Resume Skills List: What Skills to Put on a Resume

Hard skills vs soft skills

Hard skills are things you can be tested on: software, tools, languages, procedures, licenses. Soft skills are how you work: communication, teamwork, time management, patience with customers.

Recruiters search mostly for hard skills, because those are the words written in the job post. Applicant tracking systems (ATS) do the same. Soft skills still matter, but a list of them proves nothing. Anyone can type "hardworking".

The fix is simple. List hard skills in your skills section, and show soft skills through what you did in your jobs, school projects or organizations.

How to pick skills from the job post

Do not start from a generic list. Start from the job you are applying for.

1. Copy the job post into a document and highlight every tool, task and qualification it names.
2. Mark the ones that are repeated or listed under requirements. Those are the must-haves.
3. Tick the ones you can honestly do. Skip the rest.
4. Write them in your skills section using the same words as the post. If the post says accounts payable, do not write only AP.
5. Add two or three related skills the post did not mention but the job clearly uses.

Only list a skill if you could answer an interview question about it tomorrow. One skill you cannot explain makes the interviewer doubt the rest of the list.

Matching the wording of the job post also helps your resume get found when recruiters search their database. Our guide to an ATS-friendly resume explains how that works, and the free ATS resume checker shows which keywords from a job post are missing from your resume.

Skills lists by field

Use these as a starting point, then cut the list down to what the job post asks for and what you can prove.

BPO and customer service

• Voice, chat or email support
• De-escalation and complaint handling
• First call resolution
• Upselling and cross-selling
• CRM and ticketing tools: Zendesk, Salesforce, Freshdesk
• Typing speed (words per minute and accuracy)
• English proficiency

Administrative and office work

• Calendar and travel coordination
• Filing and records management
• Data entry and encoding
• MS Excel: formulas, VLOOKUP, pivot tables
• MS Word, PowerPoint, Google Workspace
• Minutes of meetings and business correspondence
• Petty cash and purchase requests

IT and software

• Programming languages: JavaScript, Python, Java, PHP, C#
• Frameworks: React, Node.js, Laravel, .NET
• Databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB
• Git and code review
• API development and testing
• Troubleshooting hardware, networks and user accounts

Sales and retail

• Product knowledge and demonstration
• Prospecting and lead follow-up
• Closing and handling objections
• POS operation and cash handling
• Inventory counts and visual merchandising
• Sales reports and quota tracking

Healthcare

• Patient assessment and vital signs monitoring
• Medication administration
• Charting and electronic medical records
• IV therapy and wound care
• Infection control
• Patient and family education
• BLS and ACLS certification

Teaching

• Lesson planning and curriculum mapping
• Classroom management
• Differentiated instruction
• Assessment design and grading
• Learning platforms: Google Classroom, Canva, MS Teams
• Parent communication

For full resumes that use these skills in context, see the resume examples by job.

How to show your skill level

A bare word like Excel tells the reader very little. Add a detail that shows how well you know it. Skip rating bars and stars. They are not measured against anything, and software that reads resumes cannot interpret them.

• Languages: add a level, such as English (fluent) or Cebuano (native).
• Typing: give the number, such as 55 WPM at 97% accuracy.
• Tools: say what you can do with them, such as Excel (VLOOKUP, pivot tables).
• Licenses and certificates: name them in full with the year.
• Experience: use years where it helps, such as 3 years of chat support.

Prove your skills in your bullets

The skills section tells the reader what you can do. Your work experience shows that you did it. Take your three most important skills and make sure each one appears in at least one bullet with a result.

No work experience yet? School projects, internships, volunteer work and student organizations all count. See how to write a resume with no experience.

Skills to leave off

• Skills everyone is assumed to have, such as internet browsing or sending email.
• Tools you last used years ago and cannot use today.
• Empty words with no proof: hardworking, flexible, trustworthy.
• Skills that have nothing to do with the job you are applying for.
• Anything copied from the job post that you cannot actually do.