When you’re trying to keep your resume length down to accommodate that one-page limit, your skills section may seem like a prime contender for the chopping block. You might wonder why you ever included one in the first place. After all, it’s full of information that can be gleaned from other parts of your application, right?
Not so fast! Before you axe your resume skills section to make more space, read on to get the full picture of what you’d be giving up. And once you’re convinced not to scrap it, find out what types of skills you should include on a resume, how you should format a dedicated skills section, and how to figure the right skills for each job application.
Why do I need a skills section?Overall, your resume skills section gives your application a nice optimization bump for both the human and digital review process. The whole point of keeping your resume concise is to allow a recruiter or hiring manager to figure out the value you could create for the company after just a quick skim.
For certain roles, it can be a nonstarter for a candidate to not have specific skills. You can’t be a ballerina if you don’t know how to dance, obviously, just like you won’t get a front-end developer role if you don’t know HTML.
Outside of these situations, however, the hiring managers I’ve spoken to are looking at the big picture. Monica Orta, a hiring manager at the MIT Media Lab, says the skills section gives her “a sense of the suite of skills a person has—it’s another way to look at their experience and helps paint a fuller picture.” They’re trying to connect the dots, and skills help fill in the gaps a bit.
Another reality of the job application process is the ubiquity of applicant tracking systems (ATS)—software that most employers use to organize and parse candidate resumes. Keyword scanning is one way an ATS flags resumes for closer review, and a skills section, conveniently, can serve as an extra block of relevant keywords.
What do I include in my skills section?Hiring managers are trying to pull together a story about you, so the first rule is that your skills section should match the experience you’ve written about in your resume.
Here’s what you should include:
Each job will require different skills to be successful, so each skills section you write will be a bit different as well. But how do you figure out the right combination of skills for a particular job application? Check the answer key!
That is, print out the job description of the role you’re interested in and take a highlighter to it (or copy and paste it into a doc and highlight there), marking any skills you see listed that you have. Then, make sure these skills are listed on your resume. For example, here’s a job description with some of the key skills bolded:
Email Marketing Manager
What's the best job for you?
Use The Muse to find a job at a company with a culture you love. Select the career path that aligns with you:
