Skills Section on CV: Examples & How to Write

A skills section on a CV is usually the next to last section (right before your hobbies and interests), but don’t let that position fool you. A well-written skills section can help make your CV stand out to recruiters, boosting your chances of landing an interview.

To help you make the best skills section for your CV, we have:

• an example of a skills section on a CV
• 6 tips for writing your skills section
• examples of different places to put a skills section on a CV
• answers to common questions about listing skills on a CV

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Example CV skills section

Here’s an example that shows how to write a good CV that includes an effective CV skills section:

And below is the same skills section in context on a CV. If you like how this skills section looks, you can download the entire CV outline as a Word document, or copy the text version template below into your writing program:

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6 tips for how to write your CV skills section (with examples)

Follow these 6 tips to ensure your skills section catches the eye of a busy recruiter:

1. Identify your relevant skills

Many applicants just list whatever skills come to mind in their skills section to fill out their CVs, but doing so is a mistake. Your job application is your introduction to an employer, so you should optimise every aspect of it — including your skills section — to make the best impression possible.

To optimise your CV’s skills section, you need to:

• study the job advert to determine the skills the employer wants to see on your CV
• review your professional and personal background to find the skills you have that match the employer’s needs
• list your relevant skills in your skills section

Even if you’re applying for a specific role, the preferred skills for that role will change from company to company. So rewrite your skills section for every job application you submit to show employers you want their open position in particular.

2. Properly format your CV skills section

The proper format for a CV’s skills section depends on whether you’re writing a:

• standard CV (for highlighting job-relevant work experience)
• skills based CV (for emphasising skills over work history)

Standard CV

Here’s how to lay out a standard CV skills section that stands out to employers:

Create a section header

Clearly label your skills section with a header. You can use bolding, extra-large text, and all capital letters to make your header stand out, but just make sure it matches the rest of the headers on your CV.

Common header titles include:

• Skills
• Additional Skills
• Key Skills
• Relevant Skills

Make a bulleted list of your skills

Use bullets to list your skills and make it easy for the recruiter to read them. Below is an example of a skills list with bullets, and one without bullets. Notice how the bulleted list appears more organised and is easier to read without missing anything:

Use headers within your list (optional)

If you break up your skills into categories, bold each category to make the section more organised. These examples show you how bolding headers within your skills list improves readability:

Skills based CV

A CV written to focus on skills over work experience is useful for applicants without relevant job experience — either because they recently graduated or are changing careers. This type of CV skills section includes:

• your skills listed as section headers
• bulleted descriptions under each header

Here’s an example of how to format a skills based CV’s skills section:

Communication Skills

• Lead weekly group project meetings for 3 different classes and present project updates to lecturers and classmates
• Write 5+ clear and concise research papers per semester
• Conducted 23 mock market research interviews and analysed findings for a marketing course assignment

Microsoft Office Skills

• Create class presentations using Excel and PowerPoint
• Designed 3 mock sales decks and other marketing materials using Word and PowerPoint
• Managed and tracked project timelines using Excel

3. List an appropriate amount of skills

Your skills section should have at least 2 skills listed to keep it from looking empty. There’s no limit to how many skills you can list, but use your best judgement — for example, if your traditional CV’s skills list takes up a full page, it’s unlikely that the employer will read through it all, which means it’s too long.

But if you’re writing a skills based CV, your skills section can be one page or longer because it’s structured with section headers and bullets for easy skimming.

4. Include both hard and soft skills

Your skills list should include both hard and soft skills to show employers that you’re a well-rounded applicant who can handle technical and interpersonal tasks.

Here’s an example CV skills section that includes both types of skills:

Relevant Skills

• Expert-level Adobe Photoshop and Premiere user
• Award-winning oil painter
• Detail-oriented image editor
• Fast-learning team player

5. Provide specific examples

Whenever possible, provide specific examples of the skills in your list to give the recruiter a clear picture of what you can do:

When you write a skills based CV, your skills section should feature more in-depth examples and hard numbers for context. Here’s an example skills section entry from a career changer’s skills based CV:

Analytical and Problem Solving Skills

• Analysed market trends and customer feedback to inform business strategies, leading to a 45% increase in revenue
• Developed creative solutions to complex problems, resulting in a 20% increase in efficiency
• Conducted data analysis and prepared 4 reports each quarter to support decision-making processes

6. Use consistent grammar

When you write your CV skills section, use the same grammatical structure throughout your list (this is known as parallelism). For instance, if you start one bullet with an adjective (e.g., ‘Fluent’), start every bullet with an adjective.

Examples of different places to put a skills section on a CV

Typically, the skills section is placed towards the end on a properly structured CV. However, you can move it higher if you want to emphasise your skills over other information. Also, some well-designed CV templates neatly fit the skills section onto the first page in a sidebar to increase the chances it’s seen alongside your CV’s personal statement and work experience.

Here are examples of various places to put a skills section on a CV:

Skills section on the last page

In standard UK CV formatting, the skills section goes on the last page, like this:

Download Free Example

Skills section on the first page of a CV

If you’re applying for a position that requires several specific skills, you may want to move your skills section above your relevant work experience to emphasise your technical expertise on your CV. Here’s an example of a CV skills section on the first page of a CV for web developer work:

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Skills section on the first page of a skills based CV

When you write a skills based CV, put your skills section on the first page, like so:

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Skills in a sidebar

Some CV templates are designed to fit the skills section on the first page in a sidebar next to the work experience section. Here’s an example of a creative CV template with a skills section in a sidebar:

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Common questions about how to list skills on a CV

Here are answers to 3 common questions about making a CV skill section:

1. Do I just list skills on a CV?
2. Is it OK to not put skills on a CV?
3. What skills shouldn’t I list on my CV?

1. How do I describe my skills level on my CV?

You can describe your skills level on your CV by:

• including words like ‘proficient’, ‘advanced’, and ‘intermediate’
• giving examples that prove your level of expertise
• using a visual CV template with skills bubbles or bars

Here’s an example of how to show your skills level with certain keywords (bolded below) and examples (italicised below):

Key Skills

• Proven classroom management skills, resulting in zero behavioral incidents in the past 3 years
• Advanced education technology skills, hosting monthly software/hardware workshops for other teachers
• Conversational Spanish skills, enabling clearer communication with parents

And this example CV skills section uses skills bubbles to visually represent that applicant’s proficiency: