Top 265 skills to put on your resumé (with examples)

Introduction

Heads up, job seekers – skills-based recruitment may be the future of work. Singapore Institute of Management expert Dr Kevyn Yong writes that skills may be the “new hiring currency.” Employers are increasingly looking for STAR talent, i.e. those who may not have formal university degrees but are “skilled through alternative routes,” 

Thus, it’s more important than ever to let an employer know that you have the skills for the job you’re applying for. Highlighting your skills in a well-crafted resumé should catch any potential company's attention. 

In this comprehensive guide, you'll know how to assess and identify soft and hard skills. You'll learn how to highlight them on your resume – in ways that will impress your prospective employer and hook their interest.

• Importance of a well-crafted resume
• Identifying your skills
• Technical/hard skills vs transferable/soft skills
• Skills to include in your resume
• Importance of tailoring your skills to the job description
• How to highlight your skills in your resume
• Additional tips for showcasing your skills
• How to demonstrate your skills in your cover letter and interview
• Common mistakes to avoid
• Highlighting skills in your resumé is important
• FAQs

Importance of a well-crafted resumé

A well-crafted resumé helps you stand out and tells your story. In most interviews, employers ask you to talk about yourself. Your resumé should be a summary of that answer: talking about your achievements, qualifications, experience, and your skills and abilities.

When job-hunting, learn how to write a winning resumé to fit the organisation to which you are applying. Tailor your skills to the in-demand jobs, especially after the pandemic. For example, if you aim for a management role in the tech industry, try to highlight transferable skills like your knack for project management, and hard skills such as your knowledge of the fundamentals of technology.

Identifying your skills

No one knows you better than yourself. A thorough assessment of your capabilities can help you discover which skills you have in your toolbox. Kirsty Ferguson, founder of interview skills training firm Interview Chix, recommends building confidence to showcase skills by making a list of all your abilities.

Ferguson also advises gathering feedback to learn about your skills. In “The Perception Exercise,” she suggests that job seekers talk to four people from four different areas of their life and ask them two questions:

• What are four things that you think I’m good at?
• What are four things that I need to improve on?

The answers should help you work out what your skills are, and what things you need to work on. You can also give examples of where you demonstrated those skills. Examples are great for your resumé and interviews, and having someone else say you are good at these is even better. 

Technical/hard skills vs transferable/soft skills

Technical or hard skills show your proficiency in the practical side of the job, while transferable or soft skills show your ability to navigate work relationships and situations.

A balance of hard and soft skills is essential to help you navigate people and tasks at work. These two types of skills complement each other and make you a better, more well-rounded employee. 

Working as a software engineer, for example, would require you to be an expert in a hard skill like programming languages. It would also require a soft skill like working well with others.

Including both hard and soft skills in your resumé can beef up your profile and make an employer pay attention. 

Skills to include in your resumé

Hard skills

What are hard or technical skills?

Technical or hard skills are the specialised expertise required to perform tasks and use specific tools and programs in real situations. Your technical skills come from the education and training you’ve acquired through the years, whether from school or your previous jobs.

Why are hard skills important in the workplace?

It is necessary to have hard skills in the workplace because they help you keep up with change in your industry. Being technically proficient in your field can give you an advantage over your teammates. Hard skills help you perform your role and even find new career opportunities.

How to develop hard or technical skills

You can develop technical skills by undergoing training programs and courses. Coursera recommends that you follow the following steps to prioritise what skills you need to practise:

• Identify your career goals.
• Identify the technical skills you need.
• Review your current skills and look for opportunities to improve.
• Undergo the right training program to upskill or reskill. 

Showcasing hard skills in your resumé

Remember what we said about your resumé telling your story? Share yours by using power words in your resumé. Power words highlight your professional strengths and can play up  your achievements or skills better. For hard or technical skills, it would help to use activity or action words. Place these terms at the beginning of each bullet to strengthen your skills. For example, instead of writing down “cybersecurity” as a technical skill, you can say “developed cybersecurity programs” to better explain what you can do.

Examples of hard skills

Listed below are examples of hard skills categorised by industry. Bear in mind that some of these skills may cross over to other fields. For example, even marketing professionals require specific tech or IT knowledge.

Soft skills

What are transferable or soft skills?

Transferable or soft skills are skills that are about how you work with other people. . You may already have these skills, like time management, empathy, collaboration, communication skills, or other things you have learned . They may seem common or “everyday,” but you should learn to see these skills as assets because employers find them valuable in the workplace. Here’s a handy transferable skills checklist that can help you in evaluating yourself.

Why are soft skills important in the workplace?

Most roles involve working with people. Not specific to any industry, these skills come in handy when you’re planning a career change. It can make you very adaptable to a new work environment, a trait that will be very valuable to many employers in this ever-changing job landscape.

How to develop soft or transferable skills

You can hone soft skills through experience. Fresh grads can develop theirs through managing school projects or supporting different initiatives in their college organisation. Employees can build their soft skills through taking on new tasks at work and focusing on building a particular skill. Getting feedback on how you are doing with that skill can help. You can also seek out a mentor to help you grow.

Showcasing soft skills in your resume

To highlight soft skills in your resumé, go back through your work experiences and note down your skills. It will help if you can think of examples that demonstrate your skills.

If you were able to display leadership skills on a team project, explain what made you a good leader. Were you able to effectively oversee everyone’s role in your team? Were you an effective mentor to your teammates? Paint a picture to help hiring managers see how you can be a good fit in their organisation.

Examples of soft skills

Listed below are examples of soft skills categorised by type:

Importance of tailoring your skills to the job description

Matching your skills to the job you’re applying for is a key step. You will want to use the same language the hirer uses. If they mention problem solving and your skill is troubleshooting, consider matching their language. Many hiring managers first check for functional and technical skills that are relevant to the role at hand.

This technique helps you narrow down your list of skills to a select few to keep your resumé short. 

Read the job ad thoroughly to identify which qualifications and skills you have. For example, you’re a software engineer looking for a more senior role and you come upon this job description:

Tasks:

• Analyse, design, programme, test, document, and maintain application-related products and projects.
• Design and document system design and architecture and propose appropriate technologies and tools required to implement systems.
• Provide technical guidance to junior colleagues in their work
• Provide maintenance support to customers (internal and/or external) by investigating and rectifying reported systems shortcomings.
• Analyse requests for enhancements/changes and write amendment/program specifications.

Requirements:

• Degree in Computer Science or Computer Engineering
• Minimum 5 years of extensive experience in C# and .NET Framework development
• Experience developing web application and web interface frameworks such as JavaScript, jQuery, ReactJs, MVC, REST API, AJAX, JSON, HTML5, CSS
• Experience in .NET Core, Entity Framework Core, SQL, BoldBI, Kafka development an added advantage
• Current/past experience in leading a team an advantage

By just reading through the description, you can easily identify which ones refer to skills the firm needs. For example, “provide technical guidance to junior colleagues” lets you know that they’re looking for someone with technical experience, as well as someone who can offer mentorship to junior members of the team.

Once you’ve figured out which skills of yours match the job ad, include those in your resumé. You can also do some research to find out what the role or industry requires. Networking with people in your industry might help inform you about what skills are required.

How to highlight your skills in your resumé

Where do you place your skills in your resumé?

There are different types of resumés for specific objectives. Where to put your skills in the resumé would depend on what kind of resumé you wish to use.

• Chronological – The most common type, this resumé focuses on your work history and lists your previous jobs in reverse chronological order. You can usually find the skills section in this type of resumé at the bottom of the page.
• Functional – This is a skills-focused resumé, ideal for those with less work experience or who are considering moving into a different career. In this resumé, your skills are the headings instead of your roles. Under each, you list experiences and achievements where you’ve used those skills.
• Combination – A combination of chronological and functional, this is a more comprehensive kind of resumé than the previous types. It starts with putting your skills and experiences at the top, followed by work experience.

How to write your skills section

When writing your skills, make sure to include the important ones only. Remember what you learned in your preliminary research, figure out what the employer is looking for, and from there, narrow down your list of skills in the resumé. 

Founder and Chief Career Strategist at The Bauke Group Julie Bauke says to “avoid ‘verbal vomit.’” Go straight to the point and be as specific as possible – broad, generic words will not make your resumé stand out to your potential employer. 

Examples of well-written skills sections

A well-written skills section should help your potential employers identify your strengths immediately. It should be specific and straightforward (“Visual C++ and .Net framework development ” instead of “excellent programming skills”), like this list of software developer skills below:

Hard skills

• Programming languages (e.g. Python, Java, C++)
• Web development (e.g. HTML, CSS, JavaScript)
• Data analysis and visualisation (e.g. SQL, Tableau)
• Machine learning and AI (e.g. TensorFlow, Keras)

Soft skills

• Project management
• Written and verbal communication
• Teamwork and collaboration
• Strategic thinking

Under “Written and verbal communication,” for example, you could include specific accomplishments to illustrate your skill:      

• Wrote a monthly email newsletter for clients that led to a 25% increase in website traffic
• Presented at 10 company online meetings for an audience of 300 to 500 people per session

Include any recognition received when listing accomplishments. For example - in below example - “Salesperson of the year” recognition is a great way to objectively signal high expertise in sales skills

Customer sales representative:

• Developed knowledge and expertise on over 50 products in product line
• Provided after-sales support to over 60 regular clients
• Worked with team of 15 sales representatives covering different areas
• Named salesperson of the year for outstanding performance two years in a row, 2015 and 2016

If you want to highlight the skills you developed from your previous roles, you can include them in your experience section. For example, if your previous job was as a software developer, you can write something like this:

Software Developer

.dot net incorporated

April 2020–Present

Led a team of over 20 developers to analyse, design, develop, and maintain over 100 application-related products, including documentation

Provided app maintenance support to both internal and external customers

Mentored junior colleagues on the team on various web interface frameworks such as JavaScript, jQuery, and CSS

Developed solid leadership and project management capabilities from working on dynamic team projects

You can download free resumé templates here to help you get started on your own.

How to quantify your skills

Numbers and quantifiers can help your potential employer see how impressive your skills and achievements are. 

Without numbers and quantifiers, describing a project management skill would sound unimpressive: 

“Oversaw a major project that helped clients grow sales significantly.” 

By including measurable results, you are giving the reader a more accurate picture of your achievements: 

“Successfully led a major app development project involving a team of 20 engineers, resulting in a product that helped the client grow their sales by 20 per cent year-on-year.”

To demonstrate your skills effectively, you can follow this six-step formula and tailor it to your needs: 

• Role played
• Project name
• Objective
• Statistical proof
• Attainment of OKR
• Overall impact of business.

Additional tips for showcasing your skills on your resumé

Using keywords

Companies that use Application Tracking Systems (ATS) to help streamline their recruitment process might look for specific keywords to filter resumes. Familiarise yourself with the words employers use in job posts to describe their ideal candidate. You can also search websites in the same industry and check out occupational profiles for positions you’re applying to. Identify the keywords in these sources and add them to your resume. 

Using action verbs

These are verbs that emphasise your achievements or skills. Here are a few examples:

• Achieved
• Built
• Charted
• Developed 
• Expanded
• Executed
• Coordinated
• Organised
• Arranged
• Directed
• Headed

Using adjectives

Aside from including numbers to highlight the impact of your achievements in a quantifiable manner, you can also use labels or descriptive words. These power words highlight the strengths or personal qualities you bring to the job: 

• Precise
• Resourceful
• Structured
• Thorough
• Exhaustive
• Detail-oriented
• Meticulous
• Organised

Using visual aids

If you are applying for a job in the creative sector, designing a visual resumé might help boost your application. Show off your design skills through colour or infographics that you can put in a portfolio, or go the extra mile and create a video resume. You can also try making a creative resume via Behance or WIX.

Make sure, however, that everything is still easy to read and understand despite being in an unconventional format.

How to demonstrate your skills in your cover letter and interview

How to mention your skills in your cover letter

While a resumé lists your skills, the cover letter explains how these skills match the needs of the position, and gives examples of when and how they were applied  In the same way your resumé is tailored to fit a particular job opportunity, your cover letter is a detailed response to what the employer is looking for.

State how your skills, abilities, and background make you a suitable candidate for meeting the company's needs. Avoid repeating exactly what you already noted in your resumé. The point of a cover letter is to add value to your application, not duplicate it.

How to answer skills-based questions in an interview

Once your resumé has gotten you to the interview stage of the recruitment process, be prepared to back up what you’ve written. Expect that your job interview may cover skills-based questions or questions that aim to assess whether your skill set matches the organisation’s requirements.

Recruitment experts recommend highlighting the necessary hard and soft skills. If you encounter a question about skills in the job description that you don’t currently have, let the employer know that you are interested in developing these skills. It shows your willingness to grow and develop in their organisation.

Communication Trainer and Coach Ashira Prossack suggests emphasising how your skills will benefit the company. Let the employer know how your skill set can be an asset for the organisation, highlighting its impact by sharing how it drove change or achieved effective results.

How to provide examples of using skills

Be ready to provide examples and illustrations. Carousell CEO and Co-Founder Marcus Tan has said that he listens to applicants who detail how they were able to solve complex challenges in the past. “It speaks well of them when they show that they’re proud of these accomplishments, but are still humble enough to acknowledge where they could have done better!”.

For example, if your interviewer asks you about an experience where you led a team, take the opportunity to drop the hard and soft skills that led to your success.

I was the team leader for a conference that involved representatives from different countries. I had a team of 20 and before we began, we created a S.M.A.R.T. goal to help us organise our ideas, tasks, and timelines. I delegated assignments to the members based on their personalities and skill sets. 

Once we got started, I immediately opened a conversation in Slack to help us collaborate and converse better. I also logged in everyone’s tasks on Proofhub. This helped our team become more accountable and cognisant of their and each other’s responsibilities. Thanks to planning and concerted efforts, after two months of gruelling work, we were able to hold the conference without a hitch.

In this example, you already show not only your leadership prowess, but also how well you prioritise, delegate, and think strategically and collaboratively. You also demonstrate your knowledge of productivity tools. 

Common mistakes to avoid

As we mentioned earlier, you don’t need to include all the skills in your toolbox to impress your potential employer. Instead, focus on the ones that they need the most and remove the rest. Here are some guidelines on what skills to avoid including in your resumé:

• Generic skills – Again, using generic terms will not make your resumé stand out. Common buzzwords (e.g. “fast learner,” “always motivated”) will not impress an employer, either. Remember that these people go through a lot of resumés regularly. 
• Lying or overtly exaggerating your skills – Avoid including skills that you don’t have. While this may catch an employer’s attention, you won’t be able to back your words with sufficient evidence. It’s better to tell an interviewer, “I can work/develop those skills in the long run,” instead of straight up lying to them about something you can’t do.
• Overlooking important skills relevant to the job – Remember to make a list and check it twice; you might forget important skills that will come in handy for your job applications. Double-checking your list, as well as the employer’s job ad, can help you remind yourself what skills will be worth including.
• Using jargon or technical terms that may not be understood – Even though you might be applying within the same industry you’re in, you can’t assume that everyone has the same knowledge of jargon that you do. Keep things simple and spell out acronyms of terms to help the reader understand what you’re talking about.

Highlighting skills in your resumé is important

Highlighting your skills in your resumé lets your employer know what you’re capable of. By identifying and outlining your skills in your resumé, you show the employer that this is what you can do for them. From here, they can assess if you’re a good fit for their organisation or not.  

Your skills are your assets. Take stock of the skills you’ve attained by remembering how you developed them, how they made you successful, and how they impacted your work. Be proud of your skills. Ultimately, your skills are what will get you hired and what will help you thrive.

Learn more ways to stand out amid other job seekers with tips from our Career Advice page. You can also sign up for a JobStreet account to help you match your skills with prospective employers.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

1. What skills should I put on my resumé?
   ⁠Include transferable or soft skills (i.e., skills you can utilise in different situations) and technical or hard skills (i.e., skills that require specialised knowledge) in your resumé. 
   ⁠
2. How do I know which skills to include?
   ⁠Tailor your resumé to the job that you’re applying for. To know which attributes to include, read up on the job description of the role you’re interested in. From there, identify your skills and include them in your resumé. 
   ⁠
3. Should I include skills that are not relevant to the job?
   ⁠No. Make sure to keep your list of skills limited to the ones that are related to the role you’re applying for.
   ⁠
4. How should I format my skills section?
   ⁠Your skills section would depend on what kind of resumé you use.
   ⁠
   ⁠Chronological – Skills section at the bottom of the pageFunctional (skills-based) – Skills are used as headings in the resumeCombination – Skills and achievements are placed at the top, before work experience
   ⁠
5. Can I list skills that I don't have much experience with?
   ⁠No. It helps to be honest with your potential employer, so avoid exaggerating your skills. If there are skills in the job description that you don’t have experience with, tell your interviewer that you’re willing to develop or work on those skills, showing them your commitment to growth.
   ⁠
6. Can I list skills that I learned on my own?
   ⁠Yes. You can learn both hard and soft skills first-hand from your previous work experiences. For example, leading a massive project could help you hone leadership, mentorship, and project management skills. 
   ⁠
7. How many skills should I include in my resumé?
   ⁠There’s no scientifically proven number. However, make sure that the hard and soft skills you include are relevant to the role you’re applying for. Avoid overwhelming your potential employer with too much information.
   ⁠
8. How do I demonstrate my skills in an interview?
   ⁠Describe your skills in a way that will show the interviewer how they will benefit the company. Discuss how you developed that skill and how it impacted your role. You could also share measurable results to show how they helped you succeed.
   ⁠
9. Should I mention the same skills in my cover letter as in my resumé?
   ⁠Your cover letter should add value to your application, so, as much as possible, avoid repeating the same information from your resumé. Instead, choose crucial points to highlight and explain how these points make you a good fit for the position.
   ⁠
10. How do I quantify my skills?
    ⁠Add numbers and quantifiers to help your potential employer see how impressive your skills and achievements are. By including measurable statements, you offer the reader a more accurate picture of what you’ve achieved.