The Skills Section Most People Write Incorrectly
Walk through any stack of CVs and the skills sections look almost identical. A cloud of terms in no particular order: "communication," "teamwork," "Python," "Microsoft Office," "problem-solving," "leadership," "Excel," "time management." Some in bullet points. Some in comma-separated lists. Most in two or three columns that look like a word-search puzzle.
This is not a skills section. It's a noise factory.
A skills section should do two distinct things. For ATS software: make your profile matchable against keywords in the job description. For human readers: communicate your level, your focus, and your relevance in under 10 seconds. The typical "everything I can think of" dump fails both tests.
According to research from 2025, 85% of employers now use skills-based hiring criteria — up from 81% the previous year. The skills section has never mattered more. It's also never been more misunderstood.
Hard Skills vs Soft Skills: The Distinction That Matters
Hard skills are specific, learnable, and demonstrable: programming languages, tools, methodologies, certifications, technical competencies. "React.js," "SQL," "IFRS reporting," "Google Analytics," "Six Sigma Green Belt."
Soft skills are behavioral: "leadership," "communication," "adaptability," "creativity." They're harder to verify and therefore lower value on a CV. Recruiters know that every candidate who lists "excellent communication skills" believes it. Most of them aren't wrong. But the phrase adds nothing.
The ratio that works: your skills section should be predominantly hard skills, with soft skills appearing in context (in your experience descriptions, where you can show them) rather than as free-floating claims.
"Strong communicator" on a skills list: meaningless. "Negotiated contract renewal with three enterprise clients representing €2.4M ARR" in your experience section: that's communication skill demonstrated.
This doesn't mean soft skills are irrelevant. It means they should be evidenced in your work history, not just asserted in a list.
How to Decide Which Skills to Include
The answer is in the job description. This sounds obvious. It isn't practiced consistently.
Take the roles you're applying to and highlight every technical requirement, tool, methodology, and competency mentioned. The skills that appear across most of your target roles are the ones your CV skills section needs to contain. The skills that appear in only one role might belong in a tailored version of your CV for that application.
Two common mistakes in the other direction:
Over-inclusion: listing every tool you've ever touched, including things you used once in 2018. A recruiter scanning "Python, Java, C++, R, MATLAB, SAS, SPSS, Julia" from a candidate applying for a data analyst role doesn't see breadth. They see dilution.
Under-inclusion by overthinking: "I'm not really expert-level in SQL so I won't list it." If the job requires SQL and you have functional ability, list it. You're not claiming mastery by listing a skill — you're claiming relevance.
Ordering Your Skills: The Priority Logic
Most candidates order skills randomly or by habit. The order should be deliberate.
Put the skills most mentioned in the job description first. Not most impressive to you — most relevant to them. If a data engineering role emphasizes "Kafka, Spark, Airflow" and you have all three, those go at positions one, two, and three, not buried after "Git" and "Linux."
This matters because:
- Recruiters scan from top left. The first five items in your skills list have more impact than the last five.
- ATS systems give weighted scores to keyword matches, and proximity to the top of a section can affect that weighting depending on the system.
- The structure signals that you read the job description — which is already more than half of candidates can claim.
Format Options and When to Use Each
Simple list: The most ATS-compatible format. Skills in a single column or two columns. Clean, parseable. Best for roles where ATS screening is likely and you want zero parsing risk.
Categorized list: Group skills under headers: "Programming Languages," "Data Tools," "Cloud Platforms." Better for technical roles where categories help a human reader understand your range quickly. More human-readable, slightly more ATS risk if the parser treats headers oddly.
Skills with context: "Python (5 years | data pipelines, ML models, automation)." More informative, worse for ATS, better for human readers in senior technical roles where depth matters more than keyword matching.
Proficiency indicators: "Advanced / Intermediate / Basic" ratings or bar charts. Bar charts are decoration. Percentage bars ("Python: 90%") communicate nothing verifiable and some recruiters find them irritating. Simple text labels (Advanced/Intermediate) add more value than bars with less visual noise.
For most professional roles: categorized list, no bars, no percentages, consistent capitalization, 15-25 skills maximum.
What to Cut
Be honest with yourself here. A few categories of skills that usually don't belong:
"Microsoft Office" or "Microsoft Word" — These are table stakes. Every office worker has these. Listing them takes up space that could go to something differentiating. The exception: roles where proficiency is genuinely tested (executive assistant, admin roles where Excel expertise is a requirement).
Completely outdated technology — A software engineer listing "Visual Basic 6.0" or "Flash" signals that their skills list hasn't been updated since they first wrote their CV.
Soft skills as standalone items — "Communication," "teamwork," "problem-solving," "detail-oriented." These belong in your summary or your experience section, evidenced with specific examples. As list items, they're invisible noise.
"Fast learner" or "quick learner" — Often seen, never useful. Every candidate believes this about themselves. Prove it through your work history instead.
The Skills Section Position on Your CV
Where on the page your skills section lives depends on how central those skills are to your candidacy:
Near the top, after your summary: For technical roles where skills are primary selection criteria (software engineering, data science, finance, legal). Put what the screener needs to see where they'll actually see it.
Mid-page, after experience: For roles where experience and context matter more than a skill checklist (management, sales, marketing, consulting). The evidence in your work history is more persuasive than the list.
Integrated into experience descriptions: For very senior roles or roles where skills are complex to categorize. Instead of a separate section, skills appear naturally in context: "Led migration from on-premise infrastructure to AWS (EC2, RDS, S3) serving 40M daily active users."
For most mid-career professionals, a dedicated skills section near the top or early-middle of the CV is the right call. After your summary, before or after your experience section, one page.
Skills vs Keywords: They're Not the Same Thing
There's a related but distinct question: which keywords does this specific job description use, and does your CV contain them?
ATS systems don't just scan your skills section. They scan your entire CV. Keywords that appear in your experience descriptions often carry as much or more weight than those in a skills list. The skills section is a concentration point, not the whole strategy.
This is why tailoring your CV to each job description matters so much — the same person, with the same experience, gets materially different ATS scores based on whether their CV language matches the job posting language. Tools like MakeMyCV do this analysis automatically, showing you which required keywords are missing from your CV and where to add them — not just in the skills section, but throughout the document.
Skills Section for Career Changers
If you're switching industries, the skills section needs extra attention. You're likely bringing skills that are relevant but named differently than the target industry names them. An account manager going into sales operations knows CRM management, deal tracking, and pipeline forecasting — they might just have always called it "managing their Salesforce."
The exercise: for each skill in your target job descriptions, identify whether you have the underlying capability under a different name. Then use the target industry's name for it on your CV. Not fabrication — translation. See our full guide on career change CVs for how this applies across the whole document.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many skills should I put on my CV?
10 to 20 skills is the optimal range for most roles. Enough to demonstrate breadth and satisfy ATS keyword matching, not so many that the section becomes unreadable noise. For technical roles with many specific tools, 25 is acceptable if they're meaningfully categorized.
Should I include soft skills on my CV skills section?
Mostly no. Soft skills listed as standalone items ("leadership," "communication") are low-value because they're unverifiable. Demonstrate soft skills through specific achievements in your experience section instead. The exception: if a job description explicitly lists a soft skill as a requirement, include it — but connect it to evidence elsewhere on the CV.
What are the best skills to put on a CV in 2026?
It depends entirely on the role. Universally valued skills across most professional fields include: project management, data analysis and visualization, CRM tools (Salesforce, HubSpot), Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets at advanced level, written communication, and cross-functional collaboration. In tech: any cloud platform (AWS, Azure, GCP), Python, SQL, and relevant frameworks for your specialty.
Do I need a separate skills section or can I integrate skills into my experience?
Both approaches work, but a dedicated skills section near the top of your CV is preferred for most roles because it makes ATS keyword matching more reliable and helps human readers quickly assess your technical profile. For senior or executive roles, integrated skills within experience descriptions often reads more naturally.
Should I list skills I'm still learning?
Yes, with a qualifier. "Python (currently learning)" or "Intermediate — [skill]" is honest and shows initiative. Listing a skill as if you're proficient when you're a beginner is a risk — technical interviews and skills tests will surface the gap quickly.
What skills does every CV need?
There's no universal list. The skills your CV needs are the skills required by the specific roles you're applying to. Reverse-engineering your skills section from job descriptions is more reliable than any generic "top skills for 2026" list.