Top 5 Skills You Need to Have on Your Resume 

When you think of skills to put on your resume, you’re probably thinking of hard skills such as Microsoft office, SQL coding, or a foreign language. All of that is true, and good, to put on your resume. There are also soft skills as well. These are a bit harder because you can’t just list them outright. Soft skills need to be told through a story. It’s one thing to say you’re a leader and another to say you’ve exuded leadership through examples. Here are examples of hard skills as well as soft skills.

Hard Skill for your Resume

Hard skills are ones that most people will list on their résumé in bullet form. Most people will put these skills in a particular section on the résumé depending on the importance they have to that individual. For example, someone working in IT would want to put their hard skills up top their résumé to highlight to the reader what they bring to the table. Whereas someone in a profession that may interact with more people than computer may want to put their hard skills at the bottom of the résumé. Here are some hard skills examples.

• Microsoft Office
• Excel
• Word
• PowerPoint
• Project management
• Foreign language
• Any kind of software package
• Programming language
• Coding language
• Anything “hands-on”

Soft Skills for your Resume

Soft skills are skills that are not tangible in nature, but are still valuable within business. People often refer to them as people skills. Here are some of some soft skills examples.

• Self-motivated
• Leadership
• Organized
• Time management
• Decision making 
• Grit
• Hunger
• Team player

It’s your job, as the job seeker, to highlight the skills you find important for the job you’re applying to. This means when necessary tailoring your résumé to the job in which you’re applying to. Here are the top 5 skills for you resume that I have seen and ones that work really well. Keeping in mind, these listed resume skills may not be right for you, but can help you think on how you want to phrase your skills on your résumé.

1. Computer Skills
   1. There’s no hiding the fact that the future is technology driven. No matter the job you are in, there’s a good chance technology is evolving or changing it. This means that you need to keep up with the technology evolving your industry AND profession. These are the skills you need to have on your resume. It could be a CRM, ERP, or ATS software package or it just be a coding language like SQL, Python, R, or C++. 
2. Project Management Skills
   1. There are only two types of people; people who work on projects, and people who lead projects and at some point, you will be both. In order to be a good project team member, you must have good organization, planning, and execution. To be a good project leader, you must have good delegation, leadership, motivation, listening, and decision making skills. 
3. Interpersonal Skills
   1. When I was hiring people in the corporate world, I would always say, “I’m looking for people who will play nice in my sand box.” What I meant was that you needed to have good interpersonal skills. You’re never going to get along with everybody, but you must work towards the company mission. Good skills for this category include listening, humility, empathy, extracurriculars, and problem solving. 
4. Problem Solving
   1. No matter where you are, I guarantee there will be problems. Every employer is looking to see how you handle them. They will certainly ask you past behavioral interview questions to glean that. Skills you will want to highlight in your resume are collaboration, thinking outside the box, creative solutions, and your ability to research. 
5. Leadership Skills
   1. Somewhat interwoven to all the aforementioned items is leadership. Every company is sizing up your potential to be a leader in the company one day. They will most certainly ask you questions around it. Skills to put here are team management, camaraderie, motivation, and team/employee building. 

Everything listed here is definitely worthy of putting into your resume. However, just putting buzzwords on your resume won’t do the trick, you must have accompanying stories. This is why when we write resumes, we write them with the story in mind. This way when the interviewer asks you a question, it is easy to relate back to the resume as reference.