The skills section is the one a parser reads first and a person reads last. The parser matches terms, so the posting's words have to be there, spelled the posting's way. The person reads it for a sense of range, so it has to be short and grouped. Six to twelve skills under three or four labels, each one backed by a bullet somewhere in the experience section. A skill with no bullet behind it is a word, and the interviewer will find it in four minutes.
Key points
- Choose from the posting. The skills section is tailored like the rest.
- Group under three or four labels. A wall of thirty words is read as none.
- Use the posting's spelling. "Figma" matches "Figma". "Design tools" matches nothing.
- Every skill has a bullet that shows it. If none does, the skill comes off.
- Soft skills go in the bullets, not the list. "Communication" in a list is a word. "Wrote the release notes four teams used" is a skill.
Which skills
Start from the posting, not from yourself. The posting names the tools and methods the role uses. Those that you have, in the posting's order, go first. Then the ones from your master resume that the posting did not name but the role would want.
| Kind | Examples | Goes in the list? |
|---|---|---|
| Tools | Figma, SQL, Go, Salesforce | Yes |
| Methods | Usability testing, A/B testing, Scrum | Yes |
| Domains | Payments, clinical workflows, B2B SaaS | Yes, when the posting names one |
| Languages, spoken | Portuguese, professional working | Yes, when relevant to the role or the place |
| Soft skills | Communication, leadership, teamwork | No. In the bullets. |
| Basics | Microsoft Office, email, typing | No. They are assumed. |
The skills list is a claim. The bullets are the evidence. Make no claim the bullets do not back.
How a parser reads it
A hiring system reads the skills section as a list of terms and indexes them. A recruiter then searches: "Figma", "SQL", "German". The resume with the term is in the results. The resume with a synonym is not.
Three consequences. Use the posting's exact term for the thing you did. Spell it the way the posting spells it, including the capital letters, because some parsers are case-sensitive about product names. And keep the list as a list, one skill per item, so the parser can split it. A sentence that says "experienced with Figma, Sketch and the usual prototyping tools" is one item to a parser, and "the usual" matches nothing.
Match on this site reads your resume the way a parser does and scores it against each posting. The "how you fit" line on a listing is that match, term for term, and it tells you which of the posting's words your resume has.
Grouping
Three or four labels, chosen for the role. For a designer: Design, Research, Front end. For an engineer: Languages, Infrastructure, Data. For a manager: Delivery, People, Domain. Two to five skills under each.
A grouped list reads in five seconds. An ungrouped list of thirty reads in none, because the reader skips it.
Layout, and why one line can beat columns
The builder on this site lays skills out five ways, and the choice is about length. Under eight skills, one line with separators reads cleanest and parses cleanest. Over eight, three columns stop the line from wrapping into a paragraph. Bullets suit a list where each skill has a qualifier. Pipes suit a centered header style.
Pick one, and let the style decide the rest. A skills section that fights the layout is a skills section that got long. Cut it instead.
Proficiency labels
"Expert", "advanced", "intermediate" and "familiar" next to each skill help nobody. The reader does not trust your rating of yourself, and the parser ignores it. A skill is on the list or it is not.
The one exception is spoken languages, where a standard label means something: "Portuguese, native. English, professional working. German, basic."
Soft skills
Communication, leadership, problem solving, attention to detail. These are real and they are not list items, because every resume lists them and none of them can be checked. Put them in the bullets as things that happened. "Ran the weekly design review for three teams" is leadership. "Wrote the release notes four teams used" is communication. The reader decides what to call it.
Questions
How many skills?
Six to twelve. Under six looks thin. Over twelve is a wall, and a wall is skipped.
Do I list a skill I learned but have not used at work?
If you can be interviewed on it and have a project that used it, yes, and the project goes in the projects section as the bullet. If you did a course and nothing else, no.
Where does the skills section go?
After experience for most people. Before it for a career changer or a recent graduate, as a short block, which the guide on resume formats explains.
Do I list every version of a tool?
No. "Figma" is enough. "Figma 2023" is a line that will be out of date in a year, and the parser reads it as a different term.
The posting lists a skill I half have. Do I list it?
If "half" means you have used it for real work, yes, and a bullet backs it. If "half" means you watched a tutorial, no. The interviewer's first question will be about that skill.