Best Skills to Put on a Resume (By Job)

Hard skills vs soft skills

Hard skills are teachable, testable abilities: Python, Excel pivot tables, AutoCAD, patient assessment, GST filing, Spanish. A recruiter can check them in an interview or a test, and an ATS can match them word for word against the job post.

Soft skills are how you work: communication, leadership, problem-solving, time management. They matter just as much on the job, but listing them as single words proves nothing, because every applicant claims them.

The practical rule: put hard skills in your skills section, and prove soft skills in your experience bullets. "Led a team of 5 to deliver the project two weeks early" shows leadership; the word "leadership" in a list does not.

There is a third group worth knowing about: tools and certifications. These are hard skills too, but they are often listed separately because recruiters filter on them directly — "CPA", "PMP", "AWS Certified", "Salesforce". If a posting names a certification as required, put it where it is easy to spot, either in a Certifications section or next to your name in the header.

How to find the right skills for each job

The job post tells you which skills to list. Spend five minutes extracting them before you edit your resume. If you are applying to many similar roles, do this for three or four posts at once: the skills that appear in all of them are the core of your skills section, and the rest you swap in per application.

1. Copy the "requirements" and "responsibilities" sections into a document.
2. Highlight every tool, technique, qualification and method mentioned. Ignore generic phrases like "fast-paced environment".
3. Mark the skills that appear more than once or in the first few lines — those carry the most weight.
4. Compare them with your own skills. List every one you can honestly use, using the same spelling the post uses ("Microsoft Excel" vs "Excel", "JavaScript" vs "JS").
5. For important skills you have but did not list, add a bullet in your experience that shows you using them.

How many skills to list, and how to group them

Six to twelve skills is the right range for most resumes. Fewer than six looks thin; more than fifteen dilutes the ones that matter and suggests you are listing everything you have ever touched.

For technical roles with many tools, group them under short labels so they are easy to scan, for example "Languages: Python, SQL, TypeScript" and "Cloud: AWS, Docker, Terraform". For other roles a single comma-separated line or a short list is enough.

Avoid skill bars, star ratings and percentages ("Excel ★★★★☆", "Java 70%"). They are meaningless to a recruiter, invite awkward interview questions and are often unreadable by ATS software. If proficiency matters, use words: "Spanish (fluent)", "German (B1)".

Skills for tech and data jobs

These sets come from our full resume examples, where you can see them in context and load the whole resume into the builder:

• Software engineer: one or two main languages (Java, Python, TypeScript), a framework (Spring, React, Node.js), SQL and a database, Git, cloud basics (AWS or GCP), testing, system design.
• Data analyst: SQL, Excel (pivot tables, lookups), Power BI or Tableau, Python or R for analysis, statistics, data cleaning, stakeholder reporting.
• DevOps engineer: Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, CI/CD (GitHub Actions, Jenkins), AWS/Azure, monitoring (Prometheus, Grafana), scripting in Bash or Python.
• UI/UX designer: Figma, user research, wireframing and prototyping, usability testing, design systems, accessibility (WCAG), basic HTML/CSS.

Skills for business, finance and marketing jobs

• Accountant: financial reporting, reconciliations, month-end close, accounting software (Tally, QuickBooks, SAP, NetSuite), tax (GST in India, VAT in the UK), IFRS or GAAP, advanced Excel.
• Marketing manager: campaign planning, budget management, marketing analytics (GA4), CRM and automation (HubSpot, Salesforce), content strategy, A/B testing.
• Project manager: planning and scheduling, risk management, Agile/Scrum, budget tracking, stakeholder management, Jira or MS Project, PMP or PRINCE2 if you have them.
• Sales executive: prospecting, pipeline management, negotiation, CRM (Salesforce, Zoho), account management, quota attainment.

Skills for healthcare, education and other roles

• Nurse: patient assessment, medication administration, electronic health records (Epic, Cerner), wound care, BLS/ACLS certification, patient education.
• Teacher: lesson planning, classroom management, differentiated instruction, assessment design, learning platforms (Google Classroom), subject specialism.
• Customer service: ticketing tools (Zendesk, Freshdesk), live chat and phone support, complaint resolution, CRM data entry, typing speed if the job asks for it, languages.
• Mechanical engineer: CAD (SolidWorks, AutoCAD), GD&T, FEA, manufacturing processes, root-cause analysis, relevant standards.
• Licences and registrations come first in regulated jobs: a nursing registration (NMC in the UK, a state RN licence in the US, a state nursing council registration in India), a teaching qualification such as QTS in the UK, or a professional engineering licence. List them clearly with their numbers or status where that is normal in your field.

Soft skills: which ones to show and how

Pick the two or three soft skills the job post emphasises and prove each one with a result in your experience section. A few examples of turning a claim into evidence:

• Communication: "Wrote the onboarding guide now used by all 40 new hires each year."
• Problem-solving: "Traced recurring billing errors to a data-entry step and redesigned it, cutting errors by half."
• Teamwork: "Coordinated design, engineering and support to launch the new checkout on schedule."
• Adaptability: "Took over a colleague's three accounts at short notice and kept all of them through renewal."

US, UK and India differences

Wherever you apply, a few mistakes are universal. Do not list skills you cannot discuss confidently in an interview — a single question about a tool you barely know can undo the good impression of the rest of the resume. Do not list basics everyone is assumed to have, such as "Microsoft Word", "email" or "internet research", unless the posting specifically asks for them. And remove outdated tools (old software versions, retired platforms) unless the role still uses them.

The skills section works the same way in all three markets, but a few conventions differ. In India, recruiters for technical roles often filter by tools and certifications on job portals, so make sure the exact tool names appear on your resume and in your portal profile. In the UK, CVs commonly list language skills with CEFR levels (B2, C1) and a full driving licence when the job involves travel. In the US, keep the section tight and skip personal attributes entirely — the section is for job skills, not hobbies.

Check your skills against the job

Build or update your resume in the free resume builder, which has a dedicated skills section and ATS-friendly templates. Then paste it into the ATS resume checker to see whether it has the sections and length ATS software expects. For more on matching wording to the job post, read our guide to ATS resume keywords, and browse all resume examples for skill sets in other roles.