Regardless of the industry you target, you’ll want to highlight your technical, communication, leadership, adaptability, and problem-solving skills. Best resumes are filled with skills that are specific, teachable, and measurable. But let's not forget about others - interpersonal, emotional, and social abilities that define how you’ll fit in the workplace setting. Most job applicants focus on the first ones, but the second ones are equally important!
The Importance of Hard and Soft Skills
There are actually two types of skills that employers want you to include in your resume - hard and soft. Understanding the difference between hard vs. soft skills will not only make your resume easier to scan, but also show the recruiter that you know what you’re talking about. For technical jobs, you’ll need to highlight hard skills. For leadership roles - soft skills are crucial. When you understand the difference between these concepts, you’ll know how to incorporate the right keywords and pass ATS screening. This, in turn, will help you stand out from the pack. Let’s not forget that employers often ask behavioral questions to assess your soft skills. They also ask specific questions to evaluate your industry-specific knowledge level. Every job role requires a combination of both. By preparing well, you’ll show that you’re a well-rounded candidate during the interview.
What Are Hard Skills
Hard or technical skills refer to the specific knowledge and training you've acquired through various life experiences, including education and career. They are abilities one learns from school, training, seminars, and other learning resources. These skills are often measurable and specific to particular tasks, and recruiters frequently use them to select and hire applicants. How do they measure them? — Through assessments, certifications, or performance in specific tasks. If you want to work as an IT technician, for instance, you will typically need a Bachelor’s degree in a computer field, and even job experience for a certain number of years.
There’s another thing that hard skills have in common: they are task-oriented. Each of these skills shows your capacity to perform a specific task. For example, data analysis involves working with statistical tools. Budgeting, on the other hand, requires working with numbers and financial software. Many hard skills require working with platforms, software, or machinery. If your resume includes budgeting as a skill, the employer will ask what financial software you’re trained to use.
Examples of hard skills:
- Certain platforms or software
- Different programming languages (JavaScript, etc.)
- Statistical and data analysis
- Copywriting / Copyediting
- Healthcare-related certifications or licenses
- Coding
- User interface (UI) design
- Budgeting
- Speaking foreign languages
- Working with certain machinery
The Connection Between Hard Skills and ATS
Hard skills are also especially important to applicant tracking systems (ATS) that screen your resume and determine if it deserves to be seen by a recruiter. They are considered ‘keywords’ by ATS, so when adding hard skills to your resume, be sure you write them exactly as they’re written in the job posting to boost your chances of passing the screening.
Here’s a more detailed explanation of how ATS works, so you’ll understand why hard skills are so important for it:
Here’s a more detailed explanation of how ATS works and why hard skills are so important:
✅ When you submit your resume online, the ATS parses (reads and interprets) it by breaking it down into categories. These categories may be work experience, education, and skills. The software will search for specific keywords and phrases that match the job description.
✅ Employers input specific keywords into the system based on the job description. Usually, these are the hard skills required for the role (technical jargon, tools, software, apps) or education requirements (degree). If your resume has enough hard skills that are relevant, it moves forward in the hiring process.
To optimize your hard skills for ATS, use the job description as a guide. Read it carefully and use the exact skills and qualifications listed. Overly creative formatting, as well as graphics or unusual fonts, is not recommended. Stick to simple formats and clearly labeled resume sections.
What Are Soft Skills
Soft skills, also known as ‘people skills’ or ‘personality traits,’ are the abilities you develop throughout your entire (professional, but also personal) life. They relate to how you interact with others and why you are motivated to do certain things.
Examples of soft skills:
- Adaptability
- Conflict resolution
- Communication
- Teamwork
- Leadership
- Work ethic
- Decision-making
Although these interpersonal skills are unmeasurable, they are still valuable in the workplace.
Why Soft Skills Are Important for Your Resume
During the initial screenings, where ATS is involved, hard skills are more important. However, soft skills are equally important to include. They will become crucial at the next stages of the hiring process and throughout your career.
Here’s why soft skills are important:
✅ They show how well you would fit in the team. Once you pass the ATS screening and get invited for an interview, the employers will want to see how well you can communicate, collaborate, and adapt to their company culture.
✅ Soft skills demonstrate your emotional intelligence, active listening, data-driven decision-making, and similar abilities that help you handle interpersonal relationships at work.
✅ If you aim for a leadership role, soft skills like conflict resolution and empathy are essential. Can you inspire, motivate, and guide a team? In addition to technical expertise, those skills are necessary to manage people effectively.
✅ Customer service, sales, and other roles that involve interacting with clients depend on soft skills. For such a job, you’ll have to prove you’re skilled at managing relationships, resolving complaints, and building trust.
✅ Soft skills will help you advance in your career. Employees who excel at communication, teamwork, and leadership are more likely to be promoted to higher roles.
Difference Between Hard and Soft Skills
The key differences between hard and soft skills lie in:
- how you acquire them
- how they are measured
- how you use them at work
Hard skills are quantifiable, teachable, and are acquired through formal education, training, courses, and on-the-job experience. In contrast, soft skills are the qualities that make you a good worker because they are more about your personal traits and how you interact with others. They aren’t easy to quantify, but they show how you interact, communicate, and manage work situations.
Unlike hard skills, you generally don't learn soft skills through formal education or training — they develop naturally over time. Employers evaluate soft skills through interviews, references, and observed behavior in real-world settings. Your strong communication skills will be evident in the way you express ideas during the interview. Teamwork skills, on the other hand, will be revealed through examples of previous collaborative work.
Some of the hardest jobs in the world, including health care professionals, developers, administrative assistants, project managers, and web designers, all benefit from relationship-building skills, though the degree of necessity may vary.
List Both Clearly in Your Resume
Ensure your resume highlights your hard and soft skills by detailing your achievements. For example, instead of saying you were in charge of quality control at your old job, say that your input helped reduce inspection times by 30%. Add a separate section for any major award you received so that the recruiter can better understand your capabilities.
Let’s get into detail, so you’ll know how to integrate both hard and soft skills into your resume:
1️⃣ Create Dedicated Sections for Hard and Soft Skills
Here, you’ll want to categorize your skills in two parts. That makes it easy for the recruiter to see your technical abilities (they will be in the Experience and Achievements section), and the ATS will easily scan them. Your interpersonal strengths will be listed in a separate section of the resume (Skills and Awards).
2️⃣ Hard Skills Take Priority
They are directly related to the job. That’s why they should appear first. Don’t forget to use words from the job description, so you’ll make your resume compatible with ATS.
3️⃣ Use Quantifiable Metrics to Demonstrate Hard Skills
Don’t describe hard skills - demonstrate them with facts and back them up with measurable achievements. If you write that you’re skilled in budgeting, explain that you reduced the expenses on a particular project by 15%. Goes without saying that you should never lie on a resume and only add factual information as it can be easily verified.
4️⃣ Craft a Resume for the Specific Job Posting
You should customize your resume in a way that mirrors the language used in the listing. If the job specifies leadership and collaboration, you’ll highlight those specific soft skills with examples. An overwhelming generic resume with too many skills is never a good thing.
5️⃣ Use Action Verbs for Maximum Impact
Led, created, analyzed — those are the types of words that add clarity and actively demonstrate your skills.
Utilize a Cover Letter
Your cover letter is more than just an introduction — it's a chance to emphasize your skills and enthusiasm for the job you're applying for. Your resume highlights your qualifications while the cover letter gives you space to bring your skills to life. That said, you must consciously try to avoid repeating what you’ve already said in your resume. Instead, use your cover letter to tell a compelling story that makes the recruiter want to learn more about you.
✔️ The cover letter should highlight only the most relevant skills. Otherwise, it will become long. For example, instead of saying that you managed a successful project, describe how you used your hard skills (project management software) and soft skills (collaborative leadership) to guide your team.
✔️ Make the cover letter personal and memorable. It should show your genuine excitement about this role and industry. Your soft skills will help with that.
✔️ Talk about your soft skills in a way that shows you’re a good cultural fit for the company.
By leveraging executive resume writing techniques, you can craft a narrative that highlights your unique qualifications. Use your story to link your skills with your enthusiasm and motivation to work for them, making your application memorable.
Elaborate on Your Hard and Soft Skills During Your Interview
Once you land an interview, you can shine a spotlight on your hard and soft skills even further. Here is what you can do to wow your interviewer:
✅ Bring relevant diplomas, certificates, or licenses to demonstrate your hard skills, and be ready to discuss your accomplishments in detail.
✅ Showcase your soft skills by being punctual, maintaining eye contact, asking thoughtful questions, and answering even the trickiest job interview questions in a positive and confident manner.
✅ Prepare specific examples to show how you’ve applied the skills listed in the resume in previous roles. Have your quantifiable results ready, so you’ll show the practical impact of your skills.
✅ Use the STAR method (Situation - Task - Action - Result) to discuss your experiences during an interview. If you are asked how you resolved a challenge, you can describe how your technical knowledge helped you identify the problem, how you communicated the solution to the team, what practical actions you took, and what results you achieved.
✅ Be prepared to discuss tools, software, and methodologies relevant to the job in detail.
✅ During phone or online interviews - please do not utilize ChatGPT or the likes to answer any questions, either about your technical qualifications or soft skills. Recruiters will know what you are doing and will instantly cut you from the selection process.
Let Resumeble Work for You
All of this can sound overwhelming, but don’t despair. Resumeble has a team of in-house professional resume writers who can work with you one-on-one to ensure your soft and hard skills are presented in the best light possible. Send us your resume today for a free analysis. Our resume writing services come with an interview and job guarantee because we’re with you until you make it.
