Different jobs require different skills, and some abilities are more important than others, depending on the job in question. Regarding what skills to put on a resume, however, a few are considered indispensable, and including them in your resume will make you more favorable in the eyes of recruiters.
Choosing the right skills to show on your resume can make the difference between landing an interview and being overlooked. Many companies now use ATS (Applicant Tracking Systems) to filter resumes. That’s why you need to include keywords related to essential skills. Including the most in-demand skills will demonstrate your qualifications and improve your chances of getting past ATSs and getting noticed by hiring managers.
We give you the 11 most important skills to include on a resume so you can immediately be seen as an exemplary potential candidate.
Top Skills Employers Look for in Candidates
1. Hard skills
Of course, your resume should never do without the hard skills that the profession requires. These tend to be very specific to the work and industry you plan to apply for, so review the job posting for hard skill requirements and make sure you possess these before sending out your resume. Examples include:
- Computer applications – Sonar X Producer Edition (music production), Adobe Creative Suite (graphic design)
- Machine tools – drilling machines, power saws, presses
- Languages – Chinese, German, Spanish
Due to their critical nature, hard skills need to be highlighted effectively on your resume, so make sure to place these on top of your core competencies section where they can be read first by recruiters and hiring managers.
These tips will help you include hard skills in your resume the right way:
To avoid having this section come off as “dry,” consider integrating hard skills into your work experience. You can do that by linking them to specific, quantifiable achievements. For example, instead of just listing Adobe Creative Suite, you can mention how your proficiency improved the designed marketing materials and increased lead generation by 20%.
Listing hard skills for resumes with bullet points that describe real projects makes the information more dynamic. It also makes it contextually relevant.
To make a clear distinction between hard skills vs. soft skills, you can create a dedicated technical skills section. With such a layout, the resume will be clearer for a hiring manager to read. But you’ll also emphasize the depth of your technical experience. This approach works for highly technical professions, such as complex machinery operators or developers who use advanced software.
2. Team player
Working in a company requires working well with others, so right off the bat, you need to let your reader know that you are ready to help your team succeed. Many employers consider being a team player a must when reviewing candidates for a job. It’s an important quality regardless of your job title or industry.
To show your collaborative nature, these are the team-player skills to put on a resume:
Cross-functional collaboration
You can include information about working with marketing, sales, and product development teams. Don’t forget the details, such as successfully launching a new product, which resulted in a 15% increase in quarterly revenue.
Team leadership
Have you ever coordinated and led team meetings? You can write that in your resume. Include specifics, such as aligned project goals, resolved conflicts, and boosted overall team productivity.
Mentorship and support
No matter what the job market trends are, your mentorship capacity is always important for a hiring manager. Here’s an example: “Actively mentored new team members. Provided guidance and support that shortened their adaptation time and improved team performance.”
Problem-solving in a group setting
This skill is important because it combines your diverse perspectives and expertise. When team members collaborate, they bring unique ideas to the table. That will lead to more creative and effective solutions compared to an individual in the same setting.
You can write something like this: “Collaborated with colleagues to brainstorm solutions. Handled high-pressure situations to keep projects on track when facing unexpected challenges.”
Fostering a positive work environment
This is one of the most important skills to put on a resume because it enhances morale and productivity within the organization. When employees feel valued, they become more productive and committed to their work.
You can write something like this: “Organized team-building events and informal gatherings for the team. Helped improve interdepartmental relationships and employee morale.”
Remote collaboration
When you’re open to remote collaboration, you show you can work from anywhere. The flexibility to accommodate different time zones and personal schedules means a lot in a modern workplace setting. You can include computer skills for resume in this part. Mention specific digital tools that ensure all team members are engaged.
3. Communication skills
Being a good team player is impossible without good communication skills, and any employer would want to have someone who can connect well with others and effectively understand what the job calls for. Well-developed conversation skills should not only involve verbal but written communication as well.
However, effective communication is not just about simple talking. It involves active listening, clear articulation, and the ability to adapt your message to different audiences. This is something that AI resume writing cannot do for you; you have to reflect your unique style through the resume.
Let’s say you’re applying for a role in customer service. In that case, you’ll benefit from listing experiences where you resolve conflicts or provide clear guidance over the phone or email. For managerial positions, you can focus on your ability to conduct meetings, lead presentations, and write reports.
Here are some good skills to put on a resume to prove you’re good at communicating:
Active listening
Public speaking
Written proficiency
Cross-departmental communication
Digital communication
4. Results-driven
With the business environment as competitive as ever, it’s now more crucial to complete tasks and projects in the shortest time while producing quality work. Needless to say, highly productive employees will always find a way to get tasks done and exceed expectations. From your previous work, give specific examples of your ability to push yourself to achieve the desired results when the situation demands it.
To show your results-driven approach, you can include detailed examples and measurable outcomes throughout the entire resume. These tips will give you the guidelines you need:
Mention quantifiable achievements. You’ll do that through examples when you exceed targets, such as increasing sales by a certain percentage.
If you contributed to any process optimization, mention it. You can describe how you identified bottlenecks in exciting processes and suggested innovative solutions.
Share success stories about your initiatives. Describe how they led to cost savings or improved efficiency within your department.
Your ability to meet deadlines shows how results-driven you are. Mention managing multiple projects at the same time, making sure that all tasks were completed ahead of schedule.
Do you perform well under pressure? Can you stay focused on delivering results in such a setting? Show that capacity through examples, too!
5. Continuous learning and adaptability
More and more companies are investing in the professional development of their employees, so if you want to get ahead in your career, you need to express your willingness for continuous learning. On that note, you don’t even have to wait for your company to provide the training for you—there are plenty of resources in the real world and online for improving your professional skills and capacities, as long as you’re up for it.
To show your commitment to growth, you can include these resume skills:
Embracing new technologies and methods
Write that you’re staying current with industry trends by engaging in online courses, webinars, and workshops. You’ll have to prove that by listing certifications or new software proficiencies you’ve acquired.
Self-directed learning
Employers will appreciate your ability to take initiative. You can show it by referencing personal projects, research, and side ventures that contributed to your professional development. Include examples to show how your self-initiated learning benefited your team or project outcomes. Remember: everything you write in the resume has to be relevant to the position. When mentioning these soft skills, you must include examples to show how relevant they are.
6. Time management
With the wider acceptance of home offices and remote work setups due to the pandemic situation, employees now have to be more responsible with their own time. This means your future employers have to be able to rely on you to perform your duties with minimum supervision, and that can only happen when you have a strong work ethic and high self-discipline.
Many job applicants make the same mistake: they fail to understand that time management is more than keeping track of hours. It’s about making priorities, setting realistic deadlines, and using productivity tools that help them stay focused. That being said, these are some specific time-management skills you can include in your resume:
Prioritization and planning
You can mention that one of the tasks at your previous jobs included developing daily or weekly plans that outlined key tasks and deadlines for the team. If you used specific methods, such as the Eisenhower Matrix or time-blocking, mention them, too.
Adaptability and resilience
Unexpected interruptions or priority changes are common in work setups, especially in remote ones. You should be able to quickly reorder tasks or shift strategies without losing momentum.
The question is: how do you showcase your adaptability in the resume? You can use action-oriented bullet points! Like this:
Responded to unexpected interruptions by adjusting priorities, which resulted in a 20% increase in overall team productivity.
Used Asana to reorganize tasks and maintain workflow efficiency during shifting project priorities.
7. Computer know-how
We are now in the digital age, which makes it virtually impossible for an employee to thrive at his or her job without at least some familiarity with using computers, primarily since almost every occupation uses a computer in some way. Some computer basics to include are word processing, spreadsheets, email communication, and social media. If you’re applying for a job that requires more advanced computer knowledge, be sure to feature these prominently in your hard skills/core competencies section if you have them.
Keep these tips in mind when showcasing computer skills in your resume:
The basics won’t be enough. You’ll need to list specific programs or tools relevant to your industry. If you’re in graphic design, you can mention your experience with Adobe Creative Suite or CorelDRAW. For data-oriented roles, focus on Excel (advanced functions, pivot tables), SQL, or Python.
All certifications you hold are important. You can list Microsoft Office Specialist, CompTIA IT Fundamentals, or certifications in coding languages and software tools. For entry-level positions, these credentials are tangible proof of your expertise.
Include practical examples to show how you effectively used your computer skills. Like this: “Created and managed complex spreadsheets for budgeting and forecasting, reducing errors by 20%.”
Digital communication tools are also crucial! Mention your experience with platforms like Microsoft Teams, Slack, Zoom, and Trello.
8. Decision making
Making decisive actions and solving problems is especially important for employees who work as part of a team or large organization. This is not an easy skill to have, and having the ability to evaluate a situation and come to a conclusive decision immediately identifies you as an excellent candidate. Even if you make a mistake occasionally, it shows that you’re willing to take risks, which can be a positive quality depending on your role in the company.
Here’s how you can show your decision-making skills in a resume:
As for every other type of skill, examples are important here, too. What outcome did your decisions have? When you want to illustrate them, write something like this: “Evaluated market data to make a timely decision on a project launch. Sales were increased by 15% in the first quarter.”
Your language should be active. Use verbs like implemented, resolved, or optimized. ATS quickly recognizes them, and they also help a hiring manager see your proactive approach.
Write about your analytical process. You can mention methodologies, tools, or frameworks that led to successful decisions. Like this: “Used SWOT analysis to assess potential risks and opportunities. Guided key strategic decisions during a market downturn.”
9. Emotional intelligence
A study by CareerBuilder showed that over 70 percent of recruiters and human resources managers put more stock on emotional quotient (EQ) over intellectual quotient (IQ), with almost 60 percent stating that they’d instead hire a candidate with higher EQ but lower IQ than someone with a very high IQ but low EQ. The reason? Hiring managers tend to believe that the former are better at conflict resolution, keeping calm under pressure, and empathizing with their co-workers.
To actively show your emotional intelligence in the resume, follow these tips:
If you can, cite examples of how you applied emotional intelligence on specific tasks at your previous job. You’ll do that with action-oriented language. Use verbs that show your ability to understand, respond, and adapt. Terms like mediated, resolved, facilitated, and supported convey your capacity to handle interpersonal challenges.
You can describe a situation where you mediated a disagreement among team members. Like this: “Mediated a team conflict, resulting in an improved collaboration and reduced project delays.”
Show your ability to stay composed during a high-pressure project. Like this: “Managed tight deadlines during peak periods by staying organized. The process led to a 20% increase in team productivity.”
If you thought empathy wasn’t important to mention in a resume, you were wrong. There's a place for it in specific examples that you’ll relate to the position. Here’s an example: “Actively listened to customer concerns and reacted, resulting in a 30% increase in customer satisfaction.”
Have you completed any courses or workshops on leadership, conflict resolution, or emotional intelligence? You can list them under a dedicated Professional Development section.
The resume summary also gives you space to show your emotional intelligence. You can write something like this: “Strong emotional intelligence with proven abilities in conflict resolution, stress management, and empathetic leadership.”
10. Leadership
There’s more to leadership than having a “manager” in your title. If you want to progress in your career, you have to convey a strong sense of leadership. Regarding what skills to include on a resume, leadership is one quality that many employers look for in candidates, especially those they deem to have the potential to climb up the ladder. Even when you’re applying for an entry-level job, if you can demonstrate leadership in your current capacity, your superiors may be more likely to promote you to a higher-level role when a position opens up in the future.
Here’s how your resume can reflect you’re a true leader:
Mention your leadership skills right at the beginning. You can include a statement in your professional summary, like this one: “Proactive leader with a proven track record of guiding teams to exceed performance targets.” Executive CV writing services can help you sum up your entire experience in a job application that works.
Incorporate explanations about your leadership roles in the experience section. Here’s an example: “Led a cross-functional team of 8 that launched a new product, resulting in a 15% increase in company revenue within the first quarter.”
Even informal leadership roles are worthy of mention. Like this: “Led a volunteer team for a community event, which 200+ participants successfully attended.”
When mentioning examples, they should be aligned with the job you’re applying for. If the role is focused on team management, your examples should show how you managed the teams. For roles that value innovation, focus on your ability to lead creative projects and drive strategic decisions.
11. Organization
Adept organizational skills are essential to an employee’s productivity. Being highly organized in your work will allow you to manage your resources well and carry out your responsibilities more efficiently while minimizing stress.
This is how you can show your organizational abilities on your resume:
Describe how you successfully planned and executed projects. You can mention breaking them into manageable tasks, setting clear deadlines, and tracking progress. Like this: “Organized and managed a project that resulted in a 15% efficiency boost.”
Mention how different organizational techniques helped you juggle multiple responsibilities.
You can also mention the systems and processes you introduced to the organization’s operations. These may be digital filing systems or project tracking tools. Don’t forget that you have to quantify the improvements if possible.
Short Summary
Before you begin writing your resume, consult the job description to pinpoint the specific skills that your potential employer is looking for. Identify appropriate buzzwords—prominent words that show you are part of the industry—and incorporate them organically into your resume’s sections and entries. This is the best way to boost your chances of passing Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and getting shortlisted by the hiring manager for an interview.
Follow the tips outlined above, but remember: a strong resume highlights only your most relevant skills. Be honest about your qualifications, focus on roles you’re truly suited for, and present your abilities in a way that captures a potential employer’s attention. And, if possible, always back your claim with measurable data.
