Skills to put on a resume

What counts as a resume skill

A skill on a resume is something you can do that helps you perform the job. It can be a tool, a method, a language or a way of working. 'Bookkeeping', 'Python', 'patient intake' and 'forklift operation' are all skills.

Employers read the skills section for two reasons. They want a quick check that you have the basics, and their software often searches for specific terms. A clean skills list serves both purposes in a few lines.

The section is a summary, not the evidence. The proof sits in your work history. If you list 'budgeting', one of your bullets should show you doing it, such as 'Managed a yearly department budget of 120,000 in your currency and finished 4 per cent under'.

Hard skills and soft skills

Hard skills are teachable and measurable. Examples are spreadsheet formulas, welding, medication administration, translation or running a cash register. They are easy to verify, so employers weigh them heavily.

Soft skills describe how you work with people and problems: communication, scheduling, coaching, conflict handling. They matter, but a bare list of them says little. 'Good communicator' is something everyone claims.

A better approach is to put hard skills in the skills section and show soft skills through your bullets. Instead of listing 'leadership', write 'Trained six new hires and covered the evening shift schedule for a team of fourteen'. The reader sees leadership without you saying the word.

How to choose which skills to list

Start with the job posting. Copy out every skill, tool and qualification it names. Then cross out anything you cannot honestly claim. What remains is your core list.

Next, add skills that are not in the posting but are standard for the field. A fictional bookkeeper applying to Northwind Labs might add 'bank reconciliation' even if the posting only says 'accounts'. This shows you know the job.

• Keep the list to 8 to 14 items so it stays readable.
• Put the most relevant skills first, because readers look at the start.
• Use the same wording as the posting when it is accurate: 'customer relationship management' rather than your own variation.
• Drop skills that are assumed, such as 'email' or 'typing', unless the job is clerical.
• Remove outdated tools unless they are specifically requested.

Examples by role

Here are sample skills lines for four fictional candidates. A software developer might write: 'Python, JavaScript, SQL, REST APIs, Git, unit testing, Docker, code review'. A nurse might write: 'Patient assessment, medication administration, wound care, electronic health records, IV therapy, patient education'.

A retail supervisor could list: 'Cash handling, stock control, visual merchandising, staff scheduling, point-of-sale systems, customer complaints'. A marketing assistant might choose: 'Email campaigns, social media scheduling, basic design, copywriting, analytics reports, spreadsheet formulas'.

Each example is specific, short and written as a noun phrase. None includes ratings or progress bars. Those graphics look tidy but give no real information, and software that reads your file often skips them.

Where to put the skills section

If you are early in your career, place skills near the top, right after your summary. It gives the reader something concrete before your short work history. If you have years of experience, put it lower, after your jobs, because your record matters more than your keyword list.

Some people prefer to split the section into groups. Under the heading 'Skills' you could write 'Software: Excel, Tableau, SQL' on one line and 'Languages: English (fluent), Spanish (conversational)' on the next. Grouping is useful when you have more than ten items.

Use plain text for the whole section. Avoid tables, icons and text boxes, because many scanning systems read those badly. A simple line of items separated by commas or a short bulleted list is the safest.

Show your level honestly

You do not need to rate yourself, but you can note the level when it is useful. For languages, the standard terms are native, fluent, conversational and basic. For software, 'advanced Excel (pivot tables, lookups)' is more helpful than 'Excel: 4 out of 5'.

Be careful about overclaiming. If you write 'fluent in German' and the interviewer switches languages, you will feel it. A phrase like 'conversational German' is accurate and still counts.

The same goes for tools. If you used a program once in a course, either leave it out or put it in a project line, for example 'Built a budget tracker in Excel for a class project'. Employers forgive gaps in a skill list far more easily than they forgive a skill that does not exist.

Skills to avoid or rewrite

A few phrases appear on thousands of resumes and tell the reader nothing: 'team player', 'hard-working', 'fast learner', 'detail-oriented', 'self-motivated'. Replace them with proof. 'Detail-oriented' becomes 'Reviewed 200 invoices a week with an error rate under 1 per cent'.

Also avoid listing skills that do not relate to the job. A truck driver does not need 'Microsoft PowerPoint' unless the posting asks for it, and a designer does not gain much by listing 'Internet browsing'.

When you are ready to build the list, you can type your skills into the resume builder as a simple line and see how it fits with the rest of the page. Keep the final version to one tidy block.

A quick checklist before you finish

Read your skills section next to the job posting one last time. Every item should be true, relevant and written the way the employer writes it. If a skill appears in the posting and in your experience bullets, it is doing its job twice, which is exactly what you want.

Then read the section aloud as if an interviewer were pointing at each word and asking 'tell me about that'. A fictional candidate, Tomas Lindqvist, listed 'SQL' and realised he had only written two simple queries years ago. He changed it to 'SQL (basic queries)' and felt calmer walking into the room.

Finally, update the list every few months. New tools, short courses and certificates belong there as soon as you have earned them, and old tools you no longer use can quietly drop off. A skills list that is current also makes it much quicker to tailor your resume when a good posting appears.