Skills for a resume: what to list, how many, and where to put them

The skills section is the part of a resume people scan fastest. A recruiter glances at it to check the basics: does this person know the tools and methods the job needs? Software that ranks applications also leans on it, because skills are short, specific words that are easy to match against a job ad. A weak skills section is usually fixed in a quarter of an hour.

Hard skills and soft skills

Hard skills are specific, teachable and usually checkable: a programming language, a design tool, accounting standards, a forklift license, a foreign language. They belong in the skills section.

Soft skills are ways of working: communication, leadership, problem solving, organisation. They matter a lot, but a list of them proves nothing, because anyone can type “excellent communicator”. Show soft skills in your experience bullets instead:

Listed: Leadership, communication, stakeholder management

Shown: Led a team of five designers and ran the weekly review with product and engineering leads, cutting rework on handoffs.

The skills section holds mostly hard skills; your experience proves the soft ones. Here is how that works for soft skills that often appear in job ads. The bullets are samples; write your own with your real numbers.

Soft skill in the ad	A bullet that shows it
Communication	Wrote the weekly project update read by three teams, replacing two status meetings
Leadership	Trained and scheduled six part-time staff through the holiday season
Problem solving	Traced repeated late deliveries to one supplier’s cut-off time and moved orders a day earlier
Teamwork	Worked with finance and sales to agree one discount policy in place of three spreadsheets
Time management	Handled 60 to 80 support tickets a week while studying part-time
Adaptability	Moved new-hire training from the office to video calls within two weeks

If an ad stresses a soft skill, make sure at least one bullet shows it. You can still mention one or two in the summary, as long as a fact sits next to them.

Which skills to put on a resume

The best list comes from three places, in this order:

1. The job ad. Read the requirements and the responsibilities. Every tool, method and area of knowledge named there is a candidate, if you have it.
2. Four or five similar ads. Open other ads for the same job title. A skill that appears in most of them is part of the job’s core, even if this particular ad forgot to mention it.
3. Your own last year of work. What did you use every week? Those skills belong on the list even when no ad asks for them, because they describe what you actually do.

Then sort what you collected into the kinds of hard skills employers look for:

• Software and tools: Excel, Salesforce, Figma, SAP, Jira.
• Methods: A/B testing, month-end close, root cause analysis, agile delivery.
• Knowledge of an area or its rules: IFRS, GDPR, food safety, employment law.
• Languages, with a level.
• Licenses and certificates the job needs: a driver’s license, a forklift license, a first aid certificate. Most certificates deserve their own section; see how to list certifications on a resume.

Keep a skill only if the job could use it and you could describe the last time you used it. That second test removes most of the padding.

Computer skills for a resume

“Computer skills” means the software and digital tools you can use for work. Two rules make them believable: name the program, and say what you do with it.

Before: Computer skills: MS Office, internet, email, social media

After: Excel (pivot tables, XLOOKUP, charts), PowerPoint (client presentations), Google Workspace, Salesforce (logging calls, pipeline reports)

The before version describes almost every applicant. The after version tells the reader what you can be handed on day one.

Which computer skills to list

Area	Examples to list if you use them
Office and documents	Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Google Sheets, Google Docs
Collaboration	Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zoom, Notion, Confluence
Projects and tasks	Jira, Asana, Trello, Microsoft Project
CRM and sales	Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive
Finance and ERP	SAP, Oracle NetSuite, QuickBooks, Xero
Data and reporting	SQL, Power BI, Tableau, Looker Studio, Python (pandas)
Design and content	Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Canva, WordPress
Software development	Programming languages, Git, cloud platforms, testing tools

For admin, reception, retail and data entry roles, basic office skills are worth listing, as long as they are specific: “Outlook (shared calendars, meeting scheduling)” says more than “email”. For professional roles, leave out Word, email and web browsing; the reader assumes them, and listing them makes the rest look thin. If a role involves a lot of typing and you have measured your speed with an online test, “Typing: 65 wpm” is a concrete line.

What “Excel” says about you

Excel appears on a lot of resumes, and some employers test it in the interview. Before you write a level, check what you could do on the spot. A common reading:

If you write	Be ready to show
Excel	Sorting, filtering, basic formulas such as SUM and AVERAGE, a tidy table
Excel, intermediate	Pivot tables, VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP, IF formulas, charts, conditional formatting
Excel, advanced	Power Query, nested formulas, dynamic arrays, macros or VBA, models other people use

Better still, skip the level and write what you do: “Excel (monthly sales model with Power Query, pivot tables)”. That works the same way for any tool.

How many skills should you list?

For most people, 8 to 15 skills is a good range. Fewer looks thin; many more turns into a wall of words where the important ones get lost.

Cut anything that is:

• Assumed for the role. A software engineer does not need “email” or “Microsoft Word”. An accountant probably does not need “Excel” on its own; “Excel (Power Query, pivot tables)” says more.
• Outdated. Tools nobody uses any more can make the rest look old.
• Something you could not talk about. If an interviewer asked you to describe the last time you used it, would you have an answer? If not, remove it.

Where to put the skills section

• One-column resumes: after experience and education for most people. Put it higher, right after the profile, if the job is very tool-focused (engineering, data, design) or if you are early in your career and your skills are your strongest selling point.
• Two-column resumes: in the side column, next to languages and certifications. That keeps it visible without pushing your experience down. Templates such as Atlas and Harbor are built this way.

Whatever the layout, use a plain title: Skills. Creative titles like “My toolbox” can confuse software that looks for standard section names. Our ATS resume guide explains why.

Group skills so they are easy to scan

A long single list is hard to read. Group related skills under short labels:

Group	Example (product designer)
Design	Figma, prototyping, design systems, interaction design
Research	Usability testing, interviews, survey design
Front end	HTML & CSS, accessibility (WCAG)
Collaboration	Workshop facilitation, design critiques

On the page, each group can be a single line:

Data: SQL, Python (pandas), Power BI, Excel (Power Query)

Tools: Jira, Git, Confluence

Languages: English (C1), Spanish (B1)

Groups also help you see gaps. If the ad stresses research and you have only one research skill listed, that is a signal to add what you genuinely know or to show it better in your experience.

Should you show skill levels?

Rating bars and stars look nice, but they raise questions. What does four out of five in Python mean? Compared with whom? Many recruiters ignore them, and software cannot read a graphic.

You have three better options. Most of the time, list the skill with no level and let your experience show the depth. When levels matter, use words: “Advanced”, “Intermediate”, “Basic”. Or add context in brackets: “SQL (daily, reporting and analysis)”, “German (B2)”.

Languages are the exception: a level is expected there. The next section shows how to write it.

How to list languages on a resume

“Spanish” on its own could mean two years at school or a childhood spent speaking it, so a language always needs a level.

Where it goes. A short Languages section of its own, or a “Languages” line in a grouped skills section, as in the example above. If the job asks for the language, such as a bilingual customer service role or a job abroad, also put it where it is seen first: “Bilingual (English/Spanish) customer service representative” in your headline or summary.

How to write it. The language, then a level the reader understands, on the same scale for every language you list. The CEFR levels (A1 to C2) are widely understood in Europe and by international employers; words work everywhere. Roughly:

CEFR	What you can do	In words
A1–A2	Simple everyday exchanges	Basic, elementary
B1	Most everyday situations, familiar topics at work	Intermediate
B2	Meetings and work emails, with some mistakes	Upper intermediate, professional working proficiency
C1	Work fully in the language: presentations, negotiations, reports	Advanced, fluent
C2	Precise and nuanced, even in complex situations	Proficient, full professional proficiency
–	Your first language, or one you grew up with	Native, bilingual

The pairs are approximate. C2 is the top of the scale, not a native speaker’s level: the CEFR itself says it does not mean native or near-native. No certificate? Place yourself with the Council of Europe’s self-assessment grid, and take the lower level when you are between two.

Languages
English: native
Spanish: fluent (C1)
French: intermediate (B1)

Certificates. A recognised test with a score settles the question: “German: C1 (Goethe-Zertifikat C1, 2024)” or “English: C1 (IELTS 7.5, 2025)”. Give the year, because language skills fade.

Your first language. List it when you list others, so the reader sees the whole picture, and always when you apply abroad.

Claim only what you can use. An interviewer may test a language you list, sometimes by switching to it for a few questions. “Fluent” should mean you could do that part of the interview.

Dots and bars. A row of dots looks tidy but says nothing a reader can check, and software cannot read it. In AlderCV each language has a level line, such as “Fluent (C1)”, and optional dots; the dots are only a picture, so the line is what a parser or a screen reader gets. Fill it in. If you prefer words alone, set a language’s Level to “Don’t show”, or switch off Show level for the whole section.

Match the job ad, honestly

Most job ads list the skills they want. Use the same words where they truthfully describe what you can do:

1. Copy the ad’s requirements into a note.
2. Mark every skill you genuinely have.
3. Use the ad’s wording for those skills. If the ad says “stakeholder management” and you wrote “working with partners”, switch to their phrase.
4. Make sure the most important ones also appear in your experience, with a result.

To check your wording quickly, paste the ad and your resume into the free resume keyword scanner; it shows which of the ad’s terms you already use.

Never add a skill you do not have to get past a filter. It will come up in the interview, or worse, in the job.

Skills examples by job

These are starting points. Keep only what is true for you and add what is missing. Where a job name is linked, the full resume example shows the skills in place on a finished resume.

Job	Skills to consider
Software engineer	Languages (TypeScript, Go, Python), frameworks, databases (PostgreSQL, Redis), cloud and tools (AWS, Docker, Kubernetes), code review, testing, CI/CD
Data analyst	SQL, Excel (Power Query), Python or R, Power BI or Tableau, statistics, data cleaning, dashboard design
Marketing specialist	SEO, Google Ads, Meta Ads, email marketing, analytics (GA4), A/B testing, copywriting, a CMS you know well
Accountant	IFRS or local standards, month-end close, reconciliations, tax returns, ERP systems (SAP, Oracle NetSuite), advanced Excel
Customer service	Ticketing tools (Zendesk, Freshdesk), live chat, complaint handling, CRM, languages
Sales representative	Prospecting, pipeline management, negotiation, a CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot), product demos, forecasting
Administrative assistant	Calendar and travel management, Outlook, Excel, document formatting, minute taking, expense processing
HR specialist	Recruitment, onboarding, an HR system (Workday, BambooHR), employment law basics, payroll input, interviewing
Graphic designer	Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Figma, typography, brand guidelines, print production
Logistics specialist	Shipment planning, customs documents, a WMS or ERP, Incoterms, carrier management, Excel
Nurse	Patient assessment, medication administration, IV therapy, electronic health records, specialty certifications
Teacher	Curriculum planning, classroom management, assessment design, learning platforms, subject specialisms

AlderCV includes example bullet points for 30 occupations while you write. Use them for ideas, then check the skills against real ads for the job you want.

Transferable skills for career changers

If you are moving into a new field, your skills section does extra work: it shows the reader that you already have part of what the new job needs.

1. Find the overlap. Compare the new job’s requirements with what you did in your old role. A teacher moving into instructional design already plans curricula, writes learning materials and assesses results. A hospitality manager moving into operations already schedules staff, manages suppliers and controls costs.
2. Name those skills in the new field’s language. “Lesson planning” becomes “learning design”; “rota management” becomes “workforce scheduling”, as long as it is still accurate.
3. Add what you have learned for the switch: a course, a certificate, a side project. Put the new skills first if they are what the ad asks for. Certificates usually get their own section; see how to list certifications on a resume.
4. Prove the overlap in your experience bullets, so the skills section is not the only place the reader sees it.

A short line in your summary connecting the two careers helps a lot here. See resume summary examples for a career changer example.

Mistakes that weaken the skills section

• Listing soft skills only. “Hard-working, motivated, team player” tells the reader nothing new. Swap them for the tools and methods you use, and move the soft skills into bullets that show them.
• Fake precision. “Python 87%” invites the question “87% of what?”. Write what you do with it instead: “Python (pandas, scripts for weekly reports)”.
• Keyword stuffing. Thirty tools in a row, many of them barely used, makes the real strengths invisible. Keep the ones you used in the last two or three years.
• Mismatch with experience. If “React” is your first skill but appears nowhere in your experience, the reader wonders where you used it. Add a bullet that shows it, or move it down the list.
• Inconsistent naming. Pick one spelling (“JavaScript”, not “Javascript” and “JS” in the same document), and use the spelling the ad uses.

Quick checklist

• 8 to 15 skills, mostly hard skills
• Computer skills named by program, with what you do in each
• Grouped under short labels when the list is long
• The job ad's wording used where it is true for you
• Every skill is something you could discuss in an interview
• Key skills also proven in your experience bullets
• Languages with a written level (a CEFR level or words), not dots alone
• The section is simply called "Skills"

Put it into practice

Open your resume next to a job ad you care about and rework the skills section with the steps above. It takes about fifteen minutes. If you are starting fresh, AlderCV’s free plan includes every template, and the full walk-through is in our guide on how to write a resume.