Top Skills to Include on Your CV (with 90+ Examples)

Why list skills on your CV?

Listing skills on your CV helps to show employers that you’re a suitable candidate for the job. Most job descriptions have a list of the key skills that are essential or desirable for the role. Making sure you include a list of the skills you possess helps the reader to quickly assess the strength of your application. In addition, peppering references to your skills throughout your CV shows how you’ve used those skills to bring success and achievements to your career.

While it’s important that your skills list reflects the job description, skills on your CV can also help to differentiate you from other candidates. Aiming to include a few skills that aren’t referenced on the job advert, but that you feel are useful for the role, can show employers what makes you unique from other applicants.

Different Types of CV Skills

There are various types of skills for a CV, and you'll want your CV to include a mix of all of them to show you're a well-rounded candidate. Some skills are learned, technical skills, while others are more inherent to your personality and style of working. Each is essential to your chances of success, so you'll want to showcase them in a way that helps you to stand out from the crowd. Let's take a look at the different categories of skills to put on your CV.

1. Hard Skills

Hard skills are the specific technical skills required to carry out a job. You usually learn hard skills, either through education and training, or on the job. Most jobs require at least one or two hard skills. These could be something as universal as a driving licence, or specialist skills like operation of a certain software or equipment.

Here are a few examples of the most in-demand hard skills for different types of jobs:

• Digital marketing tools
• Financial forecasting
• Coding languages

2. Soft Skills

Soft skills are personal qualities that shape how you work and interact with others. They're often inherent, natural abilities, though you can also improve and develop your soft skills through training and work experience. Your soft skills will play a key role in the employer determining whether you're a good fit for the team and the wider organisational culture.

Some of the best soft skills for a CV include:

• Communication
• Problem-solving
• Adaptability

3. Transferable Skills

Transferable skills are valuable skills you've learned and developed through your career, that you can apply to different jobs and work scenarios. Transferable skills are more broad than hard skills but can be equally valuable for your employability. Employers are increasingly seeking candidates with well-developed transferable skills, who can adapt to the rapidly evolving work landscape.

Some examples of valuable transferable skills include:

• Data analysis
• Customer service
• Research skills

4. Competencies

Competencies are combinations of your knowledge, skills and behaviours that prove your ability to complete tasks effectively. They might include a wide set of hard skills, technical knowledge and soft or transferable skills, but rather than being focused on a narrow set of tasks, they're more focused on outcomes. Competencies showcase your expertise and the wider impact you can have on an organisation, and as such they're increasingly important as you reach higher levels of seniority in your career.

Here are some examples of valuable competencies for a CV:

• Strategic planning
• Financial management
• Stakeholder management

The table below provides a handy guide to help you remember the different types of key skills for a CV:

Top 15 Skills to Include on Your CV (with Examples)

While some job roles require highly specific technical skills and industry knowledge, there are other skills that are in-demand more or less across the board. Take a look at this list of the 10 most powerful skills to list on your CV, whatever role you’re applying for:

• Teamwork: Your ability to work well with others is critical to your chances of success in almost any role. Teamwork ability was cited by more than half of HR professionals as the most valuable skill for a CV (57%).
• Leadership: Leadership isn’t just important for managers; it showcases various strengths and natural traits that make you an attractive employee and a valuable team member.
• Organisation: Time-management, multitasking and other organisational skills are highly valuable in the busy modern workplace.
• Problem-solving: Your ability to view a challenge from all angles and come up with a solution will help you to move forward in various different careers and industry sectors. Almost 6 in 10 HR professionals believe problem-solving skills are the most important soft skill to add to your CV.
• Communication: Showcasing the ability to communicate effectively with colleagues, clients, senior leadership and customers is an essential trait for most jobs.

• Coding languages: A hard skill that's also transferable, as it can be valuable for many different roles in the IT and technology industry. Coding languages can be used for web development, data analysis, process automation, cybersecurity and many other IT-related tasks.
• Adaptability/change management: The nature of work is constantly evolving, so the ability to flex, adapt and thrive in any work environment is highly valued by many employers.
• Analytical thinking: Analytical thinking showcases your ability to embrace innovative approaches and find new and creative ways of reaching solutions and positive outcomes.
• Attention to detail: Accuracy and attention to detail are important qualities that will ensure your work is of a consistent high standard, whatever job you do.
• Data science: This combination of data-related skills includes data analysis, data visualisation, data collection and cleaning and reporting, and can also be used in various AI and machine learning tasks.
• Interpersonal skills: Your ability to build and maintain positive working relationships can have a significant impact on your immediate colleagues and your wider team.
• Digital marketing: Digital marketing skills combine an array of different skills related to planning, developing and delivering digital marketing campaigns. These include Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), social media marketing, data analysis, paid social advertising and video and multimedia skills.
• AI and machine learning skills: Another broad grouping of skills that include hard skills, soft skills and transferable skills, and that is growing in importance as AI rapidly evolves and becomes more influential in everyday life. Valuable skills for AI and machine learning include coding languages, big data tools, statistics and probability, model evaluation and problem-solving.
• Project management: Project management skills are transferable across a range of industries and job roles, and showcase your ability to deliver projects on time and within budget.
• Cybersecurity: This growing field requires skills in coding and scripting, ethical hacking, incident reponse and threat detection, cryptography, risk management compliance and critical thinking.

Example CV Skills Sections

Take a look at the following examples for ideas of how to present your skills on your CV:

Graphic designer skills section

This example shows a simple, brief CV skills section for a graphic designer application, combining hard and soft skills into a single list:

Project manager skills section

This project manager CV skills section shows an example of separating out your key hard and soft skills on a CV:

Construction manager skills section

This construction manager CV skills section shows how to list your key skills, along with a brief explanation of how you've used it to positive effect in your career to date:

How to add a skills section to your CV

Adding a skills section to your CV may seem as simple as making a list of your key skills, but there are a few decisions you'll need to make regarding its content and placement. Follow these steps to decide how to add skills to your CV:

1. Read the job description carefully to identify the skills required for the role.
2. Make a list of your own skills, including soft and hard skills, and match these to the skills in the job description.
3. Check with former colleagues and managers or review past performance reviews for help identifying your key skills.
4. Be honest about your skills, as you’ll probably be asked about them in interviews.

When you've decided which skills to include in your CV, you have a few options for where to place them:

• In your work experience section
• In a dedicated skills section
• In a sidebar column

Check out the three examples below to see how each option looks and its advantages and benefits.

Industry-Specific Skills and Examples

Skills to leave off your CV

You don’t need to list every skill you have, especially if they’re not related to the job or you’re not particular proficient at it. Here's a quick guide on some key skills you might want to add to your CV and when you might be better off omitting them:

Tips for Writing an Impactful Skills Section

Follow these seven key tips to ensure you create the most impactful CV skills section and create a strong impression with employers:

1. Tailor your skills list: always tailor your skills list to the requirements of the role to ensure you meet the selection criteria and provide the employer with a compelling narrative on why you’re a suitable candidate for the role.
2. Identify keywords for ATS compatibility: applicant tracking systems (ATS) are a key part of most modern recruitment processes. These software applications can scan and rank CVs based on the candidate’s likely suitability for the role. They often do this by searching CVs for keywords that match those listed in the job description. As such, it’s important to review the job description, identify keywords and incorporate these throughout your CV, and in particular in your skills section.
3. Use bullet points for readability: bullet point formatting helps keep your skills section brief, to-the-point and easy to read. Keep each bullet point short, and consider adding your skills in a sidebar column to make the section stand out to the reader.
4. Place your skills list in a suitable position: for a functional or skills-based CV, you may wish to place your skills towards the top of your CV. For a traditional CV, it usually comes after your work experience and education sections. Alternatively, you could use a two-column design and place your skills list in a sidebar.
5. Provide context and evidence of your skills: if you have space, it can be useful to expand your skills section beyond a simple list, and to explain how you’ve used your skills to make an impact in previous roles. For example, rather than simply listing ‘flexibility’, you could write ‘flexibility to adapt to evolving technologies in the workplace, including the adoption of AI tools to help with key strategy decisions’.
6. Mention skills throughout your CV: don’t confine your skills purely to your skills section. Instead, make sure you mention them throughout your CV summary, work experience and other optional sections to show how you’ve used your skills and the impact they’ve made.
7. Study CV examples: search online for example CVs that match the job title or the job description of the role you’re applying for. These can give you more ideas of what skills employers tend to look for.

Showcasing Examples of Your Skills

While it’s useful to provide a brief bullet-point list of your skills on your CV, it’s also essential to provide examples of your skills throughout the document. You can do this by adopting the STAR method. STAR stands for ‘Situation, Task, Action, Result’. For every entry in your CV, it’s important to consider these four elements, to add evidence and show the impact your skills have made on your career and to the organisations you’ve worked for.

Here are some examples of showcasing the impact of your skills on your CV:

Skills for CVs with No Experience

If you’re just starting out in your career and you lack a body of relevant work experience, it’s still possible to include valuable and highly regarded skills in your CV. Focus on transferable skills and personal qualities that will make you a strong employee and help you to have a positive impact in the workplace. Listing soft, transferable skills such as communication, flexibility and teamwork on your CV can help to make you a suitable candidate for a wide variety of jobs.

In the absence of suitable employment examples, draw on your education and other life experiences. These could include internships, volunteer work and hobbies and interests to show how you’ve developed and used the skills necessary for the job.

The Importance of Transferable Skills for Your CV

Transferable skills are growing in importance in the modern world of work. A study by the World Economic Forum suggests that in the future it will become more normal for workers to have multiple careers throughout their working lives (1). In this situation, those with transferable skills will thrive the most.

Transferable skills are any skills that you can put to use in various different roles and industry sectors. Some transferable skills are soft skills, such as communication skills, creativity and analytical thinking. Others are hard, more technical skills such as project management, data analysis and programming that are becoming increasingly useful across a wide range of industry sectors. Developing transferable skills and listing them on your CV gives you a huge advantage in your job search, and in your future career opportunities.

Learning New Skills for Your CV

As your career progresses, it’s essential to keep developing your skills so you can add these to your CV and stay ahead of the chasing pack. If you can show a commitment to learning new skills on your CV, this will help mark you out as a self-motivated, proactive candidate who’s committed to developing their career.

Seek out training opportunities in work wherever possible, and accept any offers of training that you feel could help your future employability. You can also take matters into your own hands and manage your personal career development by enrolling in training courses and completing certifications that develop your skills and look good on your CV. Online training platforms such as Coursera, Udemy and Skillshare are great places to add to your skill set.

Key takeaways for adding skills to your CV

For a CV that includes the most impactful, impressive skills, make sure you:

• Read the job description and tailor your skills accordingly.
• Incorporate keywords that match the job description to help pass the ATS stage.
• Provide evidence of how you've used each skill in your career to date.
• List skills throughout your CV, and particularly in your work experience section.
• Present your skills clearly, in a professional, readable CV layout.

By taking the time to carefully assess and evaluate which skills to add to your CV, and providing evidence that shows the impact they've made in previous jobs, you'll give yourself the best chance of impressing recruiters. Showing real examples of how you've developed and used relevant skills will set you up well to progress to the next stage of the selection process.

Sources:

(1) World Economic Forum: Having many careers will be the norm, experts say