The Best Hard Skills to Put In Your Resume
When reviewing resumes and interviewing candidates for a job role, employers often look for a set of particular hard skills. For this reason, knowing which hard skills to put in your resume as well as how to best portray these hard skills during your interview is essential. After all, knowing how to demonstrate the hard skills a potential employer is looking for is one of the best ways to increase your chances of getting a job.
Today, we'll be telling you some of the best hard skills to put in your resume. We'll also be taking this opportunity to give you examples of the best ways to include these hard skills in your resume. With this information, you'll have a much easier time demonstrating the hard skills that can win you the position. When combined with a winning resume or CV, this knowledge can go a long way! Make sure you register for free to BuzzCV where you'll be given access to CV templates that you can use to land a job interview! Let's get started.
What Are Hard Skills?
Before we talk about some of the best hard skills to put in your resume, it's best to define what exactly hard skills are. Put simply, hard skills are skills which are obtained through either education or formal training that are required to complete a job. Hard skills allow you to take on more job-specific responsibilities and duties and are usually focused on specific tasks, including the use of specific software, tools, or equipment.
Another skill type that you may have heard of in the past is "soft skills". Soft skills are certain traits and abilities that are not job-specific. A few of the most common soft skills include leadership, management, or collaboration. You may be wondering which type of skill set is more important: soft skills or hard skills. According to a LinkedIn study, a slight majority of employers (57 percent versus 43 percent) value soft skills over hard skills. To learn more about soft skills, click here.
Although this study suggests that soft skills are more important in the eyes of an employer, this doesn't mean that you don't need to know how to demonstrate your capabilities to an employer in terms of both skill types. According to many employers, the best way to think about hard skills and soft skills is that hard skills tend to get interviews while soft skills are your key to getting a job. Each is, in this way, equally important.
What Are Some Examples of Hard Skills?
Now that you know the basic definition of hard skills, you may be wondering what some examples are. We have you covered! Below is a list of some of the most in-demand hard skills so that you'll have a good idea of some that you can include on your resume. Following this list, we'll also offer a greater explanation of what each skillset involves so that you'll better understand why they're so important.
Some hard skills you may want to include on your resume are:
- Accounting
- Communication Skills
- Data Analysis
- Computer Technology
- Certification and Licenses
- Marketing
- Design
- Mobile and Web Development
Accounting
It should be noted that there are various platforms and applications that financial professionals use on a daily basis to perform their job functions. For this reason, being proficient in accounting is essential in order to get a job as an accountant or another type of financial professional. A few accounting hard skills that you may want to include on your resume if you're applying for a financial position are:
- Microsoft Visual Basic
- ERP Knowledge
- Microsoft Excel
- Big Data Analysis
- Quickbooks
Communication Skills
Another area of hard skills that you'll want to consider including on your resume are communication skills. While communication is typically considered a soft skill, some hard skills are classified as communication skills and are required in order to complete certain job functions. A few examples of common hard communication skills include:
- Transcription
- Copywriting
- Editing
- Researching
- Reporting
- Translation
- Word Processing
Data Analysis
There are a series of occupations in which employees are required to analyze given data using a variety of hard skills. Most often obtained through courses, training, and certifications, a few examples of data analysis hard skills include:
- Data Mining
- Database Management
- Research
- Web Analytics
- Data Engineering
Computer Technology
In the day and age that we live in, virtually all employees are expected to have some basic knowledge of computer technology. Further, many companies even require job candidates to apply for jobs which utilize technology-based platforms. For this reason, you'll want to be able to show off to a prospective employer that you are ready and willing to embrace the certain technologies needed to perform your job functions efficiently.
According to BusinessNewsDaily.com, these hard skills are considered among the most important computer technology hard skills to put on your resume:
- Social Media
- HTML
- Analytics
- Microsoft Office Suite
- Pivot Tables
Certification and Licenses
Although certifications and licenses are not hard skills themselves, they are perfect for proving to potential employers that you possess the abilities that they are looking for in an employee. For this reason, if you have any certifications or licenses that are related to the job field you are applying for, you should be sure to list them on your resume. A few common certifications and licenses that you may want to include are:
- Healthcare related licenses
- Industry-recognized credentials
- Learning management systems
- Data management systems
Marketing
When it comes to hard skills that are considered invaluable to employers, marketing is among them. This is because, at its core, marketing is the ability to convince consumers to purchase a business's services or products, directly resulting in an increase in revenue for the company. There are many hard marketing skills that you may want to consider putting on your resume including:
- Search engine marketing (SEM)
- Search engine optimization (SEO)
- Content management systems (CMS)
- Google Analytics
- Marketing campaign management
Design
Although an artistic eye is typically considered to be an innate trait, there are certain design elements and tools that can only be learned through training and education. Some of the most heavily desired design hard skills that you may want to put on your resume include:
- User interface design (UI design)
- Digital product design software
- User experience design (UE design)
- Adobe Creative Suite
Mobile and Web Development
Finally, the last of the most in-demand hard skills to put in your resume includes mobile and web development hard skills. With new websites and apps being created every second, there is a huge demand for employees that possess the mobile and web development hard skills needed to create and maintain them. If you're looking to secure a job role as a successful web developer, you'll want to include the following hard skills on your resume:
- Web architecture and development framework
- Angular and Node apps
- iOS app development
- Android app development
- Software revision control systems
How to Showcase Hard Skills on Your Resume
Now that you know a few examples of some of the most in-demand hard skills to put in your resume, it is likely that you're wondering exactly how you can showcase those skills. Although listing hard skills in the "Skills" section of your resume is an important first step, there are some other techniques and strategies that you can use to ensure that you stand out to potential employers. Let's take a closer look at how you can best showcase your hard skills on your resume!
Include Your Skills Section Towards the Top of Your Resume
The first thing you should know about including hard skills on your resume is that when applying for a specific job where technical skills are more important than anything else, you should always position your "Skills" section above your work experience on your resume. In doing so, you ensure that a hiring manager can quickly find the information they're looking for without a hassle.
Since you are applying to a job where possessing certain hard skills is key to landing an interview, you'll want to offer up what a hiring manager is looking for immediately. This could make all the difference between getting an interview and having your resume thrown into the garbage bin.
Use Your Cover Letter to Highlight How You Used Hard Skills to Succeed
Unfortunately, your resume should only be the length of a single page and this limits the amount of space you have to properly convey everything you feel that a hiring manager should know about you. If there are some hard skills that were more heavily emphasized in the description for the job you are applying for, it's a great idea to use your cover letter to include a more detailed history of those hard skills. Use your cover letter to fully explain the hard skills you possess and how you have used them to excel in previous job positions!
Showcase Your Hard Skills in the Professional Experience Section
Finally, it should be noted that there are a number of jobs where simply listing your hard skills won't be enough to impress the hiring manager. For these types of job positions, you will need to effectively prove that you have the skills necessary for the position and you'll need more than just a list to do so.
In these situations, effectively highlight your abilities by providing examples of how you utilized them in the past. You can do this by listing your accomplishments in the "Professional Experience" section of your resume. Here, you can explain in-depth how you used hard skills in previous job positions. Be sure to be specific!
Use a Combination of Hard and Soft Skills to Land a Job Interview!
Now that you know more about what hard skills are, a few examples of some of the most in-demand hard skills, and a few strategies for showcasing those skills in your resume, it's time to use a combination of hard and soft skills to land a job interview.
Looking to learn more about soft skills and how to include them in your resume? Check out our article, "The Best Soft Skills to Put in Your Resume". As always, stay tuned to BuzzCV for the best career and job-hunting advice, and be sure to register for an account so that you gain access to our professional CV templates. Good luck!
