Skills Section of a Resume

Hiring managers tend to skim a skills section for the tools and credentials the job needs and generally look to your bullets for proof of the rest. A useful skills section may include software, equipment, languages and methods such as bookkeeping or phlebotomy.

Vague words pile up here too. Words like hardworking, detail-oriented and team player take up a whole line of the page and tell the reader nothing they could check in an interview or a reference call.

Hard skills and soft skills

Hard skills are the ones you could be tested on: running a cash register, reading blueprints, writing database queries, drawing blood. Soft skills describe how you work with people and under pressure, such as patience, clear writing or staying calm when three deadlines land on the same afternoon.

Each kind has its own place. List hard skills in the skills section, where a recruiter can find them quickly. Show soft skills in your bullets, since a claim like "strong communicator" only becomes believable once a bullet proves it.

Choosing which skills to list

Start with the job posting. Mark every skill, tool and credential it names, then tick off the ones you really have and could talk about with confidence if an interviewer asked for an example. They go first, in the posting's words.

Add a few more that fit the work even if the posting skips them, and drop anything outdated or so common that every applicant has it. Basic email and web browsing, for example, no longer need a line.

Grouping skills and showing your level

A single line of skills works when you only have a handful. Once you have more than a line or two, group them under plain labels so the reader can find what they need. Two or three groups usually cover it.

Show your level in words a reader can trust, such as fluent or conversational for languages and advanced for software you use every day. Stay away from star ratings, progress bars and dots, because software cannot read them and a reader has no way of knowing what four stars out of five means.

Where the skills section goes

It usually follows experience and education. Move it up under your summary if the job is highly technical, if you are changing fields, or if your skills match the posting more closely than your job titles do.

Some applicants also work their top three or four skills into the summary. That is a good idea for a technical role, as long as the same skills show up again in your bullets with evidence behind them.

Skills for a career change

Changing fields means translating what you already do into the words your new employer uses. A teacher moving into corporate training already plans lessons, runs groups and tracks progress, and the skills section should say so in the language of training.

Read several postings in the field you want, note the skills that keep coming up and match each one to a task you have done in your current job. Skip anything you cannot back up. The Corporate Trainer Resume template shows a full resume built this way.

Skills section examples

Each example fits a different job. Notice how specific the entries are: a reader could check every one of them in an interview or on your first day.

Keep the list current

Skills lists date quickly. Before each application, take out software you have not touched in years and add anything new you picked up at work, in a class or on your own time. A short list that fits the job you want today will serve you better than a long one built for the job you had five years ago.