Best Skills to Put on a Resume in 2025: Hard Skills, Soft Skills & More

Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills: What's the Difference?

Before diving into specific skills for your resume, it is important to understand the distinction between hard skills and soft skills, because they serve different purposes and should be presented differently on your resume.

Top Hard Skills by Industry for 2025

The most in-demand hard skills vary significantly by industry. Listing skills that are relevant and current for your target field signals to hiring managers that you are up to date and genuinely qualified. Here are the top hard skills for resume listings across major industries.

Universal Soft Skills That Belong on Every Resume

While hard skills get you through the ATS, soft skills often determine who gets hired among equally qualified candidates. These are the soft skills that consistently rank highest in hiring manager surveys and job posting analysis for 2025. Rather than listing these in a dedicated 'Soft Skills' section — which can look generic — weave them into your bullet points and professional summary.

• Communication — Both written and verbal. Demonstrate it: 'Presented quarterly performance reports to C-suite leadership and board of directors.'
• Leadership — Does not require a management title. Demonstrate it: 'Mentored 4 junior analysts, with 3 earning promotions within 18 months.'
• Problem-solving — Highly valued in every field. Demonstrate it: 'Identified root cause of recurring production outages and implemented a monitoring solution that eliminated 95% of incidents.'
• Collaboration — Cross-functional work is the norm in 2025. Demonstrate it: 'Partnered with engineering, design, and data teams to launch a personalization feature that increased conversion by 23%.'
• Adaptability — Especially valued in fast-changing industries. Demonstrate it: 'Transitioned the team from Waterfall to Agile methodology in 6 weeks, maintaining project velocity throughout the change.'
• Critical thinking — The ability to analyze information and make sound decisions. Demonstrate it: 'Evaluated 5 vendor proposals against 12 criteria, selecting a solution that reduced costs by 30% while improving service quality.'
• Time management — Essential for roles with competing priorities. Demonstrate it: 'Managed 8 concurrent client accounts totaling $5M in annual revenue, consistently delivering projects ahead of deadline.'
• Emotional intelligence — Increasingly recognized as a leadership differentiator. Demonstrate it: 'Navigated a team restructuring affecting 25 employees, maintaining a 92% retention rate through transparent communication and individual career planning.'

Trending Skills for 2025

The job market evolves rapidly, and the skills that employers prioritize shift from year to year. Based on analysis of millions of job postings and hiring trends, these are the fastest-growing skills for resume listings in 2025.

• AI and Machine Learning — Not just for data scientists. Product managers, marketers, and business analysts are increasingly expected to understand AI concepts and tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Midjourney.
• Prompt Engineering — The ability to write effective prompts for large language models is becoming a standalone skill listed in job postings across technology, marketing, and content roles.
• Cybersecurity — With rising cyber threats, skills like zero-trust architecture, incident response, cloud security, and compliance frameworks (SOC 2, ISO 27001) are in high demand across industries.
• Cloud Architecture — AWS, Azure, and GCP certifications continue to command premium salaries. Multi-cloud experience is especially valued as organizations diversify their infrastructure.
• Data Storytelling — The ability to translate complex data into clear, actionable narratives for non-technical stakeholders. Goes beyond data analysis into visualization and communication.
• Sustainability and ESG — Environmental, social, and governance expertise is a growing requirement in corporate strategy, operations, and compliance roles as regulatory pressure increases.
• No-Code and Low-Code Development — Tools like Bubble, Retool, and Zapier allow non-engineers to build applications and automations. Listing proficiency signals efficiency and adaptability.
• Remote Team Leadership — Managing distributed teams across time zones requires distinct skills in asynchronous communication, digital collaboration tools, and outcome-based performance management.

How to List Skills on Your Resume

Where and how you list your skills matters almost as much as which skills you include. A poorly organized skills section can bury your best qualifications, while a well-structured one makes your resume scannable and ATS-optimized.

ATS Optimization for Your Skills Section

Your skills section is the primary hunting ground for ATS keyword matching. Optimizing it correctly can significantly improve your chances of passing automated screening. Here are the key principles for making your skills for resume listings ATS-friendly.

• Use the exact terminology from the job posting — If the posting says 'Salesforce CRM,' do not write 'CRM software.' Use the specific term.
• Include both acronyms and full names — Write 'Amazon Web Services (AWS)' so both the full name and the abbreviation are captured by keyword scanners.
• Avoid skill bars and graphics — Rating your skills on a visual scale (star ratings, progress bars) looks slick but is invisible to ATS systems. Use text only.
• Do not hide skills in headers or footers — Many ATS systems skip content in headers, footers, and text boxes. Keep your skills section in the main body of the document.
• Mirror the job description's grouping — If the posting groups skills under 'Required' and 'Preferred,' address the required skills first and most thoroughly.
• Update for every application — Different roles prioritize different skills, even within the same company. Adjust your skills section for each application to maximize keyword match rates.

Skills to Avoid Listing on Your Resume

Not every skill belongs on a resume. Including outdated, obvious, or irrelevant skills wastes space and can actually hurt your candidacy by making you look out of touch. Here are skills you should generally leave off your resume in 2025.

• Microsoft Office basics — Listing 'proficient in Word and PowerPoint' is like saying you can use email. It is assumed. Exception: advanced Excel skills (VBA, Power Query, complex financial modeling) are still worth listing.
• Outdated technologies — Unless the job specifically requires them, remove skills like Flash, Visual Basic 6, or Internet Explorer compatibility testing.
• Typing speed — Unless you are applying for a data entry or transcription role, your typing speed is irrelevant.
• Social media (personal use) — 'Proficient in Instagram and TikTok' as personal-use skills are not professional qualifications. Social media marketing strategy and paid social advertising are entirely different.
• Generic soft skills without context — 'Hard worker,' 'quick learner,' and 'team player' are meaningless on their own. If you cannot demonstrate them with specific examples, leave them off.
• References available upon request — This is not a skill, and the phrase itself is outdated. Employers will ask for references when they need them.

How Many Skills Should You List?

The ideal number of skills for your resume depends on your experience level and industry, but a good range is 10-20 skills for most professionals. Fewer than 10 can make you look underqualified, while more than 25 starts to look like you are padding the list. Quality and relevance matter more than quantity — a focused list of 12 highly relevant skills will outperform a sprawling list of 30 tangentially related ones every time. For technical roles, lean toward the higher end of the range since there are often specific tools, languages, and platforms that hiring managers screen for. For non-technical roles, aim for 10-15 well-chosen skills that align tightly with the job description. Remember that your skills section is not the only place skills appear on your resume. The skills demonstrated through your work experience bullet points also contribute to your overall keyword match and help ATS systems identify your qualifications.

Putting It All Together: Skills Section Examples

Here are two examples of well-structured skills sections you can use as templates when building your own resume.