Best Skills to Put on a Resume: A Guide From Hiring Experts

The best skills to put on your resume combine the hard skills specific to the role you're applying for, soft skills that show how you work and communicate, and increasingly, your digital and AI literacy that demonstrate your readiness for today's workspace. Along with the achievements from your past work, the skills showcased in your resume are the number one thing that makes you a strong fit for the job and what recruiters and hiring managers are primarily looking for.

The 4 Types of Resume Skills

Categorizing skills as shown in the table below helps clarify which skills to include in your resume. Besides that, it matters for keyword matching and how it's scanned by applicant tracking systems (ATS) and recruiters. You can use this skills framework to map out which types of skills belong on your resume, but it's equally important how they're incorporated in the document.

Creating a long skills section isn't enough to get you past ATS scanners, and it's definitely not effective when your resume reaches a human reader. Wisely selected skills included in a resume work best when the applicant shows how they used them in their work and what they achieved with them. That said, you'll also need a curated skills section featuring the strongest, most relevant skills that demonstrate your competence at a glance.

To determine which skills are the best to put on your resume, you need to study the job description carefully, analyze your work experience, and compare your acquired competencies against the position requirements.

Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills: What's the Difference?

When it comes to skill types, the main distinction is between hard skills and soft skills:

• Hard skills are often called technical skills, and they are teachable, measurable, and specific to a role or industry. They include tools or software used in performing a job, industry-specific competencies, or relevant certifications. Simply put, hard skills are the knowledge required to execute professional tasks.
• Soft skills, often defined as interpersonal skills, are harder to quantify and are less role-specific. That means that they are transferable and applicable to many different jobs and industries. Soft skills include communication, leadership, teamwork, and more.

Both hard and soft skills are important to include in your resume. While hard skills demonstrate that you know how to do your job, soft skills illustrate the way you do it. Recruiters and hiring managers look for hard skills to confirm your technical fit. They include your main qualifications, but they're often not enough, so they also scan for soft skills to assess culture and team fit. A common mistake we see in practice is listing one without the other, which can prevent you from presenting yourself as a well-rounded candidate.

It's important to keep in mind that recruiters are not the only ones analyzing your skills. ATS scanners are also configured to search for specific keywords in a resume, and the keywords typically match the skills required for the position you're targeting. Reading the job posting's requirements is essential for knowing which skills are best to include on your resume.

Digital and AI Literacy: The Emerging Skills Category

There was a time when listing digital tools and competencies was mainly reserved for tech roles. The times have changed, even more so with the rise of AI, and some level of digital and AI literacy is now expected across almost all roles. The way we perform everyday tasks inevitably involves technology, and this should be reflected in your resume.

In practice, depending on your role and industry, these skills include AI writing tools, data platforms, collaboration tools, automation workflows, and at least basic prompt engineering. Listing them on your resume doesn't mean overstating your expertise, and it's a good strategy to naturally mention how you use them in performing your job. Recruiters don't have the same expectations for engineers and teachers, and their technical skills will inherently differ in scope and level of proficiency.

One important thing to keep in mind about digital and AI literacy skills: this category is developing quickly. Professionals and work environments evolve, and the skills showcased on a resume need to be updated regularly. If you're working on improving your resume, our AI resume builder walks you through each section, including the skills section, by suggesting the most relevant skills for the role you’re targeting.

How to Choose the Right Skills for Your Resume

When choosing the best skills to put on a resume, the first step is to think about which skills employers look for when scanning it. Picking the right skill set is not very difficult if you follow the following practical steps:

1. Study the job description.

You should always start by analyzing the job posting for the position you're applying for. Read it carefully and identify all the skills included, whether they are mentioned more than once, listed as required, or noted as nice-to-haves. That will give you a sense of their importance and priority. Those are the primary keywords for your resume.

2. Compare the skills against your experience.

Listing every detail from the job posting isn't a good strategy if it means fabrication. Skills should be demonstrated in your work history descriptions, and inflated skill lists can hurt your application. A good guiding principle is to list only the skills you can discuss confidently in an interview with a recruiter or hiring manager.

3. Weave in soft skills.

Once you've covered the skills specific to the role, or the hard skills that are primarily required for the job, add the soft skills that reflect how you work. To be clear, there's no need to pack your resume with fluff like "go getter" or "team player." What recruiters want to see is the concrete way you collaborate with others, adapt to changes, or demonstrate leadership.

To map the skills to include in your resume, you can take advantage of resume analysis tools like Toptal Resume's ATS resume checker, which can help identify which keywords from a job description are missing from your resume.

Resume Skills Examples by Role

Skills to put on your resume vary significantly depending on the industry and the role you're applying for. To get you started, we've listed some of the most-searched resume types below, with links to full resume examples and resume-writing guides.

• Project Manager: List and demonstrate the use of your core project management skills and competencies, such as stakeholder management, risk mitigation, cost allocation, as well as industry-relevant tools (e.g., Jira, Trello) and methodologies (e.g., Lean, Waterfall, Agile).
• Registered Nurse: List your clinical capabilities (such as patient assessment, medication administration, IV therapy, care coordination, and infection prevention) and skills like communication and patient education.
• Data Analyst: A strong skill set includes technical tools such as SQL, Python/R, Tableau/Power BI, and Excel, as well as statistical methods. Additionally, add your experience with databases such as PostgreSQL, BigQuery, and Snowflake, as well as data pipeline tools.
• Software Engineer: Skill sections in resumes for tech and engineering roles always include specific technical tools such as Java or React, often grouped. Also, they depend on the role you're targeting and whether you work with front-end, back-end, DevOps, etc. Additionally, you should include engineering practices such as code reviews, testing, CI/CD pipelines, technical documentation, or mentoring. 
• Customer Service Representative: Show that you can both connect with customers and use the tools that keep support teams running smoothly. Alongside strengths like communication, active listening, and problem-solving, include any platforms you've worked with, such as Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud, or Freshdesk.
• Security Guard: Emphasize your knowledge of security operations, safety procedures, and any certifications you hold. Skills commonly showcased on a security guard's resume include surveillance monitoring, access control, incident reporting, CCTV, and emergency response.
• Teacher: A good start is to identify key professional competencies that matter for educational roles, such as classroom management, curriculum development, and lesson planning. As educational tools become increasingly important, add technical skills, such as Google Classroom, Schoology, and Microsoft Teams. Your interpersonal skills play an important role in education as well, so make sure to include skills such as parent communication and conflict resolution.
• Driver: Hard skills on a driver's resume refer to job requirements such as driving practices, navigation, and vehicle inspection. On the other hand, soft skills include problem-solving, communication, and customer service. Interaction with passengers, clients, or delivery recipients is relevant for many positions you'll be applying for.
• Construction jobs: Focus on hard, technical skills related to the equipment and construction processes, such as material handling and PPE compliance, rather than listing generic soft skills.

Common Mistakes in the Resume Skills Section

In our practice working with job seekers worldwide, we've noticed some recurring mistakes in the skills section of resumes. Here are the common ones you should avoid when building or updating your resume:

1. Listing too many generic or irrelevant skills. "Communication," "teamwork," or "MS Office" on their own add no value to your resume, as everyone can include them. It only makes sense when backed by specific achievements in your work experience.
2. Not tailoring the skills section for every application. Every job description includes concrete job requirements, and you don't want to miss the ATS keyword matching opportunity.
3. Confusing skills with personal traits. Being passionate and detail-oriented is a good quality, but those are adjectives, not skills. They're typically perceived as fluff by recruiters, and they skip them.
4. Listing skills you can't demonstrate. Including many skills that aren't reflected anywhere in your work experience descriptions can raise questions rather than explain why you're a strong fit for the job.
5. Skipping the skills section entirely. Some candidates decide not to have a skills section at all. That's definitely not a good practice, as it's the first place where both ATS scanners and recruiters can get a glimpse of your main competencies.

Having a well-curated skills section is only one side of showcasing your skills in a resume, but it's important, and you need to approach it strategically.

FAQ

1. What are the most important skills to put on a resume?

The most important skills to include on your resume are both hard and soft skills that demonstrate you know how to perform a job and how you do it. Hard skills are often called technical skills, as they're measurable and role-specific, while soft skills typically include interpersonal, transferable skills.

2. How many skills should I list on my resume?

The number of skills to put on a resume varies by role, industry, and job requirements. Our general advice, based on our practice working with job seekers and ATS testing, is not to include more than 20 of the strongest and most relevant skills in a dedicated skills section. That way, you'll avoid overwhelming the reader while still achieving strong keyword and role requirement matching. Your work experience should back them, so make sure to describe how you used them and what you achieved with them. 

3. Should I include soft skills on my resume?

Yes, but only when they add value and demonstrate how you used them to achieve the results of your work. Don't list generic personal traits, such as "detail-oriented"; instead, choose those that demonstrate collaboration, leadership, and problem-solving.

4. What are examples of hard skills for a resume?

Hard skills demonstrate your role-specific knowledge and expertise. They often include industry-relevant tools, professional practices and methodologies, software, and certifications required to perform a job. 

5. What skills do employers look for most?

Employers look for hard and soft skills that demonstrate the candidate will be a strong performer in their job. Showcase the skills related to your technology use, project management, and data analysis, as well as those related to adaptability, collaboration, and problem-solving.

6. Should I list AI tools as skills on my resume?

AI tools are becoming increasingly important across nearly all roles, so make sure to list any AI tools used in the industry and the role you're targeting. Digital and AI literacy will make you stand out among other candidates in today's market.

7. Where should the skills section go on a resume?

While there is no universal rule for positioning the skills section in a resume, it's typically placed either before or after the work experience section. The skills listed in a dedicated section should be backed by bullet points in the work experience descriptions. For tech roles, it's common to see the skills section near the top of the resume because the stack matters most for these roles.

8. How often should I update my resume skills section?

Resumes should be tailored to each application, and it's most important to focus on skills. As you develop professionally, your skill set will naturally grow, so make sure it's reflected on your resume and revise it periodically, regardless of whether you're applying for jobs.

Choosing the best skills to put on your resume isn't about making lists, but positioning yourself as a candidate. The hard and soft skills included in the skills section of your resume should be put in context and demonstrate what you do and achieve with them. Whether you're building your resume from scratch or refining an existing one, Toptal's AI resume builder helps you identify and present the skills that matter most for the role you're applying for.