What Skills Should You Put on a Resume?

Put skills on your resume that the role needs and that you can demonstrate. Prioritize relevant tools, technical methods, languages, and domain knowledge. Use work or project examples to show interpersonal skills instead of relying on a list of words such as "teamwork" and "leadership."

What to Include

Hard skills and technical competencies. Specific tools, technologies, languages, methodologies, and platforms that are directly relevant to your target role.

Industry-relevant tools. If the job description consistently mentions specific tools and you know them, include them. Everything from Excel and SQL to Figma and Salesforce belongs if it is mentioned in the role and you genuinely have it.

Selected soft skills — carefully. Generic soft skills like "good communicator" add little. Where a soft skill is genuinely notable for the role type, it may be worth including briefly. But your experience bullets will demonstrate soft skills more effectively than a list ever will.

What to Leave Out

• Skills you cannot discuss. If you completed a brief tutorial and would struggle to answer a basic question, do not list it as a skill.
• Tools that add no useful information. Basic document editing may not distinguish you in some roles, but advanced Word formatting can matter in others. Include a tool when the posting or actual duties make it relevant.
• Outdated skills. Technologies you used years ago and no longer practice may be more distracting than useful.
• Keyword stuffing. Listing forty technologies to match an ATS scan damages readability. See ATS keywords: how to use them without stuffing.

Weaker vs. Stronger Skills Section

These fictional examples compare organization, not two versions of the same person's qualifications. The stronger list is suitable only for someone who actually has the stated data skills.

Skills Section Examples for Different Roles

Select from your own experience; these are not universal keyword lists:

• Administrative assistant: calendar coordination, Excel, document formatting, meeting preparation, and expense processing. Name scheduling or accounting software if you have used it and it matters to the role.
• Customer support: ticket triage, written customer communication, issue documentation, Zendesk, and account troubleshooting. A work bullet can show how you handled an escalation.
• Data analyst: SQL, Excel, Tableau, data cleaning, and reporting. Include statistical methods only when you can explain their use.
• First-job applicant: relevant spreadsheet work, research, presentation design, or language proficiency supported by actual coursework, volunteering, or projects.

Choose Skills in Three Passes

1. Collect: mark the duties and tools in the posting, then list your genuine matches.
2. Verify: identify where you used each important skill. Keep evidence for core capabilities, not a separate bullet for every minor tool.
3. Organize: group related skills under short labels and put the most relevant group first. Remove duplicates and unrelated items.

Describe proficiency plainly when it needs qualification. "Spanish: conversational" is more interpretable than a row of stars. A skill you are still learning can be shown under an actual course or project rather than presented as professional expertise.

Context Matters More Than Length

A skills section tells a reader what tools you have. Your work experience bullets tell them how you used those tools. Both need to be consistent. If you list a skill but none of your bullets show how you applied it, the skill is harder to evaluate. When a skill appears in both your skills list and meaningfully in your experience, it reads as genuine depth. See resume evidence: how to prove your skills instead of listing them for how to close that gap, and how to show transferable skills if you're moving between fields.

For role-specific tailoring, see how to tailor your resume to a job description. Organize the selected skills in the free EndLuck resume builder, then check that the rest of the resume supports them.