Skills Section: Hard Skills vs Soft Skills on Your Resume

The Skills Section Is Not a Dumping Ground

The skills section of your resume serves a specific purpose: it gives the reader (and the ATS) a quick inventory of your technical capabilities and domain expertise. It is not the place for personality traits, work ethic claims, or tools that every professional uses.

Yet most resumes treat it like a catch-all. "Communication, leadership, teamwork, Microsoft Office, problem-solving, detail-oriented." This list tells a hiring manager nothing useful. It is filler, and experienced recruiters recognize it instantly.

The distinction that matters is between hard skills and soft skills, and understanding which goes where on your resume.

Hard Skills vs Soft Skills: What Is the Difference?

The key difference: hard skills can be verified. If you list "Python" on your resume, someone can give you a coding test. If you list "strong communicator," there is no equivalent test, and every candidate in the stack claims the same thing.

Why Listing Soft Skills Wastes Space

Consider two candidates:

Candidate A's skills section:

Communication, leadership, teamwork, time management, problem-solving, adaptability

Candidate B's experience bullet:

Led a cross-functional team of 8 through a 6-month product redesign, facilitating weekly stakeholder reviews and resolving 3 major scope conflicts that kept the project on schedule

Candidate B just demonstrated communication, leadership, teamwork, problem-solving, and time management in a single bullet point, with proof. Candidate A just claimed those traits exist.

This is the core principle: hard skills are listed, soft skills are demonstrated. Your skills section is for the former. Your experience section is for the latter.

How to Organize Your Hard Skills

A flat, comma-separated list of 20 skills is hard to scan. Group skills by category so the reader can quickly find what they are looking for.

Here is an example for a full-stack software engineer:

Skills
------
Languages:        TypeScript, Python, Go, SQL
Frameworks:       React, Next.js, FastAPI, Node.js
Databases:        PostgreSQL, Redis, DynamoDB, Elasticsearch
Cloud/Infra:      AWS (EC2, S3, Lambda, RDS), Docker, Terraform
Tools:            Git, GitHub Actions, Datadog, Figma
Certifications:   AWS Solutions Architect Associate

And for a marketing manager:

Skills
------
Analytics:        Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Tableau, SQL
Advertising:      Google Ads, Meta Ads Manager, LinkedIn Campaign Manager
SEO:              Ahrefs, Semrush, Google Search Console, technical SEO
CRM/Automation:   HubSpot, Salesforce, Marketo
Content:          WordPress, Webflow, Canva, Adobe Creative Suite
Certifications:   Google Analytics Certified, HubSpot Inbound Marketing

This format is scannable for humans and rich in keywords for ATS systems.

Skills to Remove From Your Resume Immediately

Some entries actively hurt your resume by making you look out of touch or by wasting space that could hold something meaningful.

"Microsoft Office"

It is 2025. Knowing how to use Word, Excel, and PowerPoint is assumed for virtually every office job. Listing it is like listing "can use email." The exception: if you have advanced Excel skills (pivot tables, VLOOKUP/XLOOKUP, macros, Power Query), list those specific capabilities. "Advanced Excel: pivot tables, Power Query, VBA macros" is useful information. "Microsoft Office" is not.

"Social Media"

Too vague to be meaningful. Which platforms? In what capacity? Running a brand's Instagram ad campaigns with a $50K/month budget is a hard skill. Having a personal Twitter account is not. Be specific: "Meta Ads Manager, TikTok Business Center, Hootsuite."

Personality Descriptors

"Hard-working," "self-motivated," "detail-oriented," "passionate." These are self-assessments with no evidentiary value. Every single candidate considers themselves hard-working. It does not differentiate you.

Outdated Technologies

Unless the job specifically requires it, remove technologies that signal you have not kept current. Flash, Dreamweaver, Visual Basic 6, FrontPage. If your skills section references tools from 15+ years ago and nothing recent, that is a red flag.

ATS Keyword Matching: What Actually Matters

Applicant Tracking Systems scan your resume for keywords that match the job description. Your skills section is one of the primary places this matching happens.

Here is a practical approach:

1. Read the job description carefully. Highlight every specific skill, tool, technology, or certification mentioned.
2. Compare against your actual skills. Only include skills you can genuinely defend in an interview.
3. Use the exact terminology from the posting. If the job says "Salesforce," do not write "CRM software." If it says "Python," do not write "programming languages." ATS keyword matching is often literal.
4. Include both the acronym and the full name when space permits. Some ATS systems search for "AWS" and others search for "Amazon Web Services." Writing "AWS (Amazon Web Services)" covers both.

The goal is not to game the ATS. It is to accurately represent your skills using the same language the employer uses. If you have the skills, you should get credit for them.

How Many Skills Should You List?

There is no magic number, but a reasonable range is 10-20 hard skills organized into 3-5 categories. Fewer than 10 and the section feels thin. More than 25 and it becomes a wall of text that nobody reads.

Prioritize ruthlessly. The first 3-5 skills in each category should be the most relevant to the role you are applying for. If you are applying for a data engineering role, lead with your data pipeline and cloud infrastructure skills, not your front-end framework experience.

Certifications and Proficiency Levels

Certifications are hard skills with external validation. They belong in the skills section (or a dedicated certifications section if you have several).

Proficiency levels ("beginner," "intermediate," "advanced") are more controversial. Some resume guides recommend them. In practice, they create more problems than they solve:

• What does "intermediate Python" mean? There is no standard definition.
• Listing a skill as "beginner" invites the question: why is it on your resume?
• Self-assessed proficiency levels have no credibility baseline.

If you are going to indicate proficiency, do it through specifics rather than labels. "Python (3 years, production ML pipelines)" communicates more than "Python: Advanced."

Industry-Specific Skill Examples

Here are categorized skill lists for several common fields to use as a starting point.

Data Science: Python, R, SQL, TensorFlow, PyTorch, Scikit-learn, Pandas, Apache Spark, Tableau, Jupyter, A/B testing, statistical modeling

UX Design: Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD, user research, wireframing, prototyping, usability testing, design systems, information architecture, accessibility (WCAG)

Project Management: Jira, Asana, Confluence, Gantt charts, Agile/Scrum, risk management, stakeholder management, PMP, budget management

Finance/Accounting: Financial modeling, Excel (advanced), Bloomberg Terminal, QuickBooks, SAP, GAAP, variance analysis, forecasting, CPA, CFA

Sources

• LinkedIn Official Blog: Most In-Demand Skills — Annual analysis of the most sought-after hard and soft skills by employers
• Indeed Career Guide: Hard Skills vs Soft Skills — Clear breakdown with examples across industries
• SHRM: What Recruiters Look For in the Skills Section — Recruiter perspective on evaluating skills sections

Build a Skills Section That Works

Your skills section should be a curated, relevant list that matches the role you want, not a laundry list of everything you have ever used. If you want help identifying which skills to highlight for a specific job, Superpower Resume analyzes the job description and tells you exactly which keywords and skills to include.