The short version: your skills section should have between eight and fifteen items, mix hard and soft skills roughly two to one, and every single word in it needs to be lifted straight from the job advert you’re applying to. Skip the generic ones like “team player” and “communication” unless you can back them up elsewhere on the page. Recruiters and the software behind them scan this section in under six seconds, so vague words cost you.
Why this tiny section causes so much damage
I’ve read thousands of CVs over the years, first as someone building my own consultancy from scratch, then as someone who’s hired for my team, and now as someone who gets sent CVs from readers asking “can you just look at this before I send it off.” The skills section is the bit people rush. It’s often the last thing added, squeezed in at the bottom or the side, filled out in about ninety seconds because everything else took the effort.
That’s a mistake, because for a lot of applications this is the section doing the heaviest lifting. Applicant tracking systems, the software that filters CVs before a human ever sees them, weigh keywords heavily, and your skills section is the most concentrated block of keywords on the page. Get it wrong and you’re filtered out before anyone reads your lovely, carefully written personal profile.
If you want the fuller picture on structure and formatting, I’ve gone deep on how to list your skills on a resume effectively, but this piece is about the writing itself, the actual words you choose and why most people choose the wrong ones.
The uncomfortable bit: nobody checks half of it, and everybody knows that
Here’s the thing people don’t say out loud. When you write “proficient in Excel” or “strong communication skills,” the recruiter reading it does not believe you, and they don’t check either. They know that roughly nine in ten candidates list the same three or four soft skills regardless of whether they possess them, and they’ve stopped reading those words as information. They read them as noise, the CV equivalent of clearing your throat before you say something.
That’s not an excuse to leave soft skills off entirely. It’s a reason to make them specific enough that they stop sounding like everyone else’s. “Communication skills” is noise. “Presented quarterly results to a 40-person board twice a year” is not noise, it’s evidence, and it happens to prove the same point far more convincingly. The lesson here is uncomfortable because it means more work: you can’t just list a skill, you have to earn the right to list it by attaching a number, a context, or an outcome somewhere on the page.
A quick story about a client’s CV
A woman I was mentoring last year, a marketing manager with eleven years of experience, sent me her CV before applying for a head of digital role. Her skills section had fourteen items in a bullet cloud: “Microsoft Office,” “Social Media,” “Team Player,” “Hard Working,” “SEO,” “Copywriting,” “Excel,” “PowerPoint,” “Communication,” “Leadership,” “Time Management,” “Problem Solving,” “Google Analytics,” “Adaptable.”
I asked her one question: which three of these would make a hiring manager stop scrolling? She couldn’t answer straight away, because none of them were built to stop anyone. They were built to fill space.
We cut it to nine. “Paid social strategy (Meta and TikTok ads, average ROAS 3.2x).” “SEO content strategy, grew organic traffic 140% in 14 months.” “Team leadership, managed a team of six.” “Google Analytics 4 and GA360.” “Budget management, controlled a £280,000 annual marketing spend.” “Stakeholder presentations to C-suite.” “Marketing automation (HubSpot, Marketo).” “CRM strategy.” “Crisis communications.” Nine items, every one of them specific to her actual experience and mirrored back from the language in that specific job advert. She got an interview within eight days. The old CV had been out for six weeks with nothing.
The difference wasn’t that she suddenly gained skills. It’s that she stopped hiding the good ones behind filler.
Step by step: building the section
1. Pull the job advert apart first
Before you write a single word, open the job description and highlight every skill word in it. Not the duties, the skill words specifically: things like “stakeholder management,” “budget forecasting,” “cross-functional collaboration,” “Adobe Creative Suite.” Most job adverts contain fifteen to twenty-five of these once you look. This becomes your source list. Your job now is matching, not inventing.
2. Sort into two columns: hard and soft
Hard skills are things you can measure or test: software, languages, certifications, technical processes. Soft skills are behaviours: leadership, negotiation, adaptability. Aim for roughly two-thirds hard skills and one-third soft. A section that’s all soft skills reads as vague and unconfident. A section that’s all hard skills with zero soft ones can read cold, especially for management roles.
3. Cut anything you can’t defend in an interview
If someone asked you in an interview “tell me about a time you used problem-solving,” could you answer in under thirty seconds with a real example? If not, either build the example now, before you apply, or take the skill off. This single filter removes about a third of most first drafts.
4. Attach a number wherever you honestly can
Not to every item, that gets exhausting to read, but to your top three or four. “Budget management, £280,000 annual spend” beats “budget management” every time. “Team leadership, managed teams up to 12” beats “leadership.” Numbers make a skill feel real because vague claims are free and specific ones aren’t.
5. Keep the list between eight and fifteen items
Fewer than eight looks thin and the ATS has less to match against. More than fifteen looks unfocused, like you’re throwing everything at the wall. Ten to twelve is the sweet spot for most CVs I’ve reworked.
6. Match the exact wording of the advert, not your own synonym
If the advert says “project management” and you write “managing projects,” some ATS software won’t count that as a match. It sounds pedantic and it is, but these systems are literal. Copy the phrasing as closely as you honestly can without lying about what you did.
Where to put it
Skills sections work best placed either right under your profile statement, if you have one, or in a sidebar if you’re using a two-column layout. If you’re still working out how the whole page should hang together, my piece on what makes a resume design look modern without being distracting covers the layout choices that keep a skills sidebar readable rather than cramped. And if your CV opens with a summary rather than a skills list, it’s worth getting that opening right too. I wrote a separate guide on how to write an objective statement for your resume that pairs well with this.
Formatting choices that matter
- Use simple bullet points, not graphics, star ratings, or progress bars. ATS software often can’t read those visual ratings at all, and human recruiters find them a bit naff regardless.
- One skill per bullet, not comma-stuffed lists that bury the strong ones behind the weak ones.
- No skill level percentages (“Excel: 85%”). Nobody can verify that number and it always reads as slightly odd.
- Group by category if your list is long and mixed, for example “Technical” and “Leadership,” but only if you have enough in each category to justify splitting them.
If you’re building your CV from a template rather than starting from a blank page, the skills section is usually one of the easier bits to get wrong through copy-paste laziness. I’ve written a full walkthrough on how to fill in a blank resume template step by step that covers this, including where the skills block sits relative to everything else.
Industry differences worth knowing
Skills sections aren’t universal. A software developer’s list should lean almost entirely hard skills: specific languages, frameworks, tools, and version numbers where relevant. A nurse’s CV needs a different balance entirely, mixing clinical competencies with regulatory and compliance skills, and the formatting conventions in healthcare recruitment are stricter than most people expect. I go into that specifically in how to pick a resume template that suits a nursing career, because a nursing CV that looks like a marketing CV gets noticed for the wrong reasons.
Generally: technical, creative, and trade roles want more hard skills and fewer soft ones. Management, sales, and client-facing roles want the reverse balance, closer to fifty-fifty.
The ATS problem, in plain terms
Most mid-size and large companies now run CVs through applicant tracking software before a human sees them. That software scans for keyword matches, and your skills section is the densest cluster of keywords on the page, so it carries disproportionate weight in whether you clear the first filter. This is exactly why matching the advert’s exact phrasing matters more than sounding original. If you want the full detail on how these systems work and what trips them up, I covered it thoroughly in what is an ATS friendly resume template and why does it matter.
One thing worth saying plainly: a good skills section can’t rescue a CV that’s badly targeted everywhere else. It gets you past the filter, but the interview still has to be won on substance. Treat it as the door, not the whole house.
Common mistakes I see on repeat
- Listing outdated tools nobody’s hired for since 2015, like “Internet Explorer” or “fax machines.” I’ve seen both this year.
- Copying the exact same skills section across every application, which defeats the entire point of keyword matching.
- Overusing buzzwords like “synergy” or “dynamic” that mean nothing and signal nothing.
- Listing skills that contradict the rest of the CV, for example claiming “attention to detail” above three typos.
- Making the list so long it looks like a shopping trolley rather than a considered selection.
Frequently asked questions
How many skills should be on a resume?
Between eight and fifteen is the range that works for most CVs. Fewer looks thin to both recruiters and ATS software, more starts to look unfocused and hard to skim in the six or so seconds a recruiter typically spends on this section.
Should soft skills go in the skills section at all?
Yes, but only ones you can back up with an example elsewhere on the CV, ideally with a number attached. A generic soft skill with no supporting evidence anywhere on the page reads as filler, and recruiters have learned to skim straight past those words.
What’s the biggest mistake people make in this section?
Copying the same list onto every application rather than matching it to the specific job advert. ATS software and human recruiters both look for keyword overlap with the job description, so a generic list works less often than a tailored one, even if the tailored one is shorter.
Should I list skill levels, like beginner or expert?
No. Percentages and star ratings can’t usually be read by ATS software, and human recruiters tend to find them a bit unconvincing since there’s no way to verify them. A specific, measurable achievement does the same job of proving proficiency far more credibly.
Primary sources
Related reading: AI Governance Policy for Marketing Teams: The 12-Section Template (2026) and 9 Real Ways to Make Money Online That Pay (Not the Rubbish You’ll See Elsewhere).
