Skills to put on a resume, from 2,088 real job postings.
What employers actually list in their requirements, counted job by job across 73 companies. Find your job, then check your resume against the posting you're applying to.
The short answer
Put the hard skills the job lists in its requirements, as long as your experience backs them up. Which skills those are depends almost entirely on the job: SQL is asked for in 71% of data analyst postings, Kubernetes is asked for in 57% of DevOps postings, Figma is asked for in 38% of product designer postings. One skill shows up in every field: communication, asked for in 52% of all 2,088 postings.
The tables below show, for each job, the share of postings that ask for a skill anywhere in their qualifications (“asked for”) and the share that make it a hard requirement (“required”). The yellow mark is the same number drawn to scale.
Software engineer skills
| Skill | Asked for | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Backend development | 41% | 37% |
| Python | 39% | 34% |
| REST APIs | 29% | 25% |
| AWS | 29% | 23% |
| Java | 27% | 25% |
| Go | 27% | 23% |
| TypeScript | 25% | 20% |
| React | 25% | 18% |
| Distributed systems | 24% | 22% |
| Software engineering | 23% | 23% |
| Kubernetes | 21% | 16% |
| Frontend development | 15% | 15% |
| SQL | 15% | 13% |
| Observability | 15% | 11% |
| Kotlin | 14% | 12% |
Soft skills asked for: communication 43%, collaboration 34%, mentoring 19%, cross-functional collaboration 15%, problem solving 8%, prioritization 4%
Sales and account executive skills
| Skill | Asked for | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Quota attainment | 37% | 33% |
| Salesforce | 26% | 20% |
| Negotiation | 23% | 23% |
| Prospecting | 17% | 14% |
| CRM | 16% | 14% |
| Closing | 14% | 14% |
| Forecasting | 14% | 13% |
| Cold calling | 13% | 11% |
| Outbound sales | 11% | 9% |
| Pipeline management | 9% | 9% |
| Business development | 9% | 8% |
| Recruiting | 8% | 7% |
| Procurement | 7% | 6% |
| Automation | 7% | 4% |
| Open source | 7% | 4% |
Soft skills asked for: communication 47%, collaboration 26%, presentation skills 20%, analytical skills 9%, cross-functional collaboration 9%, mentoring 9%
Product manager skills
| Skill | Asked for | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Product management | 70% | 67% |
| Roadmapping | 24% | 22% |
| Experimentation | 21% | 18% |
| UX design | 15% | 15% |
| Machine learning | 15% | 10% |
| REST APIs | 14% | 10% |
| Compliance | 13% | 11% |
| Prototyping | 12% | 12% |
| Product strategy | 12% | 11% |
| SQL | 10% | 8% |
| Reporting | 9% | 6% |
| Data science | 8% | 8% |
| AI agents | 8% | 7% |
| LLMs | 6% | 4% |
| Automation | 6% | 5% |
Soft skills asked for: communication 52%, cross-functional collaboration 34%, collaboration 22%, analytical skills 21%, prioritization 20%, presentation skills 9%
Marketing skills
| Skill | Asked for | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Campaign management | 37% | 35% |
| Product marketing | 34% | 31% |
| Budget management | 22% | 18% |
| Experimentation | 22% | 18% |
| CRM | 18% | 16% |
| Marketing attribution | 18% | 16% |
| Brand management | 18% | 13% |
| Optimization | 14% | 11% |
| Reporting | 14% | 12% |
| Automation | 14% | 10% |
| Paid media | 13% | 11% |
| Project management | 12% | 11% |
| Salesforce | 12% | 8% |
| SQL | 12% | 8% |
| Vendor management | 11% | 10% |
Soft skills asked for: communication 55%, cross-functional collaboration 38%, analytical skills 28%, collaboration 22%, prioritization 16%, presentation skills 11%
Customer success and support skills
| Skill | Asked for | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Customer success | 38% | 32% |
| Account management | 35% | 29% |
| REST APIs | 20% | 16% |
| CRM | 16% | 15% |
| Salesforce | 16% | 12% |
| Customer service | 12% | 10% |
| Upselling | 9% | 8% |
| Project management | 9% | 8% |
| Reporting | 8% | 8% |
| Troubleshooting | 8% | 8% |
| Onboarding | 8% | 7% |
| Automation | 8% | 6% |
| Python | 8% | 6% |
| Optimization | 8% | 8% |
| People management | 8% | 8% |
Soft skills asked for: communication 62%, collaboration 27%, time management 19%, attention to detail 18%, presentation skills 18%, cross-functional collaboration 17%
Project and program manager skills
| Skill | Asked for | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Program management | 50% | 48% |
| Project management | 23% | 22% |
| Reporting | 22% | 20% |
| Automation | 20% | 13% |
| Compliance | 18% | 12% |
| Jira | 16% | 14% |
| Vendor management | 15% | 11% |
| Machine learning | 14% | 10% |
| Roadmapping | 13% | 12% |
| AWS | 10% | 9% |
| Budget management | 10% | 8% |
| SQL | 10% | 5% |
| Dashboards | 9% | 8% |
| Change management | 9% | 6% |
| LLMs | 9% | 5% |
Soft skills asked for: communication 65%, cross-functional collaboration 38%, collaboration 24%, analytical skills 19%, presentation skills 18%, problem solving 14%
Accounting and finance skills
| Skill | Asked for | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Accounting | 47% | 40% |
| Excel | 37% | 35% |
| CPA | 33% | 14% |
| Tax | 28% | 26% |
| FP&A | 26% | 26% |
| Automation | 25% | 18% |
| NetSuite | 25% | 13% |
| Reporting | 24% | 21% |
| Financial modeling | 24% | 24% |
| SQL | 24% | 15% |
| Auditing | 20% | 18% |
| GAAP | 20% | 18% |
| Public accounting | 19% | 13% |
| Corporate finance | 15% | 14% |
| Compliance | 14% | 13% |
Soft skills asked for: communication 66%, analytical skills 27%, collaboration 26%, attention to detail 23%, cross-functional collaboration 20%, problem solving 18%
Product designer (UX/UI) skills
| Skill | Asked for | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Prototyping | 50% | 42% |
| Design portfolio | 46% | 45% |
| Product design | 40% | 39% |
| Figma | 38% | 35% |
| Systems thinking | 28% | 27% |
| Design systems | 28% | 24% |
| UX design | 27% | 26% |
| Visual design | 23% | 23% |
| Interaction design | 23% | 22% |
| Branding | 21% | 20% |
| Typography | 20% | 20% |
| UI design | 16% | 12% |
| Experimentation | 15% | 11% |
| Accessibility | 14% | 7% |
| Adobe Creative Suite | 10% | 8% |
Soft skills asked for: communication 46%, collaboration 33%, cross-functional collaboration 28%, presentation skills 15%, attention to detail 14%, mentoring 11%
Data scientist skills
| Skill | Asked for | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Python | 79% | 74% |
| SQL | 77% | 76% |
| Statistics | 75% | 75% |
| Data science | 65% | 62% |
| Machine learning | 49% | 43% |
| Experimentation | 41% | 40% |
| R | 40% | 37% |
| Causal inference | 35% | 32% |
| Data analysis | 23% | 23% |
| Forecasting | 17% | 14% |
| Roadmapping | 15% | 14% |
| dbt | 14% | 8% |
| Optimization | 13% | 12% |
| ETL | 13% | 10% |
| LLMs | 13% | 8% |
Soft skills asked for: communication 55%, analytical skills 29%, cross-functional collaboration 26%, collaboration 18%, mentoring 10%, presentation skills 8%
Operations skills
| Skill | Asked for | Required |
|---|---|---|
| SQL | 34% | 21% |
| Reporting | 25% | 23% |
| Salesforce | 21% | 17% |
| Tableau | 18% | 12% |
| Automation | 17% | 14% |
| Dashboards | 17% | 13% |
| Business intelligence | 16% | 13% |
| Forecasting | 14% | 14% |
| Excel | 13% | 13% |
| Program management | 12% | 12% |
| Looker | 12% | 8% |
| CRM | 11% | 10% |
| Compliance | 11% | 8% |
| Data analysis | 11% | 6% |
| Google Sheets | 9% | 9% |
Soft skills asked for: communication 50%, analytical skills 37%, attention to detail 32%, cross-functional collaboration 25%, problem solving 23%, collaboration 17%
Recruiting and HR skills
| Skill | Asked for | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Recruiting | 66% | 63% |
| Sourcing | 45% | 41% |
| Applicant tracking systems | 21% | 11% |
| Greenhouse | 20% | 14% |
| Technical recruiting | 14% | 14% |
| LinkedIn Recruiter | 13% | 7% |
| HR business partner | 11% | 11% |
| Gem | 10% | 6% |
| Negotiation | 8% | 8% |
| Automation | 8% | 7% |
| Customer success | 8% | 7% |
| Process improvement | 8% | 7% |
| Budget management | 8% | 4% |
| Workday | 7% | 3% |
| Full-cycle recruiting | 6% | 6% |
Soft skills asked for: communication 61%, mentoring 20%, analytical skills 18%, problem solving 17%, attention to detail 15%, collaboration 14%
DevOps and site reliability skills
| Skill | Asked for | Required |
|---|---|---|
| Kubernetes | 57% | 37% |
| AWS | 55% | 30% |
| Automation | 50% | 40% |
| Terraform | 50% | 35% |
| Observability | 50% | 33% |
| Python | 47% | 43% |
| Go | 45% | 43% |
| Infrastructure as code | 40% | 25% |
| Site reliability engineering | 38% | 30% |
| CI/CD | 38% | 22% |
| Google Cloud | 38% | 20% |
| Cloud-native | 30% | 12% |
| Troubleshooting | 28% | 28% |
| Docker | 28% | 17% |
| Distributed systems | 27% | 25% |
Soft skills asked for: communication 37%, collaboration 28%, mentoring 27%, cross-functional collaboration 15%, problem solving 10%, analytical skills 5%
Data analyst skills
| Skill | Asked for | Required |
|---|---|---|
| SQL | 71% | 63% |
| Python | 37% | 29% |
| Data analysis | 29% | 26% |
| Dashboards | 26% | 24% |
| Reporting | 26% | 24% |
| Tableau | 26% | 21% |
| Statistics | 24% | 24% |
| Business intelligence | 24% | 18% |
| Generative AI | 21% | 13% |
| Looker | 18% | 18% |
| Excel | 16% | 16% |
| Data visualization | 16% | 13% |
| Troubleshooting | 13% | 8% |
| ETL | 13% | 5% |
| Accounting | 11% | 11% |
Soft skills asked for: communication 63%, analytical skills 42%, presentation skills 29%, cross-functional collaboration 26%, collaboration 18%, problem solving 18%
Now check yours against the real posting.
A list of common skills is a starting point. The job you're applying to is what gets searched: paste it with your resume and see which of its must-haves you're missing, each with the sentence it came from. Free, no account.
How to pick the skills for your resume
Start from the posting, not from a list
Lists like the ones above tell you what is common for a job. The posting tells you what this employer will search for. Pull its requirements out with the job description keyword extractor and work from those.
Only list what you can talk about
Every skill on your resume is an interview question waiting to happen. If you used a tool once in a course, leave it off or say so in a bullet, rather than putting it next to the skills you use every week.
Use the posting's wording
Screening software matches words. If the posting says “Google Sheets” and your resume says “spreadsheets”, a keyword search for the first won't find the second. Where you genuinely have the skill, name it the way the employer does.
List hard skills, then prove them in your bullets
Put the tools and methods in a skills section, and show them at work in your experience: “built the weekly revenue dashboard in Tableau” says more than “Tableau” alone, and gives a recruiter the keyword and the evidence together.
Show soft skills instead of naming them
Communication and collaboration are asked for in almost every job above, which is exactly why the bare words don't stand out. Describe what you did: who you presented to, which teams you worked across, what changed.
How we counted
We collected 2,088 US job postings from the public job boards of 73 companies on Greenhouse and Ashby on October 28, 2026, and sorted them into jobs by title. Each posting went through the same keyword engine that runs the ATS Rater checker, which recognizes skills from a dictionary of tools, methods and certifications.
- A skill counts only when it appears in the requirements or nice-to-have section. A posting that says “you'll own the roadmap” in its duties isn't asking for roadmapping on your resume.
- A posting listed in several cities counts once, and each company counts at most 8 postings per job.
- Industry experience such as SaaS or fintech is left out: it reflects which companies are in the sample more than what to put on a resume.
- Jobs with fewer than 25 postings or 8 companies aren't shown.
The sample leans toward technology and financial companies, because those are the employers that publish their jobs on these boards. Treat the numbers as a guide to what is common in office and tech jobs, not to every industry, and always check the posting in front of you.
Questions, answered.
What skills should I put on my resume?
Put the hard skills the job lists in its requirements, as long as your experience backs them up. Which skills those are depends almost entirely on the job: SQL is asked for in 71% of data analyst postings, Kubernetes is asked for in 57% of DevOps postings, Figma is asked for in 38% of product designer postings. One skill shows up in every field: communication, asked for in 52% of all 2,088 postings.
Should I put soft skills on a resume?
Yes, but show them rather than list them. Employers do ask for them (communication appears in 52% of the postings we counted), yet the word alone in a skills section tells a recruiter little. A bullet such as "presented weekly results to the leadership team" shows communication and gives the screening software the same word in context.
How many skills should I put on a resume?
As many as are relevant to the job and true, usually a short, scannable list. A skills section of 10 to 15 skills chosen for this posting reads better than 40 generic ones, and every skill you list should be one you can talk about in an interview.
Where should skills go on a resume?
In two places: a skills section near the top for quick scanning and keyword searches, and inside your experience bullets, where you show what you did with each skill. Applicant tracking systems search the whole document, so a skill that only appears in one place still counts, but recruiters look for proof in your experience.
Where do these numbers come from?
From 2,088 US job postings published on 73 companies' public job boards (Greenhouse and Ashby), collected on October 28, 2026. A skill counts for a posting when it appears in the requirements or nice-to-have section, not in the duties or the company description. Each company counts at most 8 postings per job so no single employer sets the list.