🙏 Top Soft Skills Recruiters Desperately Want You To Have

Which soft skills are best for your resume? Check this long list of examples.

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner said in 2018 that the biggest skills gap in the US is not coding, it's soft skills such as “written communication, oral communication, team-building, and leadership skills.”

LiveCareer went even further. They analyzed “thousands of resumes and job ads across 12 different occupations” to realize that “Job ads average just over 5 soft skills” but that “jobseekers’ resumes only match… 62 percent of soft skills in job ads, which is evidence of the chasm between what employers and applicants see as valuable.”

In other words, there's a good chance you're not including enough soft skills on your resume, or even the right soft skills on your resume.

Which are the right soft skills for resumes?

Simple: at the very least, the ones mentioned in the job listing you're applying for.

However, those required soft skills are often just the bare minimum and since they're posted publicly, every candidate competing with you can also include them in their resumes.

To stand out, you'll need to do company research to learn which other soft skills their recruiters care about, and this list will give you ideas of what to look for.

Why are soft skills important?

A 1918 study – yes, over 100 years ago – by Harvard University, the Carnegie Foundation and Stanford Research Center, found that “85% of a person’s job success is a product of interpersonal (soft) skills and that only 15% of his success is the result of technical knowledge (hard skills).”

Does that still hold up today? It certainly feels right, give or take.

What is true is that many recruiters prefer candidates having all the desired soft skills while missing some of the required hard skills rather than vice-versa. Hard skills training is a lot easier than soft skills training.

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All the Soft Skills You Need in One List

I was tempted to organize these into categories such as “Communications Skills” and “Interpersonal Relationships,” but so many soft skills overlap or are related, so this one list is just simpler and easier to refer to.

As with my list of positive personality adjectives, reading this list of soft skills examples quickly should have an uplifting effect, regardless of whether they all apply to you.

1. Accepts Feedback
2. Adaptability
3. Analytical
4. Artistic Sense
5. Assertiveness
6. Attention To Detail
7. Attentive
8. Body Language Reader
9. Business Etiquette
10. Coaching Abilities
11. Collaborating
12. Competitive
13. Conflict / Dispute Resolution
14. Conflict Management
15. Considerate
16. Cooperative
17. Courteous
18. Creative
19. Crisis Management
20. Critical Thinking
21. Cultural / Diversity Awareness
22. Deal Making
23. Deal With Difficult Situations
24. Dealing With Difficult People
25. Decisive
26. Dedicated
27. Delegation
28. Dependable
29. Design Sense
30. Desire To Learn
31. Developing Others
32. Diplomacy
33. Disability Awareness
34. Easy-going
35. Effective Communicator
36. Emotion Management / Regulation
37. Emotional Intelligence
38. Empathy
39. Energetic / Dynamic
40. Enthusiasm
41. Entrepreneurial Thinking
42. Even keeled / Keeps cool
43. Facilitation
44. Flexibility
45. Focus
46. Follow Instructions
47. Follow Rules
48. Friendly
49. Functions Well Under Pressure
50. Gives Good Feedback / Constructive Criticism
51. Growth Mindset
52. Highly Driven
53. Highly Organized
54. Honesty
55. Impulse Control
56. Independent
57. Influential
58. Innovation
59. Inspire Others
60. Integrity
61. Interpersonal Relationships
62. Interviewing Skills
63. Knowledge Management
64. Leadership
65. Listening
66. Logical Thinking
67. Make Deadlines
68. Manage Others
69. Manages Work-Life Balance Well
70. Managing Difficult Conversations
71. Meeting Management
72. Mentoring
73. Motivated
74. Motivating
75. Multitasking
76. Negotiation
77. Networking
78. Nonverbal Communication
79. Observant
80. Office Politics Navigator
81. Optimism / Positive Attitude
82. Organizational Thinking
83. Patience
84. Perceptiveness
85. Performance Management
86. Perseverance
87. Persistence
88. Personal Branding
89. Planning
90. Polite
91. Polymath
92. Possess Business Ethics
93. Powers Of Persuasion
94. Presentation
95. Problem Solving
96. Process Optimization
97. Professionalism
98. Project Management
99. Proper Business Etiquette
100. Public Speaking
101. Punctual
102. Quick Learner
103. Quick-wittedness
104. Reliable
105. Researcher
106. Resilience
107. Resourcefulness
108. Respectable
109. Respectful
110. Results Oriented
111. Safety Conscious
112. Self Assessment
113. Self Awareness
114. Self Confidence
115. Self Efficacy
116. Self Leadership
117. Self Directed
118. Self Monitoring
119. Sense Of Humor
120. Social
121. Storytelling
122. Strategic
123. Stress Management
124. Strong Work Ethic
125. Takes Criticism Well
126. Teaching Abilities
127. Team Building
128. Teamwork
129. Thinks Outside The Box
130. Time Management / Scheduling
131. Tolerance Of Change And Uncertainty
132. Training Abilities
133. Trend Awareness
134. Verbal Communication Skills
135. Virtual / Remote Team Management
136. Visual Communication Skills
137. Well Groomed
138. Winner
139. Work Well Under Pressure
140. Written Communication Skills

Is it necessary to explicitly list soft skills on a resume?

I polled over 200 recruiters on Twitter about that exact question, and included the results and my recommended best practice in 👏 How To Properly Include Soft Skills On Your Resume.

Question of the article

Did you consciously think about soft skills when you last updated your resume? Tell us in the comments.

What others are saying

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Bonus 2

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