What skills to put on your resume (and how)

Start from the job posting, not from memory

The skills section exists to match one specific job description. Open the posting, list every concrete skill, tool and qualification it names, and check which ones you genuinely have — those go first, in the posting’s exact wording. Everything else is secondary.

Hard skills carry the section

Tools, languages, frameworks, certifications, methodologies: “Python”, “QuickBooks”, “Google Analytics”, “OSHA 30”. These are what ATS keyword matching and skimming recruiters both look for. List them as plain comma-separated text or simple groups — no skill bars, icons or star ratings, which parsers cannot read.

Soft skills need proof, not a list entry

“Leadership” in a skills list is noise; “Led a 6-person support team through a CRM migration” in a bullet is evidence. Keep at most one or two soft skills in the list, and demonstrate the rest inside your experience bullets.

How many skills to list

Aim for 8–15. Fewer looks thin; more looks like keyword stuffing and dilutes the ones that matter. If you’re tempted to list 25, group them (“Languages: … / Cloud: … / Data: …”) and cut anything you couldn’t discuss in an interview.

Match level honestly

Only list skills you can use on day one. “Familiar with” skills you’ve merely read about set interview traps — one probing question and your credibility is gone. If a required skill is a genuine gap, address it in the cover letter as something you’re actively learning.

Check the match before you send

Paste your resume and the job posting into our free ATS checker to see which of the posting’s keywords your skills section already covers and which are missing — it runs entirely in your browser.