The skills section of a resume is a revealing way for employers to discover if an applicant is the right fit. For job seekers, knowing which skills to highlight can be a challenge, so job platform FlexJobs put together the top hard, soft and remote work skills that will have employers extending a job offer.
"The bottom line is as somebody who's applying for a job, you want to know what skills you have, but the next layer of that is how they fit with this role," says Toni Frana, lead career expert at FlexJobs.
Read more:
Employers have found that a skills-based hiring approach widens their talent pool, and three quarters are using skills-based hiring to find new talent, with over half saying it is the "dominant hiring method" moving forward, according to a survey by Test Gorilla.
Skills-based hiring can also help remove biases from the hiring process — the survey also reported that 92.5% of employers saw a reduction in mis-hires, 91.2% saw an increase in
While hard technical skills like negotiation and foreign language are in-demand, personal attributes, or soft skills, can make the difference in receiving a job offer. In fact, recent research shows that 85% of career success comes from having well-developed soft and people skills. Because many positions being filled are hybrid and remote, a balance of hard skills such as digital acumen and data analysis, as well as soft skills like problem solving and written and verbal communication claimed high spots on FlexJobs' list.
Read more:
When highlighting skills and abilities, FlexJobs recommends applicants sort skills by relevance, emphasizing skills from past experiences and adding a section of skills they are most proud of. By doing this, candidates are helping the employer start to visualize them in the role, says Frana.
Here are the top five hard, soft and remote work skills that recruiters and managers want to see:
