Reviewed by a certified professional resume writer (CPRW) with US corporate recruiting and ATS screening experience
Good skills to put on a resume are hard skills and tools the job description repeats—software, methods, certifications, and languages—backed by proof in experience bullets, plus soft skills shown through outcomes rather than adjective lists. Aim for 8–20 honest, posting-aligned entries in a plain-text Skills block that ATS platforms like Workday and Greenhouse can index.
Job seekers ask what are some good skills to put in a resume because the Skills section feels optional yet drives both ATS filters and recruiter skim speed. A vague block wastes space; a stuffed keyword cloud triggers distrust. This article maps which skills belong on US corporate resumes, how to match postings without lying, and how parsers in Workday, iCIMS, Taleo, Lever, SuccessFactors, and ADP Recruiting treat skill fields differently from experience bullets.
The mistake most candidates make is treating skills as a personality showcase. Hiring managers do not need to know you are passionate or creative unless those traits connect to a deliverable—campaign creative that lifted conversions, or process redesign that cut cycle time. They need searchable evidence that you can operate the tools and methods listed in the requisition. When your Skills section and your bullets tell the same story with numbers attached, you pass both the software filter and the human skim that follows.
Key Takeaways
- Prioritize hard skills and tools the posting repeats two or more times
- Prove soft skills in bullets with metrics—not standalone adjective lists
- List 8–20 focused skills for most roles; group technical stacks clearly
- Repeat priority skills in both Skills section and experience bullets when honest
- Keep Skills in the document body so Workday and Taleo parsers index the block
Hard skills vs soft skills: what recruiters scan first
Recruiters and ATS filters weight hard skills first because they are verifiable and searchable. Hard skills include software, programming languages, equipment, regulatory knowledge, and methods you can name in one line—Excel pivot tables, Salesforce CRM, GAAP reporting, Python, HIPAA compliance, CNC machining. Soft skills describe how you work—communication, collaboration, problem-solving—but on a resume they only count when tied to results.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics groups occupations by required capabilities; their occupational profiles show which technical competencies employers expect at entry, mid, and senior levels. Cross-check your target role on BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook to see baseline hard-skill expectations before you build your list.
- Hard skills: tools, platforms, certifications, languages, methods— list in Skills, prove in bullets
- Soft skills: leadership, adaptability, client service—show through scope, stakeholders, and outcomes in Experience
- Hybrid skills: project management, data analysis, UX research—name the method in Skills and quantify impact in bullets
- Avoid: hardworking, team player, fast learner without context— recruiters treat them as filler
Format matters inside the Skills block itself. Use a clear heading—Skills, Technical Skills, or Core Competencies—and separate entries with commas or middle dots. Category subheadings help for long technical lists: Languages, Cloud Platforms, Frameworks. Do not rate yourself with stars or bars; recruiters ignore them and some ATS strip non-text elements entirely. If a skill requires a license number, put the credential on a Certifications line rather than burying RN or CPA inside a comma list.
NACE employer surveys consistently rank communication and problem-solving among top candidate attributes—but hiring managers still want evidence. Review NACE hiring trend research to understand which competencies employers emphasize each cycle, then translate those traits into bullet-level proof rather than Skills-line adjectives.
| Skill type | Resume placement | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Hard / technical | Skills section + bullets | SQL, Tableau, QuickBooks, AWS, CPR certification |
| Soft / interpersonal | Bullets primarily | Led cross-functional team of 8; resolved 95% of tickets within SLA |
| Industry-specific | Skills + certifications line | FDA 21 CFR Part 11, DOT compliance, ICD-10 coding |
| Transferable | Skills when posting-aligned | Budget management, stakeholder reporting, process documentation |
| Filler (skip) | Neither section | Microsoft Office alone, detail-oriented, go-getter |
Key Takeaway: hard skills get indexed and filtered; soft skills earn interviews when bullets show scale, stakeholders, and measurable outcomes.
Good skills to list by role and career stage
What counts as a good skill depends on the occupation code—not a universal master list. O*NET catalogs knowledge, skills, and abilities for US jobs; search your title on O*NET OnLine and pull hard skills that appear in both O*NET and your target posting.
Entry-level and recent graduates
Lead with coursework tools, internships, and capstone projects. Good entries: Python, R, Google Analytics, HubSpot, customer service CRM, laboratory techniques, CAD basics. Pair each with a bullet—internship revenue impact, lab accuracy rate, or ticket resolution time. Harvard Career Services advises students to align resume content with job requirements rather than listing every class project; see their resume creation resources for framing academic work as employer-ready skills.
Mid-career professionals
Emphasize tools you used to drive revenue, cost savings, or compliance. Marketing managers: SEO, Google Ads, A/B testing, marketing automation, budget ownership. Operations leads: Lean, Six Sigma, ERP modules, vendor management, KPI dashboards. IT specialists: cloud platforms, scripting languages, ticketing systems, security frameworks. Drop skills from your first job that no longer match your trajectory unless the posting explicitly asks for them.
Sales professionals should list CRM platforms, pipeline stages you manage, and forecasting tools—not generic relationship building. Customer success roles benefit from naming ticket systems, churn metrics you track, and onboarding software. Finance and accounting candidates should separate ERP modules, reporting standards, and audit tools rather than listing finance as a single skill. The pattern is consistent: name the system, then show the outcome it enabled in the next bullet.
Technical and healthcare roles
Technical resumes often need longer Skills blocks—20–30 entries when grouped by category (Languages, Cloud, Data). Healthcare candidates should list EMR systems, certifications (BLS, ACLS, RN license state), and clinical competencies the unit requires. Never list a clinical skill you cannot perform; credential verification is standard in hospital HR workflows through iCIMS and Workday integrations.
Career changers
Highlight transferable hard skills the new field uses—budgeting, SQL, client onboarding, regulatory documentation—and reframe old tools only when they map clearly. A teacher moving to corporate training might list LMS administration, curriculum design, and facilitation while dropping unrelated classroom software. Consider whether a summary is necessary on your 2026 resume to bridge two fields in three lines before the Skills block.
Key Takeaway: good skills mirror the posting and your honest experience—O*NET confirms occupational norms, the job description confirms this employer's priorities.
How Workday, Greenhouse, and iCIMS read your skills section
ATS platforms do not treat all skill text equally. A labeled Skills heading in the main body often feeds a dedicated indexed field, while the same word buried in a paragraph may score lower or parse incorrectly.
- Workday: indexes labeled Skills blocks; sidebar skill clouds in two-column templates often drop on upload
- Greenhouse: generally tolerant of comma-separated lists; struggles with icon bars and graphic skill meters
- iCIMS: maps first structured skill list it finds; duplicate conflicting lists in summary and skills can overwrite fields
- Taleo: strips table-based layouts—never trap skills inside bordered grids
- Lever: pairs with Greenhouse-style parsing; plain text comma lists work best
- SuccessFactors: enterprise configs vary; single-column body text outperforms branded template sidebars
- ADP Recruiting: keyword matching on skills fields; avoid synonym stuffing—use the employer's exact tool names when accurate
Follow Workday resume format guidance for 2026 when you rebuild layout—even if you apply through iCIMS or Taleo, the same single-column rules help skills extract consistently. Skills matter only when the rest of the file parses; a broken contact block can still tank an application, so verify headers while you format your phone number for ATS on the same pass.
Keyword placement also affects ranking on some systems. Repeating a skill once in Skills and once in a recent bullet is usually enough; repeating it twelve times across old roles looks like stuffing. Synonyms can split matches—if the posting says Salesforce, write Salesforce rather than CRM unless the employer uses the generic term in the requisition. When a posting lists a suite such as Microsoft 365, name the specific apps you use: Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, SharePoint.
After tailoring skills, upload your file to HireFlow's free ATS resume checker and confirm skill-related fields populate in the preview. A resume that looks keyword-rich on screen sometimes shows an empty skills index in the parsed application view.
Key Takeaway: labeled Skills in the document body beats a designed sidebar—structure determines whether ATS stores your keywords at all.
Before-and-after skills bullet rewrites
Skills earn weight when bullets prove them. Compare these rewrites before you finalize your Skills section:
Marketing coordinator — vague soft-skill bullet
- Great communicator and team player who helped with social media and various campaigns
- Managed HubSpot email campaigns for 42k subscribers; lifted open rate 18% and click-through 11% through A/B-tested subject lines and segmentation
Financial analyst — skill listed without proof
- Skills: Excel, financial modeling, data analysis, PowerPoint, communication
- Built DCF and scenario models in Excel for $14M acquisition target; presented variance analysis to CFO and board using PowerPoint decks with audited assumptions
Software engineer — keyword-stuffed skills cloud
- Python Java C++ Rust Go Kotlin Swift AWS Azure GCP Docker Kubernetes Terraform Agile Scrum Jira SQL NoSQL Redis Kafka Spark Hadoop machine learning AI blockchain
- Skills: Python, TypeScript, AWS (Lambda, S3), Docker, PostgreSQL, REST APIs — grouped by category; each appears in bullets with production context
Registered nurse — clinical skills without system names
- Provided patient care and used hospital computer systems for charting
- Documented care in Epic for 6-bed ICU unit; administered IV therapy, ventilator management, and wound care per physician orders with zero medication errors over 18 months
Each after version names tools recruiters and ATS index, adds scale, and replaces adjectives with evidence. Your Skills section should echo those same tool names—not introduce twenty extras you never mention again.
Key Takeaway: one strong bullet with the skill name and a metric outweighs five lines of unproven keywords in a Skills cloud.
Transferable skills that work across industries
Transferable skills bridge roles when your past titles differ from the posting. Good cross-industry entries include project management, budget oversight, stakeholder communication, process improvement, data reporting, and vendor negotiation—always paired with industry-specific hard skills the new role requires.
- Project management: name methodology (Agile, Waterfall, PMP) and cite budget or timeline outcomes
- Data literacy: Excel, SQL, or BI tools with the decisions they supported—not just tool names
- Client-facing work: account size, retention rate, or satisfaction scores
- Compliance and documentation: name regulations or audit standards when relevant to the new field
- Training and onboarding: number of staff trained, reduced ramp time, or certification pass rates
Administrative and executive assistant roles often undervalue their skills lists. Good entries include calendar systems, travel coordination platforms, expense software, event logistics, and document management—not only Microsoft Office. Executive support candidates should add board materials preparation, investor relations tools, and confidentiality-sensitive workflows when accurate. Retail and hospitality workers moving into corporate roles can list POS systems, inventory platforms, and scheduling software that translate to operations and logistics postings.
Career changers should not dump every transferable skill into the header. Pick six to ten that the job description emphasizes, then let Experience bullets carry the rest. If you wonder how many total skills fit without looking padded, read our guide on how many skills to list on a resume for count ranges by role type.
Key Takeaway: transferable skills need the same proof standard as technical ones—scope, tool, and outcome in one bullet line.
Resume skills checklist before you submit
Run this audit after you tailor skills for each application. Small fixes prevent silent ATS misses and recruiter distrust during the six-second skim.
Skills section submission checklist
- 8–20 hard skills aligned with repeated job-description keywords
- Each priority skill appears in at least one experience bullet with context
- Soft skills proven in bullets—not a standalone adjective list
- Skills block in document body, single column—not sidebar table or text box
- Plain comma or pipe separators; no star ratings, progress bars, or icons
- Exact tool names from the posting when you genuinely use them (Salesforce vs CRM)
- Certifications and licenses on their own line when required for the role
- No skills you cannot discuss in a fifteen-minute screen
- Removed outdated tools and filler entries (Office, detail-oriented)
- Parser preview checked in HireFlow or employer portal before final submit
Tailoring per job feels slow, but a focused skills block plus three rewritten bullets often beats sending forty applications with one generic list. Corporate HR teams running SuccessFactors or ADP see the same keyword patterns daily—specificity signals fit faster than volume.
Save a master spreadsheet of every tool and method you have used across jobs. When a new posting arrives, highlight matches in the spreadsheet, copy only those into your Skills section, and adjust three bullets in your most recent role to echo the top five keywords. That workflow takes fifteen minutes per application and prevents the drift back toward generic lists that hurt both ATS match rates and interview conversion. Keep versions labeled by company so you do not accidentally send the wrong tailored file when a recruiter requests an updated resume mid-process.
Key Takeaway: honest alignment beats length—ten defensible skills with proof outperform thirty buzzwords no bullet supports.
The best answer to what are some good skills to put in a resume is not a universal list—it is the intersection of what the posting repeats, what you have used to produce results, and what parsers in Workday, Greenhouse, and iCIMS can index from a plain-text Skills block. Hard skills lead; soft skills follow in bullets with numbers attached.
Run your tailored file through HireFlow's free ATS resume checker after each skills edit. Confirming that skill fields populate correctly takes less time than rewriting a rejected application—and it catches layout issues that keyword edits alone cannot fix.
Frequently asked questions
List hard skills the job description repeats—software, methods, certifications, and measurable competencies—plus a short set of soft skills you prove in experience bullets. Good entries match the posting, appear in both a Skills section and bullet proof, and avoid vague traits like hardworking unless backed by outcomes.
Lead with hard skills and tools because ATS and recruiters filter on them first. Soft skills belong when tied to results in bullets—communication shown through stakeholder updates, leadership through team size and outcomes—not as a standalone list of adjectives.
Most US resumes perform best with 8–20 targeted hard skills for general roles; deep technical stacks may reach 20–30 when grouped clearly. Ten honest, posting-aligned skills beat forty generic ones. Mirror repeated job-description keywords only when you can defend them in an interview.
Place Skills after Summary or Experience depending on role type. Technical and healthcare roles often put Skills high; career changers may lead with Experience and tuck Skills below. Keep the block in the main document body so Workday, Taleo, and iCIMS parsers index it—not in a sidebar table.
Yes. Workday, Greenhouse, Lever, and ADP Recruiting often map a labeled Skills block into a separate indexed field while bullets feed experience parsing. iCIMS and SuccessFactors vary by employer configuration. Repeat priority skills in both places when honest, but prove them with metrics in bullets.
Skip outdated tools you no longer use, skills you cannot discuss in detail, and filler soft skills with no proof. Avoid copying entire requirement paragraphs, listing Microsoft Word unless the role demands it, and keyword clouds that read like SEO spam—recruiters notice in a six-second scan.
List skills you can perform independently today. For emerging tools you have used in projects but are not expert in, mention them in a project bullet with context rather than the Skills header. Honesty matters—many employers verify skills in screens or assessments.
Highlight repeated nouns and tools in the job description, cross-check duties on O*NET for the occupation code, and compare against your last two roles. Prioritize required hard skills, then nice-to-haves you genuinely hold. Tailor per application rather than sending one master list to every employer.
Done for you
Turn this advice into an interview-ready resume
Professional writers rebuild your resume for ATS + recruiters — unlimited revisions, interview guarantee.