20 Hard Skills to Put on a Resume by Industry

Pick by the job ad, not by the list. Read the posting twice: once for the tools and procedures it names, once for the tasks it repeats. Those named tools are your keywords, and they belong on the resume in the same words the ad uses — "Power BI", not "data visualisation software".

Then split what you have into two places:

• Skills section: 8–14 hard skills, grouped in 2–4 short lines by type (tools, languages, certifications). No rating bars, no percentages.
• Experience bullets: the 4–6 skills the job is really about, each shown inside a bullet with a task and a number attached.

Anything you can't back up in an interview stays off. If a skill is central to the ad and you have it only in a course or a side project, put it under a projects or training block instead of claiming it as work experience.

1. SQL

Employers mean you can pull and shape data yourself without asking an engineer — joins across several tables, grouping, filtering, and ideally window functions and CTEs.

Data analyst bullet

Wrote and maintained 40+ SQL queries across a 12-table warehouse to produce a weekly churn report used by 3 regional managers.

2. Excel modelling

Not "knows Excel". They mean pivot tables, lookup functions, clean formula structure, and often Power Query to pull and refresh source data automatically.

Operations analyst bullet

Rebuilt a 14-tab budget workbook using Power Query, cutting month-end preparation from 6 hours to 90 minutes.

3. Python for data analysis

Enough Python to load, clean and join data with pandas, then repeat the job on a schedule — not software engineering.

Analyst bullet

Automated a monthly reconciliation in Python (pandas), processing 180,000 transaction rows in under 4 minutes and removing 2 days of manual checking.

4. Dashboard building in Power BI or Tableau

The hard part is the data model and the measures; the soft part is choosing what a manager actually needs to see.

BI analyst bullet

Built 6 Power BI dashboards on nightly-refreshed datasets, retiring 22 manual spreadsheet reports for a 45-person sales team.

5. Financial modelling and forecasting

Three-statement or driver-based models, scenario toggles, and assumptions someone else can follow six months later.

FP&A analyst bullet

Built a driver-based 5-year forecast with 3 scenarios for a 40-store retail chain, presented monthly to the finance director.

6. Bookkeeping and month-end close

Double-entry basics, bank and ledger reconciliation, accounts payable and receivable, and a named system you've closed a period in.

Bookkeeper bullet

Closed the books in QuickBooks Online for 3 legal entities each month and cleared a 200-line reconciliation backlog within 6 weeks.

7. Payroll and HRIS administration

Running cycles accurately in a named system, handling starters, leavers and deductions, and keeping records that survive an audit.

Payroll administrator bullet

Processed semi-monthly payroll for 260 employees across 4 states in ADP, with no off-cycle corrections in 9 months.

8. Recruiting operations and ATS use

Moving requisitions through a system, scheduling at volume, keeping candidate records clean and reporting on pipeline stages. If you are building towards HR certification, note that SHRM says the SHRM-CP requires no degree or specific HR experience, while the SHRM-SCP expects at least 3 years of strategic-level HR work — and at least 1,000 hours a year of strategic work to demonstrate it (SHRM, undated).

Talent coordinator bullet

Managed 30 open requisitions in Greenhouse, screened 480 applicants and coordinated 210 interviews across 2 quarters.

9. AWS cloud architecture

Designing and running workloads on named services with attention to cost, availability and access control. AWS says the target candidate for the Certified Solutions Architect – Associate exam has at least 1 year of hands-on experience designing AWS solutions, and 2 or more years before attempting the Professional level (AWS, undated).

Cloud engineer bullet

Migrated 14 on-premises services to AWS (EC2, S3, RDS) with multi-AZ failover, holding unplanned downtime under 30 minutes per quarter.

10. Hardware and OS troubleshooting

Diagnosing and fixing devices, operating systems, printers and accounts at ticket volume. CompTIA A+ is the usual entry credential; CompTIA says it takes two 90-minute exams covering nine domains, with no more than 90 questions each (CompTIA, 2024).

IT support technician bullet

Resolved 55–70 tier-1 tickets a week across Windows 11 and macOS and imaged 120 laptops for a company-wide refresh.

11. Food safety and HACCP compliance

Temperature control, allergen handling, cleaning schedules and written records that pass an unannounced inspection. Name the certificate you hold and the scheme it sits under in your country.

Kitchen manager bullet

Ran daily HACCP checks across 6 critical control points for a 180-cover kitchen and passed 2 unannounced inspections with no critical violations.

12. Security monitoring and vulnerability management

Triaging alerts in a SIEM, running and interpreting scans, and closing findings to a deadline rather than just listing them.

SOC analyst bullet

Triaged SIEM alerts across a 900-endpoint estate and remediated 120 critical Nessus findings inside a 30-day SLA.

13. Project scheduling and delivery

Building a schedule with dependencies, tracking against it, and reporting slippage early. For the PMP, eligibility with a bachelor's degree is 36 months of leading projects in the past 8 years plus 35 hours of project management education; with a high school diploma or associate's degree it is 60 months plus the same 35 hours (University of Texas at Tyler, undated).

Project coordinator bullet

Ran a 9-month, 12-person rollout across 5 sites in Jira and Smartsheet, delivering 4 of 5 milestones on the baseline date.

14. Technical documentation

Writing procedures, release notes and help articles that a stranger can follow, in a real authoring tool with version control.

Technical writer bullet

Rewrote 60 help-centre articles in Confluence and cut repeat "how do I" tickets on those topics by a quarter over 3 months.

15. SEO and web analytics

Technical fixes, keyword and intent research, and reading GA4 or Search Console well enough to say what changed and why.

SEO specialist bullet

Fixed 340 crawl errors flagged in Search Console and grew organic entrances to 25 priority pages by 42% in 6 months.

16. Paid media buying

Structuring accounts, writing and testing creative, and managing spend against a cost-per-result target in a named platform.

Performance marketer bullet

Managed 18 Google Ads campaigns against a fixed monthly budget cap and lowered cost per qualified lead by 27% over 2 quarters.

17. CRM administration

Keeping records, pipeline stages, fields and reports in order — and knowing what you can configure without breaking reporting.

Sales operations bullet

Rebuilt 7 Salesforce pipeline reports and merged 9,000 duplicate records, lifting contact data completeness to 96%.

18. CAD and drafting

Producing drawings or models to standards and tolerances, and coordinating them with other disciplines.

Architectural technician bullet

Produced 45 Revit sheets for a 3-storey office fit-out and resolved 60 clashes against 4 consultant models before tender.

19. EHR charting and clinical documentation

Accurate, timely records in a named system alongside the clinical tasks themselves, plus current licence and life-support certification.

Registered nurse bullet

Charted care for 18–22 patients per shift in Epic, completing all medication administration records before handover.

20. CNC machining and blueprint reading

Setting up and running machines to a drawing, interpreting GD&T symbols, and holding tolerance and scrap targets.

Machinist bullet

Set up and ran 3 Haas CNC mills to drawings toleranced at ±0.001 in, holding scrap below 2% across 12,000 parts.

1. Mine the ad for keywords. Copy the posting into a blank document and underline every tool, system, certification and procedure. Sort them into: have and can prove, have but rusty, don't have. The first group is your shortlist for this application.
2. Build the skills section. Put it near the top for technical, clinical, trade and tools-heavy roles; below experience for management and client-facing roles. Keep it to 8–14 hard skills in 2–4 lines, grouped by type. Use the employer's spelling of each tool. Leave out software everyone has, and drop rating bars — they say nothing.
3. Prove the top 4–6 inside experience bullets. A skill named in a skills list is a claim; the same skill inside a bullet with a task and a number is evidence. Weak: "responsible for reporting in Power BI." Strong: "Built 6 Power BI dashboards on nightly-refreshed data, retiring 22 manual reports."
4. Put two or three in the summary. Three or four lines at the top, naming your job title, years in the work, and the two or three skills the ad leads with. If the ad opens with SQL and forecasting, so should you.
5. List certifications and licences with dates and status. Give the full name, the issuing body, and the year gained or renewed. "In progress" and an exam date is fine and honest; an expired licence presented as current is not.
6. Retailor for each application. Keep one master file with every skill and bullet you own, then cut it down per job: reorder the skills lines, swap 3–5 bullets, adjust the summary. Keep the finished resume to 1 page under 10 years' experience, 2 pages above, at 10–11 pt body text with 0.75–1 inch margins, and save as PDF unless the employer asks for a Word file.