By Caroline Forsey

When I graduated college, I didn’t have much prior work experience. However, I had something I believed made up for it — hard and soft skills for a resume. But what are hard or soft skills and how do they impact your professional future?

What are Hard Skills and Soft Skills?

Don’t let these antonyms fool you — both hard skills and soft skills play a vital role in crafting an optimal job skills section. But although best practice calls for a balance of hard and soft skills in the skills section of your resume, There are differences between soft and hard skills that you need to understand before you hit submit on that application.

Some additional examples of hard skills include:

• Web design
• Content creation
• Computer programming
• Accounting
• Technical writing

A few examples of soft skills are:

• Collaboration
• Time-management
• Conflict resolution
• Interpersonal skills
• Self-motivation

For instance, examples of soft skills like “strong communicator”, “detail-oriented”, or “self-motivated” may not be within the job description, but they could be the attributes that nonetheless help you thrive and succeed in the role.

But what makes a combination of hard and soft skills so important? These skills are vital because employers are looking for the right union of both qualities to find the best candidate profile for the position.

The main takeaway to remember as you list your skills is that soft skills relate to your personality once you’re at the office, whereas hard skills show what you can accomplish once you get to work.

Stand out through your resume skills section.

Admittedly, as I was writing my resume some of these skills likely didn’t stand out to recruiters as particularly impressive — for instance, “Facebook” is probably a skill I didn’t need to include, seeing as I wasn’t even applying for a social media position.

However, skills, like “ability to work under pressure” and “proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite,” did help me — particularly when I tailored my skills to fit the job description. Because when you are writing your resume and deciding what to put in the skills section, it’s critical that you provide applicable and exceptional examples to show recruiters you’re an ideal candidate.

To help you create an impressive resume that will make recruiters take notice of and demonstrate your unique qualifications, I spoke with HubSpot recruiters to consolidate 17 recruiter-approved resume skills (and useful tips) that’ll help you get the job.

1. Ability to Work Under Pressure

Skill Type: Soft Skill

Able to keep a steady hand under stress? Your ability to handle difficult situations as pressure mounts while producing impactful work and meeting deadlines is a super skill. For example, if you are interviewing for a role as an Executive Assistant and you have a track record of successfully scheduling leadership appointments with the stress of tight turnarounds and ever-changing demands, you have the ability to …read more

Source:: HubSpot Blog

Author: Aaron