Top 10 Soft Skills Employers Love: 90+ Examples - Resume Genius
Top 10 Soft Skills Employers Love: 90+ Examples - Resume Genius
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Knowing which soft skills to highlight in your resume could set you apart
from candidates with similar sets of hard skills. Your education, degree, and
certifications might help you get an interview, but your soft skills are what
will help land you the job.
Here are some of the top soft skills to highlight on your resume:
They are natural skills that usually can’t be taught in a classroom. Soft skills
are often, but not always, “people” skills.
Soft skills aren’t always the type of skills that can be listed in the skills
section of your resume. Instead, you should demonstrate your soft skills
Here are some of the basic differences between hard skills and soft skills:
1. Communication
Communication skills are the effective oral or written ways you express
yourself in the workplace. Communication is a critical sales skill, and is
useful across a variety of industries — from human resources to
management.
Presentation skills
Confidence
Mutual respect
Empathy
Active listening
Verbal communication
Non-verbal communication
Written communication
Constructive feedback
Friendliness
2. Teamwork
Employers are always looking for candidates that are great at collaborating
with a team. Teamwork skills help you operate well in a group and quickly
and effectively accomplish tasks. In fact, teamwork is crucial for careers in
market research, event coordination, and software engineering.
Conflict management
Delegation
Listening
Active listening
Collaboration
Cooperation
Coordination
Idea exchange
Mediation
Negotiating
3. Adaptability
Adaptability and flexibility are essential skills for embracing and adjusting
to change (like what we faced in 2020, and are currently facing in 2021).
These soft skills are particularly important when working in fast-paced or
constantly evolving work environments such as public relations, event
management, tech, nursing, and advertising.
Curiosity
Self-management
Decision-making
Calmness
Optimism
Open-mindedness
Analysis
Self-confidence
Organization
Self-motivation
4. Problem-Solving
Problem-solving skills depend on your ability to use analytical and creative
thinking to find solutions. No matter what industry you work in, problem-
solving skills will always be valuable on some level because every job has
issues that need to be tackled. Ultimately, candidates who can tackle
problems and find intuitive solutions will always be in high demand.
Analysis
Lateral thinking
Logical reasoning
Initiative
Persistence
Observation
Persuasion
Negotiation
Brainstorming
Decision making
5. Creativity
Creativity is a broad soft skill that can range from helping you develop
innovative solutions to being an effective graphic designer. In fact,
creativity is considered by some experts to be the most important soft skill
of the future.
While creativity is valuable for any industry, it’s especially important for
instructional designers, architects, and artists.
Divergent thinking
Inspiration
Imagination
Reframing
Mind mapping
Insight
Innovation
Experimenting
Questioning
Design
6. Work Ethic
The foundation for any great employee, work ethic is one of the most basic,
widely transferable soft skills there is. By showcasing your work ethic, you
communicate to employers that you believe in the importance of work and
the value of putting forward your best effort.
Integrity
Responsibility
Discipline
Initiative
Dependability
Commitment
Self-motivated
Professionalism
Teamwork
Time-management
7. Interpersonal Skills
Interpersonal skills refer to your ability to communicate well and interact
with others, maintain relationships, and otherwise leave a positive
impression on people.
Interpersonal skills are used every day in most industries as you interact
and communicate with co-workers and management. However, they’re
especially vital for people who work in industries like customer service,
realty, or financial planning.
Empathy
Humor
Mentoring
Networking
Sensitivity
Patience
Tolerance
Public speaking
Positive reinforcement
Diplomacy
8. Time Management
Time management skills describe your ability to work efficiently and
productively by using your time wisely. Most employers appreciate this soft
skill, but it’s particularly important if you’re a project manager, middle
manager, or work in loss prevention or legal fields.
Goal setting
Prioritizing
Self-starter
Planning
Decision making
Focus
Delegation
Stress management
Coping
Organization
9. Leadership
Leadership skills refer to your ability to mentor others, train new hires, and
guide teams. Strong leadership skills are also one of the most essential
qualities when it comes to taking on more responsibility and being
promoted within a company. Employers are always looking for reliable
candidates with strong leadership skills to help them grow their companies.
Project management
Empathy
Selflessness
Listening
Humility
Management skills
Cultural intelligence
Authenticity
Versatility
Generosity
Trust
Mentorship
Hiring
Critical observation
Listening
Organization
Scheduling
Analysis
Introspection
Memory
Acuity
Recall
Questioning
There are two main places on your resume that you can showcase your soft
skills:
Any skills included in your skills section should be listed out in simple
bulleted form, like this:
However, your skills section is ultimately not the best place to highlight
your soft skills. Soft skills are difficult to quantify, and should be backed up
with examples, making them more suitable to touch upon in your work
experience bullet points.
Instead, prioritize listing your relevant hard skills in your skills section, and
including soft skills here only when highly relevant.
This is ideal for showing off your soft skills, because experience bullet
points allow you to go into detail about how your soft skills helped you
achieve things at work and deliver results.
For instance, here’s a resume work experience section that highlights soft
skills throughout:
Note that within five short bullet points, this candidate is able to highlight a
variety of soft skills, including leadership, organizational skills,
interpersonal skills, and problem-solving.
As Susan Vitale of iCIMS says, “hard skills might get your resume looked at”
but soft skills “help you stand out and get you hired.” You must still
possess the requisite technical skills to get the job you want, but without
soft skills, you can’t compete.
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