Top Skills to Put On Your Resume for 2021 + Complete Guide

• How to Include Skills on Your Resume

  The way you include your skills on your resume says a lot about their importance. Each resume format has its way of organizing skills that helps show each candidate’s best strengths while playing down any weaknesses.

  The chronological format focuses on your work history; you’ll only include six to eight bulleted skills in your skills section. However, the skills section sits in the top half of the page, which will put your skills front and center for recruiters to see. Make sure you include a mix of skills that convey you’re a well-rounded candidate.

  The functional format is commonly known as the skills-based resume. With this format, you focus on the skills you’ve gained in your professional or educational experiences instead of a shortlist of job titles that don’t accurately showcase all your knowledge and abilities. You’ll have two or three sections devoted to skills and a minimized work history.

  In the case of combination formats, these resumes balance your work history and skills. With this format, you can have more than one section devoted to skills: the Relevant Skills section, which includes specific skills needed to perform the job, and a general Skills section, where you add the rest of your complementary skills.

Soft Skills, Hard Skills and Technical Skills

Resume skills are organized into three categories: soft, hard and technical skills. Having all three sets of skills on your resume shows employers you’re a well-rounded candidate.

Most Requested Skills for Each Job

Determine Your Transferable Skills

If you’re changing careers or aiming for a promotion at your current job, you’ll benefit from highlighting transferable skills on your resume. These are skills you can put to good use from one industry to another.

With the considerable job market shifts in 2020, many workers will need to change jobs or even industries. You’ll find some examples of potentially transferable skills in the following lists:

Step-by-Step Resume Skills Guide

Now that you understand the importance of all the types of skills you can include in your resume, reference this guide to make sure you tick off everything you need to do for a well-written resume skills section.

Step 1: Identify the right skills for the job.

Make a list of all the hard, soft and technical skills you possess and underline the ones you need to perform the job efficiently. If you have any random skills that don’t appear relevant, determine if they could develop into transferable skills for your new job.

Step 2: Find skills the company values.

Research the job posting and the company, and highlight the keywords that stand out the most. Make sure you include skills that the employer is specifically requesting. Recruiters will be on the lookout for those keywords, and applicant tracking systems will flag your resume as rich in keywords, meaning you’ll surely pass to the second round.

Step 3: Include skills in your work experience.

Maximize your resume by adding a few more skills to your work history. When describing your accomplishments, phrase them to show you have mastered your skills. For example, if you’re a medical assistant and you want to include “proficiency in CPOE” as a skill, show how you executed that skill:

Exhibited proficiency in CPOE by entering more than 1,500 lab tests for medical patients every week.”

Step 4: Organize the skills section.

Whether you chose the chronological, combination or functional format, you should always have at least one skills section with six to eight skills. The combination format allows you to include other skills sections sorted by relevance to the job. Meanwhile, the functional resume is characterized by its deep dive into how you executed each of your professional skills.

Resume Skills FAQ

What are your top 3 skills?

Hiring managers commonly ask interviewees what their top three skills are. Formulate the perfect answer by identifying three of the most important skills you have. Make sure they’re listed in the job description.

You can categorize them into one hard skill, one soft skill and one technical skill for bonus points. Prepare examples of how you executed those skills, and there’s your perfect answer.

What are the weaknesses in a resume?

Employers frequently ask about your strengths and weaknesses in job interviews to understand how you can excel and grow inside the company. Try turning this question around by establishing a skill you plan to develop to strengthen any of your weaknesses.

For example:

• “I tend to struggle with deadlines, but I’m committed to being more strategic when organizing my workflow.”
• “I have a hard time expressing my ideas fluidly; however, I’m currently learning about public speaking and corporate communication practices.”
• “I get overwhelmed when I have to work with a lot of stakeholders on a project, but I volunteer in non-profit organizations to build my teamwork skills.”

How many skills should I list on my resume?

You should include between six to eight skills in your resume. This number of skills gives employers a complete picture of your skill set without overwhelming them with a list that’s too long.

You can also add a few skills throughout your work history; for example, if you were applying for an office manager position, you could say:

• “Organized all internal company projects with expert use of Asana to keep a record of all departmental projects.”
• “Took initiative by implementing a digitalized bookkeeping system increasing accuracy of paychecks and financial reports by 55%.”
• “Established higher standards or corporate communication by training staff of best practices and interdepartmental cooperation.”

How do I list technical skills on a resume?

We always advise listing the right mix of soft, hard and technical skills in your resume, but you don’t need to categorize them as such on your actual resume. You’ll include all of your skills in a section called Skills, which appears on all resume formats.