101+ Top Hard Skills Examples +List & Definition for Your CV

Hard skills are the knowledge, tools, and abilities that you gain in order to perform specific tasks. They may pertain to use of a technical tool, but also to sophisticated but repetitive areas of expertise. You can learn them with targeted training and education, and they’re often specific to your job.

In this guide, you will find comprehensive examples of hard skills in the workplace and expert guidance on how to weave them into your CV for maximum effect.

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Hard skills on a CV example

Top 10 hard skills examples

The UK has a critical hard skills gap. Good for you, because we’re going to help you present yours prominently. Are you in the digital sector? Even better! 72% of large companies are suffering hard skills gaps. Closing the gap gives you a critical advantage.

1. Productivity software hard skills

Pretty much every company in the world has to use some kind of communication and productivity software to manage their work in the information era. Familiarity with a range of them ensures your smooth transition.

• Access
• Asana
• Basecamp
• Calendly
• ClickUp
• CRM (Salesforce, etc.)
• Excel
• Enterprise systems (SAP, Oracle, etc.)
• Google Workspace
• Microsoft Teams
• OneNote / Evernote
• Salesforce
• Slack
• Todoist
• Toggl
• Trello
• Zapier
• Zoom

2. Hard skills for management

Natural progression in most companies is about gathering more people and work under yourself. To do that effectively, you need a range of hard management skills:

• Agile methodology and software
• Budget planning
• Communication
• Delegation
• JIRA
• Kanban
• Mentoring & training
• Monday.com
• Physical organization
• Planning
• PowerPoint, Keynote
• Prioritisation
• Prioritizing
• Process management
• Procurement
• Product lifecycle management
• Product roadmaps
• Project life cycle management
• Project planning
• QA testing
• Requirements gathering
• Risk management
• Scheduling
• Scrum management
• Scrum methodology
• Task management
• Teamwork
• Time management
• Trello

3. Content creation

No brand can exist today without a solid content plan. If this is your area of expertise, make sure to list the hard skills relevant to your new job. You can use a skills-based CV if your work was mostly freelance.

• Academic writing
• Blackmagic Resolve
• Blog writing
• Content writing
• Corel Draw
• Creative writing
• Editing
• Free Hand
• Ghostwriting
• Illustrator
• InDesign
• Journalism
• Photoshop
• Proofreading
• Prototyping
• Report writing
• Responsive design
• Sketch
• Social media writing
• Hard writing
• UX research
• UX design
• Video creation
• Wireframing

4. Social media hard skills

Once you have the content, it needs to go somewhere. Mastery of social media and content delivery platforms is invaluable in building brand presence. Don’t just write ‘Instagram’ under your skills heading—explain your successful activities and their outcomes.

• A/B testing
• Automation
• Email marketing
• Facebook
• Google Analytics
• Hootsuite
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Marketing analytics tools
• Twitter
• User modelling

5. Marketing hard skills

There is more to the internet than social media. Really. Effective use of tools that can reach an unlimited number of customers is worth its weight in gold. Prioritise those that your new employer uses.

• A/B Testing
• Automation
• CMS tool knowledge
• Content marketing
• Copywriting
• CRM tool knowledge
• CRO
• Data visualisation
• Email marketing (Mailchimp, etc)
• PPC ads
• Salesforce Pardot
• SEM
• SEO
• Social media
• Video
• WordPress
• Yoast

6. Sales skills

At first glance they may seem awfully like a soft ‘people’ skill, good salesmen have a range of transferable skills that are technical and repetitive in nature—and therefore examples of hard skills.

• Answering hard questions
• Closing sales
• CRM software
• Customer need analysis
• General marketing skills
• Identifying new opportunities
• Lead qualification
• Objection handling
• Presentation
• Product demo
• Product knowledge
• Prospecting
• Providing hard advice
• Relationship building
• Social media
• Understanding of prospect roles and influence

7. Language skills

Of course, languages are perfect examples of hard skills. In today’s interconnected world they are still highly sought after, and definitely should make the list of top 10 hard skills. They command their own section at the bottom—more about that later. 

8. List of hard skills for IT

As broad as IT might be, most of the time, all of these skills are in demand. According to LinkedIn, 4 out of the top 5 most in-demand hard skills are IT skills. 

• Algorithms
• Applications
• Artificial intelligence
• Blockchain
• Cloud computing
• Coding
• Configuration
• Cybersecurity
• Debugging
• Design
• Documentation
• Implementation
• Internet of things (IoT)
• IOS/Android
• Machine learning
• Mobile development
• Modelling
• Networking and wireless
• Security
• Testing
• UI/UX design
• Virtual reality

9. Programming

Coding is practically a world of only hard skills. Here are the most popular programming languages that could adorn your CV based on your employer’s requirements.

• AJAX
• ASP.NET
• C/C++
• C#
• CSS
• Go
• HTML
• Java
• JavaScript
• Objective-C
• Perl
• PHP
• Python
• R
• Ruby
• SQL
• Swift
• XML

Fastest growing hard tech skills 

JavaScript, Python and HTML are currently the most in-demand programming skills. And according to CompTIA, these are the five most in-demand hard tech skills.

• Machine learning
• Artificial intelligence
• Cloud computing
• Data science
• Cybersecurity

For more guidance, read our guide on IT skills. 

10. Analytical skills and data science

Everything is data. Almost every decision, every movement is recorded somewhere. Someone has to make sense of it all. If you do, you will be handsomely rewarded.

Skills:

• Business analysis
• Creativity
• Critical thinking
• Data entry
• Data processing
• Database management
• Deductive reasoning
• Forecasting
• Mathematical skills
• Problem-solving skills
• Reporting
• Research
• Unstructured data analysis

Software:

• Apache Spark
• Datapine
• Erwin Data Modeller
• Excel
• Highcharts
• Python
• Qualtrics
• R-Studio
• Rapidminer
• SAS Forecasting
• SQL
• Talend

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Showing examples of hard skills on your CV

Your CV structure may differ slightly based on experience, industry and needs (consult our industry-specific guides), but the answer to the question: ‘How to start a CV?’ is very simple and applies to everyone.

1. Start with your CV profile

Every perfect CV starts with a CV personal statement, alternatively called a CV summary. While it may be insulting to our ego to have to sum ourselves up in 6 lines, we better start plugging in examples of hard skills right there. Some recruiters won’t go further if you don’t catch their attention. 

Examples of hard skills in the CV summary

2. Write a hard-hitting work experience section

Your work experience section ought not to be a boring laundry list of the menial responsibilities you signed up for at the start. Leave that to your competition. Your work experience section should be like your exes’ Instagram posts—only the best highlights. 

Here are some CV tips:

• Run through the job posting and make a list of all the hard skills they require.
• Try to write a bullet point about how you achieved something with each one.
• Quantify your achievements with numbers where possible.
• You may not fill all of them, some will go to the bin, others will morph into one—and that’s the way it should be.
• Tailor each CV to each position.
• Start each point with a CV action verb to add impact.
• Use 5-7 bullet points for your most recent job, and 3 or less for previous ones.

Job description with hard skills examples

3. Make use of your education section

If you have a bunch of experience already, just put down your degree on your CV, and move on. That's your CV education section done.

With a student CV, you have to get more out of this section. List all relevant courses, any extracurricular activities, and tools you became familiar with during your education. That can help compensate for your lack of experience. 

Hard skills for resume in the education section

4. How to approach your skills section

Limiting your CV skills section to a small section on the side may be a bad choice (because everyone’s doing it). We do better: 

• A list of 5 random skills is skimmed, not memorable, and irrelevant to the recruiter’s decision-making.
• 2-3 key hard skills with some elaboration are far more memorable and therefore impactful.
• If you’re in an extremely technical field, and you know multiple programming languages, you can disregard the above. If you’re in that territory, you ought to consider a skills-based CV.
• Scan the job posting to figure out what’s important. Tailor accordingly.

Hard skills in the skills section

5. Include additional sections

Before you mention your love of yoga in the CV hobbies and interests section—list languages, certificates, and awards clearly under their own headings. They are all extremely useful hard skills to mention. 

Extra sections

What else to remember?

You are in luck with hard skills, in that you can just jump on a tutorial, course, or practice yourself, and you are bound to learn something. If you’re looking for free resources, National Careers Service has a Skills Toolkit that will help you improve.

Do not forget: write a cover letter. There you can explain more about how exactly this long list of hard skills makes you an invaluable employee. Good luck at the interview!

You don’t have to be a CV writing expert. In the LiveCareer CV builder you’ll find ready-made content for every industry and position, which you can then add with a single click.

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If you need more help demonstrating examples of hard skills in your CV, or you just want a longer list of hard skills examples, let us know in the comments section. We’re more than happy to help.