How to Write the Skills Section of Your Resume (With Examples)

Employers look to your resume’s skills section to see what strengths you can bring to their company, so it needs to make an impression. We’ll show you how to choose your skills, where to put them, and several examples below.

1. Include the right skills for your job

If you’re not sure what to put in skills section of your resume, here are a couple easy ways to get started:

Brainstorm your skills

Start by listing all the skills you possess that can help you succeed at work. Some work-related abilities are learned in school, others are mastered on the job, and sometimes they’re picked up through extracurricular activities or volunteer work.

Still need to fill up your resume’s skills section? Here are some more sources for ideas:

• LinkedIn: Look at the LinkedIn page of employees working in similar roles as the job you’re applying for and check whether you have skills in common. If you do, use them on your resume.
• O*Net Online and similar sites: O*Net Online lets you view skills by occupation. Type a job into its search bar, and it shows you a list of skills to add to your resume.
• Other job ads (for similar roles): You can also look at job sites for similar roles and use skill keywords on your resume if they apply to you.
• Our list of the top 100+ skills for your resume.

Additionally, to save time, use a resume maker to get ideas for skills to add. Some resume builders automatically pull from a database to suggest relevant skills for your resume, saving you the effort of searching for yourself.

Check the job ad

To create a job-winning resume skills section, it’s important to know what skills the employer is looking for. The job ad will usually give you a good indication of what type of qualities they want in an employee.

For example, here’s a job description for a nursing assistant job that includes a mix of clinical, administrative, communication, and organizational skills:

If you were going to apply for this job, you’d want to use your skills section to highlight which of these skills are among your strengths. For example:

2. Only put hard skills in your skills section

If you’re wondering what type of skills to put on your resume, the answer is: hard skills.

Hard skills are job or industry-specific skills you’ve developed through education or experience, like proficiency in technical writing, or using a specific kind of software.

@resumegenius Your skills section is an important part of your resume. To write a strong skills section, you first need to know how to choose the right skills to add and learn how to highlight them effectively. 📝 Watch this video to learn what to put in your skills section. Read more tips on how to list your skills on your resume here: 🔸 resumegeniusDOTme/skills-section-resume #resumetips #resumegenius #skills #careeradvice #resumewriting #jobsearchtips ♬ Campfire – Charmer & Klay

Soft skills, in contrast, are the personal qualities that make you a great employee and coworker – like excellent teamwork, communication, or leadership. While soft skills are great selling points for any candidate, we recommend leaving them off your skills section and demonstrating them in the bullet points of your work experience section instead.

Without context and evidence, simply listing soft skills on your resume is unconvincing to employers and recruiters. To show you what we mean, pretend you’re an employer looking to hire a social worker. If you saw these two skills sections, which candidate would you think was more qualified?

3. List your skills clearly

A skills section gives employers a quick overview of your skill set, so it should be easy to skim. As a general rule, make sure it looks organized and takes up as little space as possible.

Here’s how to format skills on your resume:

• Use a bullet list and include 6-10 skills
• Keep your skills short (don’t use full sentences unless you’re writing a functional resume)
• If you have a lot of technical skills, group them in categories
• Clearly label your skills section (using a header like “Relevant Skills”)

Take a look at this billing specialist resume for an example of how to clearly list your relevant skills:

Examples of how to format the skills section of your resume

For more ideas on how you can format your skills section, take a look at our examples below.

Using the standard format

This skills section for a teacher resume includes a straightforward list of essential teaching skills.

Using categories

If you work in a highly technical field, your list of skills can get pretty overwhelming. Make your skills section more skimmable by grouping your skills into categories, like this example from a machine learning resume:

By proficiency level

Another way to showcase a robust technical skills section is to break your skills down into levels of proficiency. Here’s an example for a digital marketing resume:

With skill bars

Some resume templates include bars to indicate your skill levels on your resume. We recommend using these if it’s appropriate for your field or target company, and required that you provide a complete and precise account of your technical skill set.

If it’s common for the interview process in your target role to include technical assessments or take-home projects, that’s a good indicator that getting specific about your proficiencies is important.

Download This Free Template

With infographics

If you work in a particularly creative industry with a lot of technical skill requirements (like graphic design), it can be helpful to represent your skills section visually.

Infographic resumes like the one below use charts and graphs to communicate candidates’ qualifications in a visually appealing way.

Download This Free Template

On a functional resume

If you don’t have any experience yet or you’re switching careers, writing a functional resume with an expanded skills section allows you to go into detail about the transferable skills you have and how they’ll enable you to succeed in your new role.

Take a look at these examples:

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Virtual assistant resume

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Career changer resume

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Career gap resume

Frequently asked questions about resume skills sections

Here are answers to some of the most commonly asked questions about skills sections on a resume.

Do you need a skills section on your resume?

Yes, you should always include a skills section on your resume. Employers and recruiters scan resumes to identify their target skill set, so it’s important to make sure that your skills are clearly identified and readily scannable.

How many skills should you list on a resume?

As a general rule, you should include between 6 and 10 skills in your skills section. Any less risks looking sparse, and any more risks looking cluttered. Including 6–10 skills keeps the section informative yet concise.

Where should skills go on a resume?

For most job seekers, the best place for a skills section is at the bottom of the resume or in a sidebar. That’s because you want the primary focus to be on your work experience.

However, there are some situations where you might want to place your skills section more prominently. Consider moving it higher up on your resume if you’re:

• in a highly technical field where your skill set is a first consideration for employers.
• writing a functional resume to emphasize your skills over your work experience.
• changing careers and don’t have any relevant work experience to include but do have considerable transferable skills.