Soft Skills for a Resume | What to List With Examples
Soft skills for a resume are the abilities that enable you to interact and communicate effectively with customers, clients, and coworkers. Soft skills are less “teachable” than hard skills because they’re closely tied to your personality and character. You typically develop these skills through practical experience rather than formal education.
- Verbal communication
- Written communication
- Public speaking and presenting
- Negotiating
- Critical thinking
- Problem-solving
- Decision-making
- Teamwork
- Conflict resolution
- Persuasion
- Intercultural awareness
- Adaptability and flexibility
- Relationship and rapport building
Best soft skills for a resume
The best soft skills for a resume are those highlighted in the job posting or application documentation that you can demonstrate with examples from your work experience, education, training, extracurricular activities, or hobbies.
If you’re struggling to identify past experiences that demonstrate certain soft skills, consider situations, projects, or responsibilities where success depended on effective collaboration with customers, clients, coworkers, or classmates. Think about times when you had to be adaptable, manage your time efficiently, find creative solutions, or demonstrate strong organization and reliability, for instance.
| Situation | Examples of required soft skills |
|---|---|
| Handling a complaint | Active listening, empathy, conflict resolution |
| Working on a group project at college | Giving and receiving feedback, coordination, decision-making |
| Managing your time effectively to fulfill multiple commitments | Time management, organization, goal-setting |
| Helping a new coworker | Patience, mentoring, approachability |
| Speaking in public | Confidence, presentation skills, thinking on your feet |
| Stepping in for someone else at short notice | Flexibility, remaining calm under pressure, problem-solving |
Examples of soft skills for a resume
Here are some examples of soft skills for a resume. Remember to include examples of how you demonstrated specific skills in your descriptions.
| Soft skill | Example of resume description |
|---|---|
| Cooperation | Collaborated efficiently with classmates on group projects, ensuring clear task allocation, regular progress updates, and mutual support |
| Initiative | Proposed and implemented a more efficient way to organize the general inquiries email inbox, improving response time and workflow |
| Time management | Balanced coursework, sports commitments, and part-time work by efficiently planning and organizing my time |
| Problem-solving | Secured an alternative event caterer on very short notice while staying within budget, ensuring the event could go ahead |
| Presenting | Delivered an impactful project presentation to professors and industry mentors, earning an A grade for my presentation skills |
| Active listening | Listened attentively to customer requirements and concerns to ensure I could effectively meet their complex needs |
| Verbal communication | Communicated clearly and patiently with customers in a busy retail environment, contributing to positive customer experiences |
| Written communication | Responded professionally to parents’ emails during camp, addressing their concerns and providing reassurance |
| Trustworthiness | Trusted with cash-handling and purchasing responsibilities |
| Dependability | Opened and closed the store, ensuring it was properly set up in the morning and securely locked at night. |
How to write soft skills for a resume
If your resume format includes a dedicated skills section, listing your most relevant soft skills there is a good start. However, you also need to provide concrete examples of these skills at appropriate places in other sections, such as the professional summary, work experience, and education sections.
You don’t always need to explicitly name the soft skill when describing a situation where you used it, as shown in the example descriptions above. Notice how each example begins with an action verb. This is an effective way of writing engaging, impactful statements that demonstrate soft skills.
- Adapted
- Advised
- Analyzed
- Assisted
- Clarified
- Collaborated
- Facilitated
- Guided
- Initiated
- Motivated
- Negotiated
- Organized
- Presented
- Proposed
- Resolved
Frequently asked questions about soft skills for a resume
- What are some soft skills for a CV?
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Some soft skills for a CV include interpersonal and social skills such as the ability to build rapport, communicate clearly in both speech and writing, be assertive, and adapt to new situations.
QuillBot’s free Paraphraser can help you to write engaging CV descriptions that showcase your soft skills.
- What are some soft skills for customer service?
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Some soft skills for customer service include the ability to listen actively, resolve conflict, stay calm under pressure, and convey enthusiasm.
QuillBot’s free Paraphraser can help you to write compelling descriptions of soft skills for a resume.
- What are transferable skills?
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Transferable skills are skills that are relevant to a wide range of occupations and roles (i.e., they can typically be “transferred” to a new professional context). Most soft skills for your resume will be highly transferable.
It’s particularly important to showcase your transferable skills when you don’t fulfill many of the hard skill requirements for a job because you’re trying to transition to a new industry.
QuillBot’s free Paraphraser can help you to write impactful descriptions that showcase your transferable skills.
- What are some soft skills examples for students?
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Some soft skills examples for students include teamwork (acquired through group projects), presenting, critical thinking, problem-solving, and time management (acquired through balancing college work and other commitments).
QuillBot’s free Paraphraser can help you to craft engaging descriptions of soft skills for a resume.
