4 types of skills to add to your resume

It is a fine Saturday morning, and you have decided to finally get on with updating your years-old resume. You breeze through the resume summary and education sections only to get stumped by the key skills section. There are so many kinds of skills! Which ones should you add more of? Don’t worry, our professional resume writers are here to explain the importance of each different skill type for your resume!

Transferable skills

Transferable skills are not limited to just one area of work. These skills will help you get things done across many disciplines. The transferable skills you develop in one profession will help you when you move on to something different. Some examples of transferable skills are communication skills, analytical thinking, customer service, and management skills.

Specialized skills

These are the skills that you acquire through years of education or training. Specialized skills go under the term technical skills as well. You can take professional development courses or on-the-job training programs to develop specialized skills. Environmental law, social media management, medical biochemistry, and web design are some examples of specialized skills.

Hard skills

These are the measurable job skills you possess. You can obtain hard skills in the same way as specialized skills – through education and training. Hard skills are also developed through practice. Hard skills are a type of specialized skills. If you are changing careers, you can also use these as transferable skills. MS Office, programming, interior design, and QuickBooks are some examples of hard skills.

Soft skills

Soft skills are just as important as the other types of skills we discussed. These are subjective opinions of your abilities. Soft skills are often difficult to teach and are seen as a part of your personality. Most of the time, soft skills are also considered to be transferable skills. Motivation, empathy, integrity, and emotional intelligence, all fall under soft skills.

What kind of skills must you add to your resume out of these?

When you are adding skills to your resume, you must always add a mix of specialized skills and transferable skills, giving more weight to specialized skills. Our resume writers suggest that you should include soft skills in your resume when the job description specifically calls for it. If the job posting says the employer is looking for a “motivated, hardworking, flexible software developer,” you must lead your skills section with these keywords.

Which skills add more value to a resume?

Specialized skills add more value to your resume because you can quantify them most of the time. We have previously talked about how simply listing skills on your resume isn’t enough. That is why you must always show the results you have brought previous employers with your skills when you create a resume. Find examples that show how valuable your skills are for the new company and use them to write the bullet points of your career summary.

How should you determine the skills that must go on your resume?

Not every skill belongs on your resume. Before deciding which skills to put under the spotlight, you must read the employer’s job description carefully. Identifying the keywords in the job description will help you create a targeted resume. Our advice? Create a list of the skills the employer is demanding. Then, write another list of your existing skills. Highlight the matching items on both lists. These are the skills that must go on your resume. When mentioning those skills, remember to follow the priority order set by the employer in the job description.