Which skills to put on a CV (and how to prove them)
A skills section is read in three seconds. It should say plainly what you can do for the job you are targeting — and every quality you claim should be proven elsewhere in the CV.
Updated on
Two families, two treatments
A CV often mixes two things that shouldn't be presented the same way:
- Hard skills: a point-of-sale system, payroll, personal care, forklift driving, a programming language, a standard. They can be checked, and they belong in the “Skills” section.
- Soft skills: attention to detail, people skills, independence. Everyone claims them; listed on their own, they convince nobody. They are proven in your experience, not in a list.
Choose the ones that matter for this job
Start from the job offer, not from your career. Note the skills the ad mentions, then keep the ones you genuinely have. Then add two or three skills that set you apart, even if the offer doesn't ask for them.
Use the ad's wording. If the offer says “cash handling”, don't write “till management”. Applicant tracking systems compare words, and the recruiter looks for their own first.
How many should you list?
Between five and a dozen, grouped by theme if you have many (“Sales”, “Tools”, “Languages”). Fewer than five and the section looks empty; beyond fifteen or so, nothing stands out.
Order them by importance for the job: the first line is the one that gets read.
Prove soft skills rather than listing them
“Excellent people skills” says nothing. A bullet in your experience that shows it says everything:
The figures in this example are illustrative: use your own.
Keep two or three soft skills at most in the section — the ones the offer highlights — and make sure each has its proof in your experience.
State the level when it matters
- Languages: use the European scale (A1 to C2) or a clear wording (“fluent”, “basic”). “French: B2” beats “good French”.
- Software and tools: a level only helps if it is concrete. “Excel: pivot tables” says more than “Excel: advanced”.
- Licences and certifications: give the exact name and, if there is one, the expiry date.
What to leave out
- Tools everyone uses (“Internet”, “email”).
- Skills you couldn't demonstrate in an interview.
- Skill bars and ratings out of 5: they mean nothing outside your CV, and recruiting software doesn't read them.
How OpusCV helps
OpusCV flags a skills section with fewer than five entries. When you tailor your CV to a job offer, it compares the CV with the ad and lists the missing keywords: it doesn't add them by itself — you choose the ones that truly match what you can do.