Learn how to list Soft Vs Hard Skills in a resume in 2025
Do you know that 41 percent of hiring managers initially notice the skill section of a resume? Your resume is your first impression and adding relevant skills in it will increase your chances of getting hired.
Listing your skills with impact in your resume is the best way to answer the question, “What are your skills?”
Looking for some relevant resume skills?
In this guide, we will share some hard, soft, and key skills for your resume. You can also learn some best practices for adding those skills to your resume.
What are the Hard vs. soft skills in a resume? Why do they matter?
Hard skills in a resume
Hard skills, also known as technical skills, are the level of proficiency in a job seeker’s area of expertise. These resume skills can be achieved by working on your strength areas within your field.
- Hard skills to list in your resume
- Hard skills in a resume for a Marketer
Job seekers looking for marketing jobs must have a knowledge of the diverse skill set they possess. Marketers are mostly dealing with brands, analytics, social media strategies ,and much more.
Below is a list of some hard skills a marketer can put in their resume:
- Social Media Management
- Email Marketing
- Data Analysis
- Copywriting
- SEO Optimization
- Hard skills in a resume for a Software Engineer
When it comes to programmers, they are expected to have a vast skill set that could complement their industry. Being a part of a competitive industry, a software developer has to keep up with evolving technologies.
If you’re a software developer, looking for some job-specific skills to list in your CV, go for these:
- Learning Programming Languages
- Database management
- Risk mitigation skills
- Prompt Engineering
- Utilizing Artificial Intelligence tools
Learn in detail about the technical skills set you should’ve in the age of AI evolution.
- Hard skills in a resume for a Teacher
Teachers have a very important role in the educational development of their students. This is why they are expected to have a varied skill set with a high level in their core subjects.
If you’re seeking a job as a teacher, here’s a list of core competencies that you should add in your CV:
- Classroom management
- Lesson Planning
- Curriculum development
- Core Subject Expertise
- Planning and conducting assessments
- Hard skills in a resume for an Accountant
Accountants are expected to have a range of skills, including mathematical skills, along with efficiency in handling financial software.
If you’re crafting your resume as an accountant, then these are the resume skills you should highlight:
- Budgeting
- Financial Analysis
- Financial Reporting
- Compliance
- Auditing
- Hard skills in a resume for a doctor
Doctors deal with critical patients daily. This requires a great skill set of medical knowledge, along with having basic diagnosis and primary care skills.
Looking for the core competencies to add to your medical resume? Check these out:
- Clinical knowledge & reasoning
- Communication skills
- Patient Assessment
- Accurate Diagnosis
- CPR Certification
Soft skills in a resume
Soft skills are also referred to as the non-technical skills of a job applicant. These skills are harder to accomplish and quantify in terms of achievement. However, most of these skills can be transferred to other jobs if you switch careers.
Find out more about having soft skills as a software developer.
- List of 10 most in-demand soft skills to use in your resume
- Active Listening
- Computer Skills
- Time management
- Adaptability
- Problem-Solving
- Conflict Resolution
- Critical Thinking
- Interpersonal skills
- Stress management
- Transferable skills
How to list your skills in a resume effectively?
- Make a separate skill section in your resume to list key skills.
- List your resume skills with bulleted points in your work experience to add impact.
- Structure your skills in an organized manner to maintain clarity.
- If you list your skills in a separate section, use categorization to grab a recruiter’s attention.
- Add relevant skills to your job and tailor your resume accordingly.
- Don’t stuff your resume with buzzwords or fluff. Optimize your resume according to job-specific keywords and ATS scans.
5 key skills for your CV in 2025
Digital Literacy
Since AI has transformed the world, hiring managers want candidates with skills related to digital literacy. They prefer resumes that highlight the proficiency level of a job seeker while using digital tools to optimize results.
Marketing
Marketing is one of the most in-demand skills in the job industry currently. People with experience in marketing have a varied skill set with knowledge of audience, branding, and social image.
Active Listening
Many people don’t realize the value of active listening as a skill. However, this skill helps you build strong interpersonal relationships and gain knowledge indirectly.
Problem-solving
Many people will claim it as a buzzword, but highlighting your problem-solving skills in your work experience is crucial. This will help the hiring manager assess your potential for dealing with critical tasks.
Adaptability
If you plainly put adaptability in the skill section, it might fall into the buzzword category. However, with the rapidly evolving world, adapting quickly to different technologies and strategies is essential. This is why the hiring manager should be able to conclude about your adaptable nature from your experience.
You can add this resume skill to your work experience while highlighting the results you achieved through it.
Learn how to put skills in a resume as a fresher or an experienced professional
Skills in a resume for students
Skills to list in a resume for students include the level of expertise they developed in their core degree subjects.
Moreover, students can also add skills they developed through extra-curricular activities like leadership or problem-solving.
Skills in a resume for freshers or someone with no experience
Freshers or candidates with no experience should work on one or two mock projects to show their skills.
Moreover, candidates with a lack of experience can also highlight transferable skills that they built while studying.
Skills in a resume for an experienced
Experienced Job applicants should list the most relevant key skills related to the job they’re seeking.
Since they are already experienced, they can highlight their skills more in work experience by quantifying them through numbers.
While adding skills to your resume as an experienced candidate, follow the less is more rule.
How to win the Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) screening?
Applicant Tracking Systems are software used by 98% of companies, according to Jobscan.
This software is used to track the resume applications of hundreds of job applicants with job-specific criteria.
Professional resume writers always stress the use of job-specific keywords to optimize your resume for both ATS and recruiters.
According to a recruiter on Reddit, the skills mentioned alone in the skill section are ineffective.
You should highlight your resume skills in bullets under your work, educational or internship experiences.
Moreover, once a resume passes the ATS scans, it goes through recruiter screening.
So, if your resume isn’t optimized for maximum readability and overstuffed with unrelated keywords, then you might lose an opportunity.
We know that passing the ATS scans and recruiter screening is not easy. Moreover, using related skills and keywords for resume optimization is tricky if you’re not an expert.
Don’t worry! Certified resume writers at ProResumes will optimize your resume for you so that you can get 4x more job offers.
List skills in your resume and get an interview call
Adding skills to a resume can increase your chances of getting interview calls. Don’t give up on this opportunity and utilize the best practices for adding skills to your CV.
So, what kind of skills are you adding to your resume?
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. How many skills should I put on a resume?
When it comes to deciding on how many skills you should use in your resume, there is no one-size-fits-all. However, we can generally decide on a bunch of 6 to 8 skills, including both hard and soft skills.
One example is to go with the less is more rule and only list your job-specific skills in a resume.
Overstuffing your resume with fluff or buzzwords in the form of a long list is always a bad idea.
Q. What skills stand out to employers?
If you are listing quantifiable skills in a resume, then you can eventually stand out to an employer.
Highlighting your hard skills is also a good way to pass the recruiter screening and to get an interview call.
Q. What skills make a resume stand out?
When you put both technical skills and non-technical skills in a resume, you eventually get an edge over fellow job seekers with zero skills mentioned in their resume.
However, if you’re switching jobs or changing careers, then you can list transferable skills to stand out.
Q. What is the number one soft skill to get hired?
The best soft skill that you can mention on your resume is to listen with attention. In other terms, we call this an active listening skill. Active listening helps you build strong connections and gain maximum knowledge.