knowledge of project management methodologies is a resume booster across various industries and niches.

Data analysis: Aspiring data analysts should itemize technical skills. (You could even list them in a spreadsheet.) Be sure to use search-browser-friendly terms that align with those hiring managers seek for data analysis roles, such as SQL, data modeling, and business intelligence.

Graphic design: Anyone in a design-focused career — including marketers, content creators, and developers — should highlight graphic design skills. If you’re applying for a design-based role, you might get more specific and call out unique knowledge or qualifications, such as the specific applications you’re proficient in.

Language skills: In the age of remote work, language skills are a plus — and sometimes a must. Many tech companies, for example, have cross-cultural teams. Speaking a second language that promotes better understanding between you and your coworkers in another part of the world makes you a more versatile, empathetic candidate. 

woman-talking-to-coworker-at-desk-unique-skills-on-resume

Soft skills

Soft skills define a person’s character. Some socially-oriented abilities are inherent, but you accumulate or perfect others in your professional and personal relationships. Everyone communicates, but it takes work to become an expert listener or great at public speaking .

Not everyone has the same soft abilities — that’s what makes them stand out as special skills for your resumes. Some people are natural-born leaders, while others prefer collaborative work in a team setting. There’s room for everyone’s soft skills at most companies, and many recruiters — 93% of them, to be exact — want to see them. Here are a few in-demand soft skills worth listing on your resume:  

Communication: Are you excellent at active listening ? Do you have the patience to facilitate difficult conversations?Briefly describe what’s unique about your interpersonal skills instead of simply stating that communication is a strong suit.

Problem-solving: Conflict and obstacles are inevitable in any workplace. Being able to think critically about issues, draft potential solutions, and select the correct route forward is a valuable skill. Highlighting the skill implies you can face a roadblock with a clear head, which is what employers want to hear.

Leadership: Anyone in a workplace can be a leader , no matter their position or seniority. A team member who steps up because they have specific knowledge that can help a project is a leader. A relatively new employee who shows an even newer one the ropes is a leader, too. Listing this soft skill tells a recruiter you can motivate, guide, and support others.

colleagues-discussing-something-at-meeting-with-manager-unique-skills-on-resume

Highlight this skill and let the work experience on your resume do the rest. Perhaps one of the bullet points under your last job is that you “Led a team of five developers to complete an app development project successfully” or “Took the initiative to introduce an innovative planning method.” These anecdotes demonstrate leadership and back up your skills section.

Time management: This top skill for resumes is important because virtually all employees must possess it. Whether you’re coordinating a project for a team or ensuring you finish your tasks on time, you must prioritize and schedule work and respect others’ expectations in order to mesh with a team.

Ability to work on a team (and independently): Hiring managers want to know how you’ll fit into the team. Highlight your ability to collaborate with others and take initiative on solo work by listing specific and relevant skills, such as conflict resolution and the ability to perform research.

Adaptability: In the workplace, you have to shift to meet changing project landscapes and circumvent roadblocks. Show — don’t tell — your ability to do so by listing various unique tasks and projects in which you’ve been involved. Tailor the list to the needs of the role: for example, if you’re applying to a development job, include some of the most out-of-the-box pieces of software you’ve worked on.

Self-motivation: Show hiring managers that you take the initiative to learn and grow by highlighting your ability to self-motivate. Cite a specific occasion when you taught yourself a new skill, vied for a promotion, or devised a new way of working. 

Customer service skills: Relating to clients is a communication skill that not everyone has — if you’ve got it, flaunt it. Someone needs to handle client-facing work, so if you excel at explaining concepts to others, selling products or services, or representing a company well, let potential employers know. 

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Your resume is a powerful marketing tool — use it to showcase your unique abilities and align with the specific requirements of each job you apply for. While there's no one-size-fits-all approach to selecting the perfect skills for your potential employer, here are some tips to help your application stand out :

  • Customize for the role: Tailor your resume to each role by thoroughly analyzing the job description. Extract essential keywords and phrases like "takes initiative" or "knowledge of InDesign" and incorporate them into your resume using the same language. This approach allows recruiters to quickly identify key qualifications that align with their needs.

manager-looking-at-resume-on-computer-and-taking-notes-unique-skills-on-resume

  • Avoid excessive lists: Be selective and intentional with the skills you include. If you're applying for an advanced developer role, there's no need to state basic skills like using Microsoft Office (recruiters will assume you know this). Focus on relevant assets that add clear value to the specific role you're applying for.
  • Create a balanced resume: While customizing your resume to match the job description is important, don't forget to make it stand out. Strike a balance between showcasing the skills recruiters are looking for and emphasizing what makes you special.
  • Expand on your talents: Consider creating a dedicated skills section to list languages, software proficiency, and other abilities that don’t require elaboration. However, ensure your experience section also highlights your talents with specific examples of professional growth and successful initiatives.

Write a resume as unique as you 

You’re the only person in the world with your blend of talents, experience, and skills. A resume is your opportunity to prove this to potential employers.

Editing your resume to fit every role you apply to can be tedious work, but it’s worthwhile. Your resume may be your first and only chance to present yourself to a recruiter. Put your best foot forward and include the most impactful and unique skills on your resume.  

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Elizabeth Perry

Content Marketing Manager, ACC

Hard skills versus soft skills and which to use on your resume

Best work accomplishments to list on your resume (with examples), 12 resume objective examples and tips for writing one, resume best practices: how far back should a resume go, how to create a resume with chatgpt, stand out to your hiring panel with a personal value statement, the 16 best resume builders for every situation, answer “how do you define success” like a pro, why salary negotiation is the next skill you need to master, similar articles, 24 action verbs for your resume that will get you the job, 20 marketing skills professionals should have in 2023, resume dos and don’ts: 29 tips for writing your best resume, cv versus resume demystify the differences once and for all, how to choose a career: 7 things to consider, wondering what you're good at here are 10 ways to figure it out, 3 different types of resumes to suit various scenarios, stay connected with betterup, get our newsletter, event invites, plus product insights and research..

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UMGC Career Connection 6 Soft Skills Your Resume Needs

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When putting together your resume, you’ll want to include your education, work history, achievements, and skills. Most often, a resume showcases both hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills consist of technical abilities such as working knowledge of the Microsoft Suite, while soft skills closely relate to your personality and how you interact with others. Here are some of the best soft skills you should seek to develop right away.

The ability to effectively collaborate with others is very important, and you’d be hard-pressed to find an employer who isn’t looking to improve its teams’ efficiency and productivity. If you’re particularly skilled when it comes to working with others, don’t forget to add it to your resume. Even if you’re a first-time job seeker, you’ve probably worked collaboratively with other students on any number of major projects, and this is also suitable for your resume.

To demonstrate your ability to collaborate with others on your resume, try using words and phrases such as “team building,” “networking,” “leadership,” and of course, “collaboration.” Here, you could include something along the lines of “Collaborated with a team of five other members.” If you have a quantifiable example such as meeting a deadline or increasing sales, you could also attach that to your teamwork skill on your resume.

Adaptability

Being able to adapt to changing environments and circumstances is crucial for almost any professional role, as technology and practices are always evolving. Additionally, your day-to-day isn’t immune to unexpected scenarios such as a coworker calling out sick or quitting suddenly, which can complicate matters when there’s an ongoing project with a deadline quickly approaching.

When you demonstrate your ability to adapt to potential employers, it shows that you handle stress well, and that you can think on your feet. If you want to include this skill on your resume, use words such as “patient,” “cooperative,” “positive,” and “flexible.” Let’s say your previous job required you to learn several new programs in order to complete your daily tasks—listing this on your resume is a great way to demonstrate your ability to adapt.

Reliability

Employers like candidates who are dependable and consistent. Are you a great independent worker who self-motivates to get the job done? Do you hold yourself accountable and can the other members of your team rely on you during challenging circumstances? If so, it would be to your advantage to include it on your resume.

There are lots of ways to demonstrate your reliability to potential employers. Some great words and phrases to use are “independent,” “organized,” “multitasking,” and “time management.” If you’ve completed a major project ahead of schedule or taken charge during a particularly difficult moment, those are great examples to include if you’re trying to show potential employers that you’re reliable.

those are great examples to include if you’re trying to show potential employers that you’re reliable.

Being able to think creatively is an excellent quality. Creativity leads to innovation and is great for devising new strategies and solving complex problems. In addition to this, creativity can help you develop hard skills such as graphic design or copywriting. People who think creatively are often able to examine a situation from a variety of different angles, and employers really like that.

To show your creative thinking skills on your resume, build off of words and phrases such as “imaginative,” “outside the box,” “conceptual,” and “brainstorming.” If you have an example where you employed creative measures to solve a problem, add it to your resume. Always remember, employers prefer problem-solvers over problem-identifiers, which leads us to our next entry.

Problem-solving

Every boss loves a good problem-solver. This ability often goes along with being creative, as certain problems require a little extra brain power to solve. The best problem-solvers are highly resourceful individuals who think quickly and take the initiative. If this sounds like you, then you’ll be able to make yourself stand out with your problem-solving skills.

To demonstrate your ability to solve problems on your resume, choose words and phrases such as “innovative,” “resourceful,” “level-headed,” and “analytical.” As always, if you have an example of a time where you solved a problem, include it on your resume. For the best results, provide examples that are tied to quantifiable data, such as sales numbers or a successful social media campaign.

Communication

Communication is arguably the most important skill on this list because without good communication, all the other skills are nearly useless. When team members communicate well with one another, progress is made, problems are solved more easily, and new and exciting ideas emerge. Keep in mind that being a good communicator also includes being a good listener and understanding different forms of communication such as non-verbal cues.

If you’re looking to showcase your communication skills to potential employers, use words and phrases such as “public speaking,” “conflict resolution,” “presentation,” and “confident.” This is one of those skills you might have started to develop in college, perhaps through a public speaking course. If this is the case, it’s appropriate to include mention of that on your resume.

It’s also worth mentioning that soft skills are often transferable skills. In other words, most soft skills you develop are relevant to any industry or role. Transferable skills are great if you’re looking to upgrade your current role or if you want to change careers. For more on transferable skills, check out our previous blog here . In certain cases, soft skills are more sought-after than hard skills, so make sure you include them on your resume.

This article is reposted with permission from Vault .

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  • 11 Best Administrative Skills...

11 Best Administrative Skills for Your Resume (With Examples)

11 min read · Updated on February 15, 2024

Ronda Suder

Discover the top administrative skills to make your resume stand out

Having strong administrative skills means you're able to plan events and projects, manage time, and keep things organized and running like a well-oiled machine. It also means you come to the table with the ability to communicate and engage with the customers, clients, and stakeholders of a company. 

Though administrative skills are necessary for jobs like Administrative Assistants, Receptionists, and Office Managers, they also add value to virtually any position across the various industries you might find yourself employed in. Since they're highly valued by employers, it benefits you to ensure you highlight sought-after administrative skills on your resume. 

In this post, we cover:

What administrative skills are

Why administrative skills on resumes are important

Some of the most in-demand administrative skills for resumes

How to highlight administrative skills on resumes

Where to include administrative skills on resumes

Administrative skills defined

Administrative skills are a series of qualities that, when combined, allow you to help manage a business or department or run an office. They include both hard skills, like knowing how to use a specific software application, and soft skills, like communication and problem solving. Examples of essential administrative tasks might include communicating with employees, filing, running reports, calendar management, and answering client questions. 

Why administrative skills are important to employers

People with strong administrative skills tend to be reliable self-starters with the ability to organize and manage time well. With a diverse skill set, they're valued by employers because they help organizations to maintain productivity and keep things running smoothly - they're a cornerstone of a company's success.  Any successful business will not only have administrative staff with strong administrative skills on their resume, but will also have other employees throughout the organization that apply these types of skills in their various jobs.

Administrative skills are also some of the most transferable skills between industries and job types. Administrative skills required for a role in the marketing sector would be applicable and transferable to the energy sector, for example. 

What are some of the most in-demand administrative skills for resumes?

When it comes to administrative skills on resumes, there are many that can make you stand out to hiring teams. Here are 11 of the top administrative skills to consider for your resume, and why they're important. 

1. Communication

Communication - both verbal and written - is a daily requirement for virtually any position. Those in administrative positions often need to communicate in different forms with a variety of people, both internal and external to the business, from employees and executives to clients and contractors. 

2. Microsoft 365

We're all familiar with certain Microsoft 365 applications, like Microsoft Word and Outlook. However, those with solid technical administrative skills on their resume tend to be knowledgeable in how to use all applications in the suite, including Excel, PowerPoint, and OneDrive. 

3. Organization

With the many plates employees often have spinning all at once, it's vital they hone in on the administrative skill of organization. In fact, it's one of the most important administrative skills to ensure things run smoothly within a team, department, or business. When you're organized, you tend to have good time management and planning skills as well, which are also sought-after administrative skills on resumes. 

4. Problem solving

We're constantly solving problems every day, including at work. A good problem solver identifies the problem, proposes solutions, chooses the best solution, and implements the it. Strong problem solvers support business continuity, innovation, and inspiration, making it a highly valuable administrative skill on resumes.  

5. Scheduling

Though essentially all employees have to maintain their schedules, administrative positions, in particular, often have the daunting task of keeping up with several schedules at once. In addition to calendar management, Administrators often have to coordinate and schedule meetings, travel arrangements, and events for the teams or individuals they support, making scheduling a vital technical skill to have.  

6. Flexibility

Change is the only constant, as they say, which requires flexibility. Employees need to be flexible to successfully adapt to changing priorities, demands, and requests. Without flexibility, work can be more stressful and productivity can take a hit.  

7. Working well under stress

Tight deadlines, quick turnaround times, multiple requests, several projects all at once, and day-to-day tasks can feel like a lot for any employee. Being able to work well under stress is necessary to stay on top of things without becoming overwhelmed, which can slow things down. When you work well under stress, you also tend to be good at multitasking, another valuable administrative skill. 

8. Customer service

For positions that are customer and client facing, strong interpersonal and customer service skills are necessary administrative skills. This is especially true for service and support-oriented positions. 

9. Teamwork

Though administrative professionals tend to be on point to keep things operating as needed, they do so as part of a team. The same goes for individual contributors who, while being responsible for their own tasks and activities, contribute to the department and generally work as part of a team to accomplish department and organizational goals and objectives. 

10. Detail orientation

When you're managing calendars, sharing business information, planning events, or drafting presentations, you must pay attention to the details to ensure accuracy and efficiency. Mistakes in these areas can be costly - if not in terms of dollars, in terms of added stress and lost time. As such, employers want to know they can trust you to adequately cross all the t's and dot all the i's when they hire you to do a job, making attention to detail an in-demand administrative skill.    

11. Event coordination

Administrative professionals, in particular, are often responsible for planning events of varying sizes. Coordinating company events, holiday parties, staff meetings, and more can all fall under the administrative umbrella. What's great about highlighting event coordination skills is that you're showing several other administrative skills at the same time, including organization, communication, multitasking, collaboration, and problem-solving.

Additional administrative skills for resumes 

The above list is just a launching point to help you get started with your own list of administrative skills to include on your resume. Below are some additional hard and soft skills often found on administrative resumes to provide even more inspiration.

Administrative hard skills for resumes

Office equipment use

Database management

Videoconferencing

Expense reporting

Google Docs

File management

Administrative soft skills for resumes

Decision-making

Interpersonal skills

Prioritization

Active listening

Critical thinking

Open-mindedness

How to highlight administrative skills on your resume

Make a list of your administrative-related skills and accomplishments. Using this post as inspiration, sit down and thoughtfully list all of the administrative skills you possess. From there, make a list of all of the administrative duties and responsibilities you've held, as well as any work accomplishments related to administrative skills you've applied or positions you've held. 

Refer to the job description. Review the job description you're interested in and highlight any administrative skills and experience required. Then, compare that to the list you created based on your work history. Be sure your resume includes the administrative skills and experience you have that align with the job description. This is a great way to incorporate keywords into your resume to pass an employer's applicant tracking system , or ATS, and grab the attention of hiring managers.

Showcase soft and hard (technical) skills throughout your resume. For maximum benefit, highlight both hard and soft administrative skills throughout your resume. Hard skills are measurable and learned skills, whereas soft skills are intangible and difficult to measure, though vital for job success. We discuss where and how to include hard and soft skills in the next section. 

Highlight soft skills through on-the-job accomplishments and achievements. Unlike with technical skills, you don't want to merely list soft skills on your resume. Instead, you want to show off your soft skills through the achievements you choose to highlight. For example, consider the following:

Oversaw and coordinated a 5-hour corporate event for 1,000 employees, showcasing the executive team and highlighting employee achievements and milestones for 2023

This achievement highlights organization, time management, attention to detail, critical thinking, and creativity administrative soft skills, to name a few. 

Where to highlight administrative skills on your resume

Now that you know how to come up with administrative skills to include on a resume, where can you incorporate them? Any of the following are excellent options:

Resume Summary

Skills or core competencies section.

Experience section

Certifications section

Additional sections.

Your resume summary , that sits just below your contact information, is where you can pack a punch to entice resume readers to keep reading. Here are a couple of examples of how to include administrative skills in your resume summary:

Administrative professional example

Administrator with over 5 years of experience working with C-suite executives to navigate organizational challenges and provide solutions to maintain business continuity and operations. Managed up to 15 calendars at one time using effective scheduling, time management, and organizational skills. 

What are some of the administrative skills this summary speaks to? How about:

Communication

Organization

Problem solving

Time management

Stress management

Multitasking

Non-administrative individual contributor example

Focused engineering professional with 10 years of experience in the oil & gas sector. Leverages solid problem-solving skills to address concerns in high-stakes environments, with the flexibility required to adjust priorities and maintain productivity. Organized and led a $2M pipeline construction project to upgrade pipeline requirements, meeting current industry standards. 

Some of the administrative skills that this summary highlights include:

Prioritizing

Flexibility

Attention to detail

It can be beneficial to include a Core Competencies section just below your resume summary to showcase your technical skills, as well pertinent soft skills. For example:

Core Competencies

Customer Service | Microsoft 365 | Quickbooks | Research | Scheduling   |   Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) | Oracle Applicant Tracking System | Certified Administrative Professional (CAP) | Event Coordination

Alternatively, the hard skills listed could all also go under a Technical Skills section near the end of your resume:

Technical Skills

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)   |   Microsoft 365   |   Quickbooks   |   Research   |   ATS Proficiency   |   Event Coordination   |   Scheduling

Avoid being repetitive and listing the same skills in both a Core Competencies and Skills section - only choose one of the two if you don't have different skills to include in each list.

Work Experience section

Another section to highlight your stellar administrative skills is in the Work Experience section. Here's an example that showcases focus, stress management, communication, filing, organization, switchboard management, time management, and more, all in just three bullet points!

Receptionist

ABC Company, Houston, TX

July 2021 - Present

Managed switchboard for three office buildings housing over 750 employees

Answered client questions regarding products and services, handling a high call volume of 40 to 50 calls per day

Spearheaded development of a new filing system for improved organization of client cases related to issues and concerns

If you hold any administrative-related certifications, you can choose to include them in a Certifications section on your resume. Relevant certifications not only showcase acquired administrative skills and knowledge, but also indicate your dedication to professional development. 

Examples of in-demand administrative certifications are:

Microsoft 365

Certified Administrative Professional (CAP)

Administrative Assistant Certification (CAA)

Microsoft Office Specialist Certification (MOS)

Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM)

Professional Administrative Certification of Excellence (PACE)

Finally, some might choose to highlight administrative skills on their resume by including additional sections, such as:

Volunteer Work

Hobbies & Interests

Extracurricular Activities

Special Projects

Including additional sections on a resume can benefit those who have gaps in administrative work experience, skills, or education.

Top tip: why not check out our Office Administrative Assistant resume example ?

Administrative skills = valuable assets for any resume

Whether you're applying for an administrative position or any other type of position, administrative skills on resumes add value and tend to stand out to hiring managers. Now, you're equipped with some of the most in-demand administrative skills to include on your resume, as well as advice on how and where to incorporate them. With these tips, you'll be landing those interviews in no time! 

Are you representing administrative skills on your resume appropriately? Why not submit it for a free resume review to find out?

Recommended reading:

How to Use a Reverse Chronological Resume Format

How to Check if My Resume is ATS-Friendly for Free

How to Show Promotions on a Resume (with Examples)

Related Articles:

How to Write a Cover Letter (With Example)

Do Hiring Managers Actually Read Cover Letters?

How to Create a Resume With No Education

See how your resume stacks up.

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  1. 30 Essential Skills for a Professional Resume [+ Examples]

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  2. Key Skills to Put on a Resume & List of Skills Examples

    resume help skills and abilities

  3. Cv Examples Skills Abilities

    resume help skills and abilities

  4. 100 Resume Skills Examples (2023) (2023)

    resume help skills and abilities

  5. 44+ Good Skills For Resume Images

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  6. Resume Skills List. Need help adding resume skills to impress employers

    resume help skills and abilities

COMMENTS

  1. 10 Best Skills To Put On Your Resume (With Examples and FAQ)

    Here are 10 examples of the best resume skills employers may be seeking: 1. Active listening skills. Active listening refers to the ability to focus completely on the person who you're communicating with. Active listening helps you to understand their message, comprehend the information and respond thoughtfully.

  2. 200+ Best Skills To List on Your Resume in 2024

    Here are 12 of the most popular industry-specific hard skills to list on your resume: 1. Design. Companies in nearly every industry need creatives with a strong sense of design to help them develop attractive products and content. Specific examples of design-related hard skills include: UI/UX design. Photography.

  3. 100 Good Skills to Put on a Resume [Complete Guide]

    Here's a quick way to get started. 1. Make a List of the Skills You Know You Have. As mentioned above, the easiest way to get a grip on your current skills is to reflect on your academic and professional experiences. Consider the tasks you've taken on, the training you've completed, and the courses you had in school.

  4. 120 Essential Skills To List on a Resume

    When applying for a remote or hybrid position, picking which soft skills to highlight on your resume is especially important. Collaboration, flexibility, troubleshooting and problem-solving are a few skills that hiring managers will be looking for in a new remote employee.—. Mary Morgan, SHRM-CP.

  5. 250+ Skills for Your Resume (and How to Add Them)

    10. Decision-making skills. Many jobs require you to make choices all the time. For example, picking a new vendor for office supplies, making cuts to a budget, deciding to bring other people in to solve an issue, or prioritizing work tasks on your to-do list all require decision-making skills.

  6. How to List Skills on a Resume (Real Skill Examples)

    Hard skills are specific, teachable, and tangible. They can be measured and tested using assignments and assessments. Hard skills are learned, either through on-the-job training or through school, rather than coming naturally. Examples of hard skills for a resume: Statistics. Computer Programming.

  7. Top 15 Skills to Put on a Resume (Examples for All Jobs)

    2. Include Relevant Skills in a Separate Skills Section. This way, you'll help recruiters spot strengths on your resume in a flash. Use a standalone skills section where you put your most important qualifications. Make sure to: Be precise ("Written and verbal communication," instead of "good communicator").

  8. 101 Essential Skills to Put on a Resume in 2024 [For Most Jobs]

    Interpersonal skills How to List Skills on a Resume (And Stand Out) #1. Tailor Your Skills to the Job #2. Create a Skills Section #3. Match Each Skill With Your Proficiency Level #4. Back-Up Your Skills in Other Resume Sections #5. Put Transferable Skills to Use 150+ Must-Have Skills (for Every Field) #1.

  9. 150 Top Skills for Your Resume + How to List Skills in 2024

    20 Good Skills to Put on a Resume. While we're going to give you plenty of job-specific resume skills, there are some that work across just about any field. These can add value for candidates who either lack work history or are creating an entry-level resume. Data Analysis. Problem-solving.

  10. 20 Best Skills to Include on Your Resume (Examples)

    Some examples of soft skills are adaptability, self-motivation, people skills, time management, and the ability to work under pressure. " Some great skills employers love to see on your resume if you are looking for remote work are: written and verbal communication, the ability to work independently, time and task management, organization ...

  11. 17 Best Skills to Put on Your Resume (with Examples)

    5. Languages. The world gets smaller every day, so being able to speak more than one language is a skill that you should definitely include on your resume. Adding multiple languages to your application makes you highly valuable in a globalized, connected working world.

  12. 17 Best Skills to Put on Your Resume for 2024

    When in doubt, you can't go wrong using these three top skills on your resume: 1. Managerial skills. If you have any managerial experience, add it to the relevant job description. Good managers can see the bigger picture, organize their teams around a common goal, and demonstrate effective communication techniques.

  13. How to List Skills on a Resume Skills Section in 2024

    2. Check the job ad. To create a job-winning resume skills section, list skills that are: relevant to the position. mentioned in the job description. While job descriptions often explicitly mention skills that are required or preferred, job ads sometimes hint at desired skills as well.

  14. Top Skills to Put on a Resume

    In your resume, include achievements that involve interacting well with others and stress "verbal and written communication" in your resume skills section. 2. Teamwork. Even if you're working remotely, collaborating with and supporting other team members remains an essential soft skill for your resume.

  15. Soft Skills for Your Resume: List & 100+ Examples for 2024

    3. Adaptability. Adaptability is an essential skill for embracing and adjusting to change, making it one of the best soft skills to have when working in fast-paced or constantly evolving environments or industries such as public relations, event management, tech, nursing, and advertising.

  16. 100+ Key Skills for a Resume in 2022 (Examples for any Job)

    Only list relevant skills. If you're applying for a position as an engineer, don't brag about your marketing abilities. Instead, save the space to list the software and programming languages that you know. List around 5 Skills. Writing too many skills on your resume can be an overwhelming experience for the recruiter.

  17. Skills You Need for Your Resume to Secure a Job

    These days, almost any job requires computer skills. So if the job ad mentions specific hardware or software skills, make sure you add them to your resume. Some common computer skills are: MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook) G Suite (Google Docs, Sheets, Drive, Gmail etc.) Spreadsheets.

  18. 20+ Skills for a Resume: Examples & How to List Them in 2020

    Here is an example of a resume that leads with Work Experience: 2. Key Skills Section. A Key Skills section, on the other hand, is listed at the top of a resume. This is the best option if you want to showcase your abilities and lead with your strengths.

  19. Skills to Put on a Resume: 100 Best Examples of Hard & Soft Skills

    Examples of soft skills include: Empathy. Teamwork. Problem-solving. As a general rule, you should include more technical skills than soft skills on your resume. Since soft skills are harder to measure, they tend to make less of an impact on your resume, even if they're just as important in the workplace.

  20. Personal Skills for Resume: Definition & 60+ Examples

    Make notes of your wins and challenges to see what's easy for you and what needs more time and work. 8. Practice as Much as Possible. Work on your planning skills by making a detailed plan for your next holiday trip, or work on communication skills by initiating conversations with people wherever you can. 9.

  21. List of 81+ Skills and Abilities for Resume

    Highlight what your approach is towards the organization of work. 5. Technical skills. Mention all the technical knowledge that you have related to the job you are applying for. A lot of jobs require you to have a background knowledge and expertise on most of the latest software. 6. Interpersonal skills.

  22. 11 Best Communication Skills for Your Resume (With Examples)

    While your hard skills - specific, measurable, job-related abilities - typically form the core of any job description's required qualifications, soft skills cannot be overlooked in your resume. In fact, those interpersonal abilities can play a significant role in any hiring decision that involves two otherwise equally competent candidates.

  23. 13 Unique Skills for Resumes to Make You Stand Out

    If you're struggling to brainstorm, we can help. Check out these 13 attention-grabbing hard and soft skills: Hard skills. Hard skills are learned abilities, often technical or creative. These are key skills to put on a resume because they demonstrate how well you'll be able to meet and exceed the granular, day-to-day expectations of a position.

  24. 6 Soft Skills Your Resume Needs

    Most often, a resume showcases both hard skills and soft skills. Hard skills consist of technical abilities such as working knowledge of the Microsoft Suite, while soft skills closely relate to your personality and how you interact with others. ... In addition to this, creativity can help you develop hard skills such as graphic design or ...

  25. 11 Best Administrative Skills for Your Resume (With Examples)

    Since they're highly valued by employers, it benefits you to ensure you highlight sought-after administrative skills on your resume. In this post, we cover: What administrative skills are. Why administrative skills on resumes are important. Some of the most in-demand administrative skills for resumes. How to highlight administrative skills on ...

  26. Technical Skills for a Resume

    1. Project Management. Your project management skills show employers that you can handle leading a team. Some of the technical skills employers look for when hiring managers are: Scrum and Agile proficiency. Technical reporting. Work scheduling software. Information technology. Data analytics.

  27. The Pros and Cons of Adding 'Soft Skills' to Your Resume

    Soft skills are the personal abilities you have with regards to how you work, how you interact with others, and how you communicate—things like communication style, time management, flexibility ...