Which skills to put on your resume, and how to show them

Choose skills from the job description

Start with the required and preferred skills in the job post. List those you have actually used, with the same names the employer uses. Add other relevant tools you use well, and leave out skills you only watched a tutorial on.

Technical skills and soft skills

Technical (hard) skills are tools, languages, methods and domain knowledge: Python, Excel, Tally, AutoCAD, SEO, financial modelling, React. Group them by type, for example Languages, Frameworks, Tools and Databases.

Soft skills such as communication, leadership and problem solving are better shown than listed. A bullet like “Presented monthly results to the client team” shows communication more convincingly than the word itself.

Prove every important skill

Recruiters trust a skill more when they can see where you used it. For each key skill in your list, make sure at least one experience or project bullet mentions it. Remove skill ratings, bars and percentages: they are hard to parse and say little.

• List roughly 8–15 relevant skills, grouped by type
• Use the job post’s exact names for skills you have
• Back key skills with a bullet in experience or projects
• Remove outdated or unrelated tools

Check which skills the job wants that you are missing

Waywright compares your resume with a job description for free, shows which required skills are covered and which are missing, and lets you add a missing skill only with a click, so nothing you do not have slips in. An account is required.