Skills for a Résumé: Hard and Soft Skills, With Examples

TL;DR — The skills to put on a résumé are the ones the job posting asks for that you can prove. Hard skills are teachable, checkable abilities, like software, tools, languages, certifications and techniques; list them in a labeled skills section, worded the way the posting words them. Soft skills are how you work with people and problems, like communication, teamwork and problem-solving; show them in your bullets and summary rather than listing them as adjectives. Keep only skills you could be interviewed on, and put the ones the job needs most first.

Put the skills on your résumé that the job description asks for and that you can back up with something you've actually done. That's the whole rule, and it settles most of the questions people get stuck on. Hard skills, such as Excel, Spanish, point-of-sale systems, Python or phlebotomy, go in a skills section where a recruiter can find them in seconds. Soft skills, such as communication, leadership and teamwork, earn their place inside the lines that describe your work, because a reader can't check an adjective but can check what you did.

Below: the difference between hard and soft skills, a method for picking yours from a job description (with a worked example), where each kind goes, how many to list, examples for ten fields, and what to leave off.

What skills should you put on a résumé?

Run every candidate skill through three tests before it goes on the page:

1. The posting asks for it, in the requirements, the qualifications, or the duties.
2. You can point to proof: a job, class, project, certification or volunteer role where you used it.
3. You could talk about it for two minutes in an interview without bluffing.

A skill that passes all three belongs on the résumé. A skill that passes the first test but not the second is a gap, and knowing that before you apply is useful information, not a reason to type it in anyway. A skill that passes the second and third but not the first is real but probably irrelevant to this job; CareerOneStop, the Department of Labor's career site, says to include only skills that are relevant to the job.

Hard skills vs. soft skills: what's the difference?

Clark College's career services draws the line cleanly in its résumé guidelines: hard skills are "specific, teachable abilities that are based in fact," while soft skills "are subjective and may or may not be true." That second half is the important part. Anyone can type "strong communicator." Nobody can fake "Spanish (conversational)" for long, and a recruiter knows it.

The Department of Labor's occupational database, O*NET, makes a similar split. It groups software skills ("using specific programs and applications for work tasks"), essential skills such as reading, writing, math and learning, and transferable skills, which it describes as skills "you can use across different jobs such as communication, problem solving, and team work." Separately, it files traits like attention to detail and dependability under work styles, each defined as "a tendency" rather than a skill. That's a useful way to read your own draft: "detail-oriented" and "dependable" describe tendencies, and they only become believable when a bullet shows them happening.

How to pick skills from a job description

The job posting tells you which skills matter for this job. The method takes about ten minutes:

1. Highlight every concrete skill, tool, credential and duty in the requirements and qualifications.
2. Mark what repeats. A skill the posting mentions twice is one the employer cares about.
3. Split must-haves from nice-to-haves. "Required" outranks "preferred" or "a plus."
4. Match each to your own proof, and drop anything you can't back up.
5. Copy the posting's wording for the ones you keep. The University of Georgia's career center puts it plainly: if a posting asks for someone skilled in organizing, "use that exact word."

UGA adds a test for whether your level is high enough to list: look at how the posting uses the skill, then "decide if you can use the skill to the extent described in the job posting."

Here's the method on a short posting:

CUSTOMER SUPPORT SPECIALIST
Requirements
- 1+ year of customer service experience (retail, hospitality or call center)
- Experience with a ticketing system such as Zendesk
- Clear written communication; comfortable handling high chat volume
- Working knowledge of Google Sheets or Excel
Nice to have
- Bilingual English/Spanish
- Familiarity with Shopify

And here's what a candidate with two years as a retail cashier does with it:

Two of six requirements are gaps, and that's normal. The candidate still meets the core of the job, and nothing on the résumé is something they'd have to walk back in an interview.

Where do skills go on a résumé?

Skills belong in three places, and each place does a different job.

The skills section. CareerOneStop's résumé guide says technical and other job-specific skills "are the typical focus" of this section, and that it can sit near the top when skills are essential to the job, or after education when they matter less. Call it "Skills" or "Technical Skills," or name the job, as in "Teaching Skills." UGA's career center suggests a bold category followed by a comma-separated list, with your level in parentheses where it helps:

SKILLS
Software: Google Sheets (formulas, filters), Microsoft Excel, Square POS, Canva
Customer service: returns and exchanges, cash handling, phone and email support
Languages: English (native), Spanish (conversational)
Certifications: CPR/AED (valid through 2027)

Keep it as plain lines of text. A table, a second column or a row of rating dots can scramble when an applicant tracking system reads the file; ATS-friendly résumé formatting covers what survives the trip.

Your experience bullets. This is where soft skills live, and where hard skills get their proof. UGA suggests embedding soft skills in your bullets, which "provides evidence that you have put them into practice." "Strong written communication" claims something. "Wrote the store's returns FAQ, which cut repeat questions at the register" shows it. Résumé bullet points has fourteen before-and-after rewrites.

Your summary, if you have one. CareerOneStop advises that if you use a summary, soft skills go there rather than in the skills section. A summary's soft skill still needs a fact attached: "Bilingual retail associate known for de-escalating returns" beats "excellent people skills." Résumé summary examples has versions for students and professionals.

How many skills should you list on a résumé?

There's no target number. List enough to cover the posting's must-haves that you can genuinely claim, and stop there. For most people that's two to four category lines, each holding three to eight items.

UGA offers a question to ask of every skill on the list: "How did you practice this skill and is that experience also on your resume?" If the answer to the second half is no, either add the bullet that proves it or cut the skill. A long list reads as padding, and recruiters skim it.

Order matters more than count. Put the category the job leans on hardest first, and within each line, put the posting's must-haves first.

Skills for a résumé by field: examples

These are starting points, not a list to copy. Every field below has dozens of possible skills, and the right ones are the ones your target posting names. The software examples come from the tools O*NET lists for each occupation.

Notice that the right-hand column never says "communication" or "teamwork." It shows them.

How to find the skills for any job

If you aren't sure what skills a field expects, look it up instead of guessing.

• O*NET OnLine. Search any job title on O*NET OnLine and its summary page lists the occupation's tasks, essential and transferable skills, and software skills. Software tagged "Hot Technology" is, in O*NET's words, among the "requirements most frequently included across all employer job postings". Microsoft Office and Excel top that list, which is why "proficient in Excel" still earns its line when the posting asks for it.
• CareerOneStop's skills tools. The Skills Matcher has you rate your level on 40 key workplace skills and suggests careers that fit. Career changers can use mySkills myFuture, which identifies occupations that need skills similar to a current or previous job.
• Ten postings for the same title. Read them side by side and tally the skills that keep showing up. Those are the field's real requirements, worded the way employers word them.

Skills for a résumé with no experience

You have more skills than your job history suggests. UGA notes that you can develop hard skills "through your classes, job training, and independent learning," so coursework, labs, class projects, clubs, part-time jobs and volunteering all count as proof.

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) publishes eight career readiness competencies, among them communication, critical thinking, leadership, professionalism, teamwork and technology. In NACE's Job Outlook 2026 Spring Update, employers reviewing entry-level résumés from the Class of 2026 said they look for graduates who provide "evidence of polished teamwork, problem-solving, and communication skills." The word that matters there is evidence. A student résumé proves those three with a line like this:

• Teamwork: "Built a budgeting app with a four-person class team; owned the database and weekly demos."
• Problem-solving: "Rebuilt the club's sign-up sheet in Google Sheets after duplicate registrations doubled the waitlist."
• Communication: "Presented survey findings to 40 classmates and the department chair."

Then the hard skills those stories used, such as Python, Google Sheets or survey design, go in the skills section. How to write a résumé with no work experience shows the full layout, and how to get a job with no experience covers turning those skills into applications.

Transferable skills for a career change

A career change runs on transferable skills, and the work is translation: describe what you did in the vocabulary of the job you want. A teacher moving into corporate training doesn't list "classroom management." The same skill, framed for a corporate audience, is facilitation, training design, and coaching new staff. The proof stays identical; only the words change to match the new field's postings.

Pull the destination's vocabulary from those postings and from O*NET's page for the target occupation, then go through your current job duty by duty and ask which of them that vocabulary describes. A combination résumé, with a short skills block above a dated history, lets you put the translated skills first. How to change careers covers the rest of the move.

How to list languages and proficiency levels

Always give a level. "Spanish" alone leaves a recruiter guessing, and guessing wrong in either direction costs you. Indiana University's career guide lays out a plain scale running from basic understanding through literate, conversational, proficient and fluent to native, and offers a good test for the word "fluent": "Would you feel comfortable having a job interview in that language?"

If you've taken a formal language test, list its result instead. The Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale, for example, assigns a level from 0 to 5 through an authorized language examination; level 3 is "General Professional Proficiency" and level 5 is "Functionally Native Proficiency." Without a test, a plain-word level works fine:

Languages: English (native), Spanish (fluent), Portuguese (conversational)

What skills should you leave off a résumé?

• Bare personality traits. "Hardworking, detail-oriented team player" describes every applicant. Show the trait in a bullet or drop it.
• Rating bars, stars and percentages. "Python: four out of five dots" tells a reader nothing they can check, and the graphic may not survive an applicant tracking system at all. Use words such as beginner, intermediate or advanced, or name what you've built.
• Skills you couldn't defend. If you'd have to bluff through a follow-up question, it comes off.
• Skills the job will never use. Relevance beats volume.
• Basics nobody asked for. "Email" and "internet research" add nothing unless the posting names them. Office software is different: if the posting asks for Excel, list it, and add the specific features you use, such as pivot tables or XLOOKUP.

Put the skills to work

Start with the posting you most want to apply to. Highlight its skills, match each to your proof, and rebuild your skills section from what survives, then check that every skill on it appears in at least one bullet. If you're building the whole document from scratch, what a résumé is covers the basics and how to write a résumé walks through every section. Olive's résumé builder can draft one from a conversation about your work, and résumé tailoring lines your history up against a specific posting so you can see which of its skills you cover and which you don't.

Sources

• National Center for O*NET Development, for the U.S. Department of Labor — The O*NET Content Model
• National Center for O*NET Development, for the U.S. Department of Labor — O*NET OnLine and Employer-Based Hot Technologies
• CareerOneStop, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor — Resume Writing Guide: Top section
• CareerOneStop, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor — Skills Matcher and Skills tools
• University of Georgia Career Center — Listing Hard and Soft Skills on a Resume
• Clark College Career Services — Resume Guidelines: Hard Skills, Soft Skills & The Difference Between The Two
• National Association of Colleges and Employers — What Is Career Readiness?
• Indiana University — Resume: Skills & Interests
• Interagency Language Roundtable — ILR Skill Level Descriptions for Speaking