Technical Skills for Your Resume [10+ Examples & How to List]

What are technical skills?

Technical skills are hard skills you learn so that you can do work that involves science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Even if you don’t work in a STEM-related field, you need some basic technical skills on your resume to get the job you want.

When you put technical skills on your resume, sometimes a simple list in your skills section is enough. However, you should also describe your abilities in greater detail in your work experience section.

Read on to find technical skills examples for specific jobs, learn more about how to list technical skills on your resume, view a resume example with technical skills, and discover answers to common questions about technical skills.

Technical Skills Examples for Your Resume

Relevant technical skills are some of the best skills to list on your resume because they’re valuable to employers. But the technical abilities employers are looking for will vary depending on your work.

Here are some of the top technical skills that employers are looking for in 2023 if you work in:

1. project management
2. engineering
3. healthcare
4. accounting
5. business & data analysis
6. marketing
7. information technology
8. finance
9. education
10. graphic design

1. Project Management

Your project management skills show employers that you can handle leading a team. Some of the technical skills employers look for when hiring managers are:

• Scrum and Agile proficiency
• Technical reporting
• Work scheduling software
• Information technology
• Data analytics
• Kanban
• Productivity software (Trello, Todoist)

2. Engineering

Engineering is a diverse field, so the technical skills you’ll need vary depending on your particular expertise. Desirable abilities for all engineer positions include the following:

• Computer science fundamentals
• CAD software
• Data modeling
• System design
• Statistics and probability
• MATLAB
• Visual Basic
• Trimble SketchUp Pro

3. Healthcare

Whether you’re a nurse, doctor, or medical coder, you’ll need many technical skills to provide quality healthcare. Here are some key technical skills for the field of medicine:

• Advanced lifesaving training (ACLS)
• Diabetic care and wound monitoring
• Phlebotomy
• Dialysis
• Traction management
• Medical software
• Telemedicine
• Medical administration

4. Accounting

The accounting skills necessary for a job depend on whether you work in a small to mid-sized business, for your state or national government, or as a corporate accountant.

Here are some of the most popular accounting skills regardless of your desired accounting position:

• Intuit QuickBooks
• Sage 50 Accounting
• Intrax ProcedureNet
• Microsoft Dynamics
• SAP
• ERP systems
• Cost and trend analysis
• GAAP and FASB knowledge
• Auditing

5. Business & data analysis

Every major company needs experienced business and data analysts to help them make decisions. That’s why business analysis is one of the top technical skills in today’s job market.

These business and data analysis skills are some of the most popular to highlight on your resume:

6. Marketing

Marketing covers a wide range of work aimed at attracting customers and increasing sales.

Marketing roles tend to emphasize soft skills, but there are some technical marketing skills that can set you apart from other candidates in the eyes of potential employers, such as:

• website design
• content development
• digital advertising
• mobile marketing
• social marketing
• SEO/SEM
• Google Analytics
• customer relationship management (CRM) systems

7. Information technology

Almost all hard skills in the information technology field are technical skills.

Here are some in-demand skills to put on your IT resume:

8. Finance

Are you writing a financial analyst resume or applying for an investment banking job? Below are examples of financial technical skills to list on your resume:

• FinTools XL
• Capital IQ Pro
• LexisNexis
• Accounting software
• Federal Trade Commission (FTC) compliance
• Market forecasting tools
• Risk assessment

9. Education

Technology plays a big role in the modern classroom. Here are some of the technical skills educators are expected to have:

• Hybrid & distance learning technology
• Blackboard Learn
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Google Classroom
• Smart whiteboards
• Educational apps

10. Graphic Design

Graphic design skills include many technical abilities. These are some of those abilities employers are likely looking for on your graphic design resume:

• Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign
• HTML
• UI/UX
• Print design and typography
• Branding
• AI design tools

How to list technical skills on your resume

Abilities most relevant to your target position should be featured throughout your resume so a hiring manager can quickly scan and assess them. Expertly emphasizing your technical skills can get you onto the shortlist for the position you want.

Here’s how to showcase key technical skills on your resume in:

• your resume summary
• a dedicated technical skills list
• your work experience section

Put your most relevant skills in your resume summary

The first part of your resume that hiring managers read is your resume summary — a 2–4 sentence highlight reel of your most impressive skills and qualifications. So if you have the technical skills they’re looking for, include them in this section to grab their attention right away and keep them reading the rest of your resume.

Here’s an example of a well-written resume summary that emphasizes the candidate’s technical skills:

Create a dedicated technical skills section

If the job description heavily emphasizes technical skills, then put yours in a technical skills section at the top of your resume, just below your introduction. Format this section as a bulleted list to make it easy to read.

Additionally, if you have an extensive roster of technical skills, you can set each bullet as a category—then, list specifics. For example, if you’re an accountant, you could list your technical skills this way:

And here’s an example of what a technical skills list looks like on an SQL developer’s resume:

Demonstrate your technical skills in your work experience bullets

You should also prove your abilities throughout your resume’s work experience section.

By creating bullet points that describe your professional accomplishments on your resume, you can show how you used your technical skills to benefit your previous or current employer.

For instance, if you’re an accountant you could mention how you used enterprise resource planning (ERP) and accounting applications to reduce inefficient spending. This reinforces how and when you used specific technical skills.

Here’s an example of a resume work experience section that includes technical skills throughout:

Technical Skills on a Resume Example

Below is a resume example that follows a chronological resume format with the difference that the skills section is placed at the top. This ensures hiring managers will clearly see the candidate’s technical skills when picking up their resume. You can download this resume as a Word document or copy and paste the text format into your preferred word processor to use as templates for your own resume:

Download This Resume Example

Answers to common questions about technical skills

Below we’ve answered four of the most frequently asked technical skills questions, including:

• How to say tech savvy on a resume?
• What technical skills should I put on my resume?
• How do I improve my technical skills?
• Why are technical skills important?

How to say “tech savvy” on a resume?

Don’t say “tech savvy” on a resume. The term is cliche and vague.

Instead, quantify your technical skills by providing examples of how you’ve used them to produce results. Include hard numbers to back up those results whenever possible.

Here are two examples of an opening sentence of a marketing coordinator’s resume summary. The first example just uses the term “tech savvy” and makes the applicant appear inexperienced. The second example provides descriptive examples of the applicant’s technical prowess:

What technical skills should I put on my resume?

You should put the technical skills listed in the requirements for your target job on your resume. Let’s say you’re applying for a restaurant position, and the job ad says:

“Seeking an individual with experience using Toast Point of Sale (POS)”

If you have experience with the specified POS, say so on your resume. Here’s an example of how to highlight that technical skill in your resume summary:

Exuberant waiter with 4 years’ experience providing engaging service, upselling menu items, and managing cash and credit card transactions with Toast POS.

How do I improve my technical skills?

Here’s how you can improve your technical skills:

• Take courses at a local college or an online skillshare platform like edX
• Watch YouTube tutorials and read technical blogs
• Attend workshops
• Join groups dedicated to the technical skills you want to improve

Why are technical skills important?

Technical skills are important because the number of jobs that only require little or no technical ability is rapidly decreasing.

Even if you’re a blue-collar worker, you need to be able to operate a computer, browse the internet, and be comfortable learning new systems for human resources (e.g., accessing medical benefits) or tracking projects.