Skills to Put on a Resume
Every other list of skills for a resume is somebody's opinion about what employers want. This one is a count. We analysed the skills named in 404,776 live job postings held in our index and ranked what employers actually ask for — then explain which of those are worth space on your CV, and which are so common that listing them proves nothing.
The short answer
The best skills to put on a resume are the ones the job posting names, written in the posting's own words, and backed by a bullet that proves them. Across 404,776 postings the most-requested are communication (32.6%), AI (16.5%), leadership (16.3%), collaboration (9.9%) and attention to detail (9.2%). But that frequency cuts both ways: these are common because nearly every employer asks for them, so on their own they do not separate you from anyone. Use them to match the posting, and spend your evidence on the specific ones underneath.
A note on names, because every one of these searches is asking the same thing. A resume and a CV are the same document across most of the world, so skills for resume and skills for cv describe one list. You will also see it called key skills for resume, job skills for resume, or simply skills and abilities. People looking for resume skills examples and cv skills examples want what people looking for a list of skills for resume sections want: entries that real job postings support rather than invented ones. And skills to put on a cv is the same question as skills to put on a resume — the answer below does not change with the word.
The skills employers ask for most, measured
Counted across every live posting in our index, not sampled from one industry or one country. Percentages are the share of postings naming each term. The list is curated — we removed words that describe a sector rather than a skill, and extractor artefacts — so this is not a raw top twenty. See the method note at the foot of the page.
Communication
Soft skillIn roughly one posting in three — the single most-requested thing in the whole index. Which is exactly why the bare word is worthless on a resume: every applicant has it. Employers name the channel, so you should too. "Verbal communication" is asked for separately in 5.8% of postings and "written communication" in 5.6%.
AI
TechnicalThe largest change in this data year on year, and it has gone cross-functional — it is no longer confined to engineering postings. Name the tool and the task, not the acronym: "drafted first-pass copy with GPT-4, edited to brand voice" beats "AI".
Leadership
Soft skillAsked for far below the seniority level people assume. Team size and outcome make it provable — "led 4 engineers through a replatform, shipped 3 weeks early" — where the noun alone does not.
Collaboration
Soft skillProve it with the boundary you crossed. Working well with your own team is assumed; working with legal, procurement or a client-side counterpart is the version employers are actually screening for.
Attention to detail
Soft skillThe most-claimed and least-evidenced phrase on the average resume. The only convincing version is an error rate or a check you owned: reconciliation variance, defect escape rate, audit findings.
Excel
ComputerStill the most-requested piece of software in the index, ahead of every programming language. Name the level — pivot tables, XLOOKUP, Power Query — because "Microsoft Office" tells a screener nothing.
Python
TechnicalClose behind Excel and no longer only in engineering roles; it appears across analytics, finance and operations postings.
Analytical
Soft skillCounted here as the term "analytical". "Analytical skills" is a separate token at 3.6% and the two are not added together. Show the decision your analysis changed, not the adjective.
Project management
Hard skillAsked for well outside project-manager titles. If you ran a project without the job title, claim it — with scope, budget and the delivery date you hit.
SQL
TechnicalThe most transferable technical skill in this list. Requested across analytics, marketing, finance and operations, not only in data roles.
AWS
TechnicalAhead of Azure (3.0%) across the index as a whole, though the gap narrows sharply in European postings.
Stakeholder management
Soft skillMore common than most soft-skill listicles suggest, and unusually credible when evidenced: name the seniority you managed upward to and the conflict you resolved.
Presentation
Soft skillPair it with the audience and the stakes — a board, a client pitch, a conference — rather than listing it beside PowerPoint.
PowerPoint
ComputerRequested as often as presentation ability itself. Worth listing explicitly if a posting names it, because the ATS is matching the product name.
CRM
Hard skillName the system. Salesforce is separately requested in 3.3% of all postings, which makes it one of the most-named products in the index.
SAP
TechnicalConcentrated in finance, supply chain and manufacturing postings, and heavily weighted toward the German and wider European share of this sample.
Problem-solving
Soft skillThis one concept is split across three separate tokens — "problem-solving" 3.4%, "problem solving" 3.3% and "problem-solving skills" 2.9%. We report the highest and never sum them, because a single posting can contain all three.
Analytics
TechnicalDistinct from "analytical": this is the tooling and the discipline rather than the personal trait.
Mentoring
Soft skillA quietly effective seniority signal that costs one bullet. Number of people and what changed for them is the whole claim.
Risk management
Hard skillReaches well beyond finance postings into operations, engineering and healthcare.
Soft skills for a resume
Search for soft skills for resume or soft skills for cv and you get the same twenty adjectives on every site. Here is what the postings themselves say. Soft skills are behavioural, and they dominate the top of the measured list — communication alone appears in roughly one posting in three. That popularity is exactly why a list of soft skills for a CV is weak on its own. Every applicant writes “excellent communication skills”; almost none prove it. The rule for soft skills on a resume is that the word goes in the skills section and the evidence goes in a bullet directly beneath your work history.
- Communication 32.6%
- Leadership 16.3%
- Collaboration 9.9%
- Attention to detail 9.2%
- Analytical 7.3%
- Stakeholder management 4.4%
- Presentation 3.8%
- Problem-solving 3.4%
- Mentoring 2.9%
Words that often appear on lists of personal skills for a resume — strengths, adaptability, work ethic, positive attitude — barely register in the postings themselves. They are not wrong, they are simply not what employers write down, so they are a poor use of the limited space in a skills section.
Technical skills for a resume
Most lists of technical skills for resume and technical skills for cv are copied from each other. This one is counted. Technical skills are the ones a screener can verify, which makes them the most valuable thing in the section, and the set employers name most often is shorter and more boring than the guides suggest — and the striking finding is that Excel is requested more often than any programming language.
- AI 16.5%
- Python 8.4%
- SQL 4.9%
- AWS 4.5%
- SAP 3.4%
- Analytics 3%
- Excel 8.5%
- PowerPoint 3.8%
Name versions and depth. “Python” on its own is a claim; “Python (pandas, scikit-learn) — built the forecasting model finance now runs monthly” is a qualification. The same applies to hard skills for a resume generally: the noun is the keyword, the outcome is the proof.
Computer skills for a resume
Lists of computer skills for resume and computer skills for cv still tend to lead with “Microsoft Office”. The computer skills that actually earn their place are specific products, not general literacy. Excel appears in 8.5% of all postings and PowerPoint in 3.8%. “Proficient in Microsoft Office” matches neither of those terms cleanly and tells a human reader nothing about your level.
Write this
Microsoft Excel — pivot tables, XLOOKUP, Power Query; rebuilt the monthly close model, cut prep from 3 days to 4 hours
Not this
Computer literate. Proficient in MS Office. Good with technology.
Hard skills and soft skills: the difference that matters
Guides to hard skills for resume and hard skills for cv writing usually explain the distinction as teachable versus behavioural, which is true and not very useful. The practical difference is how each one is proved.
Hard skills
Verifiable and specific. They can sit in a list and stand alone, because a reader can test them.
AI · Python · SQL · AWS · SAP · Analytics · Excel · PowerPoint · Project management · CRM · Risk management
Soft skills
Behavioural. In a list they are only a claim, so each needs an outcome underneath it.
Communication · Leadership · Collaboration · Attention to detail · Analytical · Stakeholder management · Presentation · Problem-solving · Mentoring
You may also see these called core competencies, key skills, professional skills or areas of expertise. The heading does not matter to an applicant tracking system. What matters is that the terms inside it match the posting.
Skills to put on a resume with no experience
The question of skills to put on resume with no experience has a translation answer, not a shortage answer. If you are a student, a fresher or changing career, the skills section is the strongest thing on your page and belongs at the top. The problem is almost never that you have no skills — it is that real experience is being described in words no employer searches for.
Every term on the right is one an employer actually writes. That is the whole translation job, and it is why a resume with no work history can still match a posting.
Where the skills section goes on a resume
The skills section of resume and CV layouts alike sits, for most applicants, directly under a short summary and above work history, where it is visible without scrolling. Deciding which skills to list on resume pages is mostly a question of what the posting names. Two exceptions are worth knowing. If you are experienced and your job titles sell you on their own, move the CV skills section below your first role. If you are early-career or changing field, keep it at the top.
Keep it to eight to twelve entries. Fewer than six looks thin. More than about fifteen reads as a keyword wall, and screeners discount the whole block. Use a simple comma-separated line or a plain two-column list — never a table, a text box, or a graphic with rating bars, all of which parse badly.
The five-star rating problem
Skill bars and star ratings are the single most common formatting mistake in this section. A parser reads “Excel ★★★★☆” as the word Excel followed by characters it discards, so you lose the nuance you were trying to add — and you have told a human reader you rate yourself 4 out of 5 without saying against what.
Skills for your specific role
The list above is the cross-market baseline. Each page below runs the same measurement against one role's live postings, ranked by how much more often that role asks for a skill than jobs in general — which is a different and usually more useful list.
Frequently asked questions
What skills should I put on a resume?
Put the skills the posting names, in the words the posting uses, and put them where a screener will see them in the first ten seconds. Across 404,776 live postings the most-requested are communication (32.6%), AI (16.5%), leadership (16.3%), collaboration (9.9%) and attention to detail (9.2%). But frequency is not the whole answer: those five are common precisely because almost every employer asks for them, so they do not differentiate you. The skills that win interviews are the ones you can evidence with a number, and the ones that match the specific posting in front of you.
How many skills should I list on a resume?
Between eight and twelve in a dedicated skills section is enough for most applications. Fewer than six looks thin; more than about fifteen reads as a keyword wall and screeners stop trusting it. The constraint that matters is not the count but whether each one is either named in the posting or provable somewhere else on the page.
What are good skills to put on a resume with no experience?
Skills you can evidence from coursework, volunteering, part-time work or a personal project, described in the same language a job posting would use. A student who ran a society budget has stakeholder management and financial reporting; a retail Saturday job is customer service, cash handling and stock control. The mistake is not having too little experience, it is describing real experience in words no employer searches for.
What is the difference between hard skills and soft skills?
Hard skills are verifiable and usually teachable — SQL, Excel, a language, a licence, a certification. Soft skills are behavioural — communication, collaboration, leadership. The practical difference on a resume is how you prove them: a hard skill can sit in a list and stand on its own, while a soft skill in a list is just a claim. Soft skills need a bullet underneath showing the outcome.
What technical skills should I put on a CV?
The named tools and systems you have actually used, spelled the way the industry spells them. Across all postings the most-requested are AI (16.5%), Python (8.4%), SQL (4.9%), AWS (4.5%), SAP (3.4%) and Azure (3.0%), plus Excel at 8.5% — which is more requested than any programming language. Write "Microsoft Excel (pivot tables, Power Query)" rather than "Microsoft Office", because the specific term is what gets matched.
What computer skills should I put on a resume?
Excel is the single most-requested piece of software in our index at 8.5% of postings, followed by PowerPoint at 3.8%. Beyond the Office suite, list the systems specific to your field — a CRM (3.8%), an ERP such as SAP (3.4%), a design or scheduling tool. Basic computer literacy no longer needs stating; naming the actual systems does.
Where should the skills section go on a resume?
For most applicants, directly under a short professional summary and above work history, so it is visible without scrolling. Two exceptions: if you are experienced and your job titles do the selling, move it below your first role; if you are changing career or have little experience, keep it at the top, because it is the strongest thing on the page.
Should I put skills on my resume that I am still learning?
Yes, if you label them honestly. A separate line reading "currently learning: SQL (DataCamp, 60% complete)" is credible and shows direction. Listing a half-learned skill alongside fluent ones is not, because the first technical question in the interview will find it.
Do applicant tracking systems really scan the skills section?
They match text anywhere on the document, so a skills section is not magic — but it helps, because it puts exact-match terms in one dense, unambiguous block. What matters more is spelling things out. Our own extractor, running a 63,000-term vocabulary, misses acronym-heavy credentials almost entirely: on nursing postings it caught safeguarding in 1 posting out of 1,236 while the phrase appeared in 48% of UK postings by raw text. If our parser misses it, assume theirs does too, and write the full phrase alongside the acronym.
Are these percentages the top skills overall?
No, and the distinction matters. This list is curated from the ranking, not copied off the top of it. We removed sector nouns that the extractor counts as skills but which describe an industry rather than an ability — marketing at 7.1%, customer service at 6.7%, finance at 5.2%, healthcare at 4.2% — along with extractor artefacts. Every percentage shown is a real count over the same 404,776 postings.
Check your resume against a real job posting
Paste a posting and Qarera shows which of its skills your resume already proves, which it names without evidence, and which are missing entirely.
Check my resume — freeMethod
Counted across 404,776 live job postings indexed on Qarera on 27 August 2026 — every live posting we hold, with no industry or country filter. The largest national shares are the United States (143,326), India (46,590), Germany (24,480), the United Kingdom (23,972), Canada (19,017), Australia (13,143), the Netherlands (11,548), France (10,207) and Ireland (7,217), with 9,209 carrying no country and the remainder spread across smaller markets. Percentages are the share of postings whose extracted skills include each term.
The ranking is curated rather than raw, and it is not “the top twenty”. We removed terms the extractor records as skills that name a sector rather than an ability (marketing 7.1%, customer service 6.7%, recruitment 5.6%, finance 5.2%, healthcare 4.2%, clinical 4.1%, medical 4.0%, retail 3.6%, supply chain 3.3%, procurement 3.1%, accounting 3.0%, logistics 2.8%), together with extractor artefacts such as “go”, “control” and “equipment”. Near-duplicates are reported under one term and never added together: problem-solving is published at its own 3.4% rather than summed with “problem solving” (3.3%) and “problem-solving skills” (2.9%), which are three tokens for one concept that a single posting can contain all of. “Analytical” (7.3%) likewise excludes “analytical skills” (3.6%).
One limit worth stating plainly. Skills are extracted by matching a fixed vocabulary of about 63,000 terms, and that vocabulary has a systematic blind spot for regulatory and credential language — the requirement that often actually gates hiring. Measured on our nursing slice, “safeguarding” carried an extracted token in 1 posting out of 1,236 while appearing in 48% of UK postings by raw description text. On sales postings there is no token at all for quota or commission, though the words appear in 14.0% and 13.5% of them respectively. Treat every figure here as a floor, and spell acronyms out in full on your own resume — if our parser cannot see the credential, assume the employer's cannot either.