What skills should go in a resume?

Deciding what skills you should put on your resume is completely dependent on the job and your proven experience. Always keep in mind that you should only put skills down that you can in someway verify to an employer if they ask.

It may be that you need to think outside of the box to identify what the employer is looking for. Ideally the position description listing will be clear, but often the focus is implied.

For example, a position in a call centre may explicitly require excellent customer service skills, ability to market over the phone, upselling and working to Key Performance Indicators. 

But implicitly the work will be heavily technology focused. Make emphasis of your ability to provide excellent service over the phone and of your comfort with learning new computer skills.

We prefer to list soft skills and hard skills together in the one section. Soft skills are your personal attributes whilst hard skills are your technical abilities. An example of soft skills would be “ability to build relationships”, whilst hard skills refer more to “excellent computer skills”.

Here are some ideas of skills you can include, dependent on the role and your skill-set:

• Team focus:

• Ability to blend into existing team structures
• Excellent interpersonal skills
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to build professional relationships
• Ability to delegate tasks and ask for assistance when required
• Culturally understanding

• Customer service focus:

• Dedicated customer focus
• Ability to build rapport
• Ability to resolve customer conflicts
• Excellently presented
• Focus on ensuring customer retention and return
• Ability to tailor communication to meet audience needs
• Meeting and exceeding customer expectations
• Identifying customer requirements and making tailored recommendations

• Technology focus:

• List all the programs you can use on one line
• List any Customer Relationship Management software and any financial software, as these are particularly valuable to employers
• List Microsoft Office Suite; and if you don’t know it, learn!
• Ability to troubleshoot computer issues
• Typing speed
• High level of computer literacy

• Sales focus

• B2B and B2C marketing
• Knowledge of marketing tactics
• Ability to identify and maximise potential opportunities
• Strong ability to meet monthly deadlines
• Ability to achieve and exceed KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators)

• Working unsupervised:

• Ability to work towards objective autonomously
• Confident in researching issues to develop a solution
• Goal oriented

• Focus on building relationships:

• Ability to build and maintain stakeholder relationships
• Ability to establish rapport
• Ability to initiate contact with aligning organisations
• Capable of leading teams towards an objective

Emphasizing particular skill sets within your resume is more important than qualifications.

We hope this guide will help you in getting to interview stage for your next position.