Technical Skills Examples for a Resume: Lists by Field and Role

Technical skills are the job-specific tools, languages, systems and methods a role uses every day. For an accountant that means Excel formulas and QuickBooks. For a nurse it means Epic charting and infusion pumps. They differ from soft skills in one practical way: an employer can verify them, so an employer will try, first with an applicant tracking system (ATS) keyword filter and then with a recruiter's skim.

Most pages ranking for this topic hand you a definition and a flat list. The list is below, and it's quotable. What follows is the part those pages skip: for every field, each skill comes with a resume bullet that proves it, because a skill named in a skills section gets you past the keyword filter and a skill proven in a bullet gets you the interview.

A technical skill is anything you had to learn deliberately and can demonstrate on request. It usually has a name an employer can search for, like a programming language or a certified procedure. That searchability is what separates it from a soft skill like communication, and it's why the two belong in different places on a resume. The split matters enough that we cover it separately in hard skills vs. soft skills.

Every job has technical skills, including the ones nobody calls technical. A teacher's are the learning management system and the state assessment platform. A manager's are the forecasting spreadsheet and the HRIS. If a posting names a tool, that tool is a technical skill for that job, whatever the job title says.

Every technical skill on your resume sits in one of three states: proven in an experience bullet, named only in the skills section, or missing while the posting asks for it. The keyword filter treats the first two the same. A recruiter does not. When a skills section says "AWS" and no bullet shows AWS doing anything, an experienced screener reads it as aspiration, and in an interview that gap gets found within two questions.

Postings tell you in advance which skills they will verify. The wording is predictable:

• "Proficiency in Python" or "hands-on experience with AWS" in software and IT postings
• "Strong analytical skills with SQL" in data postings
• "CAD proficiency" or "controls experience" in engineering postings
• "Competency in medication administration" in clinical postings

These phrases mark the terms the ATS was configured to match and the hiring manager plans to probe. Pull them out before you touch your resume; the method is in how to pull resume keywords from a job description.

The proof standard in this field is concrete: a feature you shipped or a migration you completed. Demand keeps tilting toward cloud and security work, with AI experience increasingly requested on top, so if you have any of that, it belongs high on the page and inside a bullet, never only in the skills list.

• Python. "Automated log triage with a Python service, cutting mean time to resolution from 45 minutes to 12 for a six-person on-call rotation."
• Java. "Shipped a payment-reconciliation module in Java and Spring Boot that processes 40,000 transactions a day; zero reconciliation errors in its first quarter."
• JavaScript. "Rebuilt the checkout flow in React and TypeScript, lifting mobile conversion 14% in the first month after release."
• SQL. "Wrote the SQL behind the finance team's revenue dashboard, retiring a three-hour weekly manual export."
• Git. "Moved a nine-developer team onto a trunk-based Git workflow with required reviews, ending a weekly merge-conflict firefight."
• AWS or Azure. "Migrated 14 services from on-prem VMs to AWS ECS, cutting hosting spend 23% and reducing deploy time from hours to minutes."
• Linux. "Administered 60 Ubuntu servers and wrote Bash maintenance scripts that eliminated a weekly manual patching cycle."
• Ticketing systems. "Resolved 25 to 30 tickets a day in ServiceNow with a 96% first-contact resolution rate over two years."

What to skip: every language you have ever touched. Three you can defend under questioning beat ten you can't, and a senior interviewer will pick the weakest one on your list on purpose.

Data postings blend tools with judgment, and "strong analytical skills with SQL" is the classic phrasing. The proof standard here is adoption. A dashboard nobody opens proves you can use Tableau; a dashboard 30 account managers check every Monday proves you can do the job.

• SQL. "Wrote a scheduled SQL query that replaced the finance team's manual Monday report, saving roughly six hours a week."
• Excel. "Built an Excel model with pivot tables and XLOOKUP that reconciled three data sources and cut month-end close by two days."
• Tableau or Power BI. "Designed a Power BI churn dashboard now used by 30 account managers in their weekly pipeline reviews."
• Python with pandas. "Cleaned and merged two million rows of order data in pandas to surface a pricing error worth $180K a year."
• Statistics and A/B testing. "Ran an A/B test on the signup flow that lifted activation 9%; the winning variant shipped to all users."

What to skip: "Microsoft Office" as a line item. If you claim advanced Excel with a pivot-table bullet, listing Office next to it reads like padding.

Engineering postings ask for "CAD proficiency" or "controls experience", and the proof standard is released work. A drawing package that survived checking or a line that hit rated speed on schedule says more than any tool list, because it shows your output entered the real workflow and held up.

• AutoCAD. "Produced a 60-sheet AutoCAD drawing package for a tenant-improvement project that passed plan review on first submission."
• SolidWorks. "Modeled a 200-part conveyor assembly in SolidWorks and released it through PDM with zero drawing errors at first article inspection."
• MATLAB. "Built a MATLAB vibration-analysis script that flagged a resonance issue two design cycles earlier than physical testing would have."
• PLC programming. "Programmed Allen-Bradley PLCs during a packaging line commissioning, reaching rated speed three days ahead of schedule."
• GD&T. "Applied GD&T per ASME Y14.5 to a machined housing, resolving a tolerance stack-up that had driven a 12% scrap rate."
• Finite element analysis. "Ran FEA in ANSYS on a bracket redesign, cutting weight 18% while holding the required safety factor."

What to skip: software versions. "SolidWorks 2019" dates you; "SolidWorks with PDM release experience" describes a capability.

Clinical postings say "competency in" a procedure, and the proof standard is volume plus audits, with credentials current. Name the electronic health record (EHR) system exactly: to a nurse manager, Epic experience and Cerner experience are different claims, and recruiters search for each by name. Field-specific lists live in the nursing skills guide.

• EHR systems (Epic, Cerner). "Charted for six to eight patients per shift in Epic, completing documentation within the unit's two-hour standard."
• Vital signs. "Took and recorded vitals for 40+ patients daily on a 32-bed med-surg unit, escalating abnormal readings per protocol."
• Phlebotomy. "Performed 25 to 30 venipunctures per shift with a first-stick success rate above the lab's benchmark."
• Medication administration. "Administered medications to 20+ residents per shift with zero errors across two consecutive annual audits."
• Infection control. "Maintained 100% compliance on hand-hygiene and PPE audits for eight straight quarters."

What to skip: nothing that carries an expiration date, and nothing expired. A lapsed BLS card listed as current is the kind of detail that ends a candidacy at the reference-check stage.

Both groups follow the same rule: name the tool and the result it produced. A trades resume that says "HVAC experience" loses to one that says "92% first-visit fix rate", and an admin resume that says "Excel" loses to one that names the process the spreadsheet shortened.

• Blueprint reading. "Read structural and MEP drawings to lay out ductwork on a 40,000 sq ft commercial build, catching a clash before rough-in."
• HVAC diagnostics. "Diagnosed and repaired eight to ten residential HVAC calls a day with a 92% first-visit fix rate."
• Welding processes. "MIG- and TIG-welded stainless assemblies to AWS D1.6, passing 100% of X-ray inspections over 14 months."
• Forklift operation. "Operated sit-down and reach forklifts across three shifts with zero safety incidents in four years; certification current."

• Excel pivot tables and lookups. "Automated commission calculations with pivot tables and XLOOKUP, cutting a two-day monthly process to three hours."
• QuickBooks. "Managed AP and AR for 120 vendor accounts in QuickBooks Online, closing the books by the 5th every month."
• Salesforce. "Maintained a 1,400-account Salesforce pipeline with 98% data-completeness scores in quarterly audits."
• Microsoft 365. "Built SharePoint intake forms and Power Automate flows that cut supply-request turnaround from days to hours."

What to skip: "typing speed" unless the posting asks for it, and any tool the office retired a decade ago. Recency reads as relevance here.

Without a work history, the proof comes from coursework, labs, club projects and part-time jobs, and the rule stays the same: name the tool and what it produced. A hiring manager reading an entry-level resume expects projects in place of employers and treats a GitHub link or a capstone writeup as the equivalent of a reference.

• "Built a budgeting app in React for a four-person capstone team; 300+ downloads, full code on GitHub."
• "Analyzed a public transit dataset in Python and pandas for a statistics course; presented findings to 60 classmates and the department head."
• "Ran PCR and gel electrophoresis across a two-semester genetics lab sequence with documented protocol compliance."
• "Processed 200+ transactions per shift on a Square POS at a campus cafe while managing closing inventory counts."

Full-page models for this stage are in our student resume examples, from high school through final year.

Name a certification when a recruiter will recognize it without googling. In IT support that means CompTIA A+, Network+ and Security+. In cloud work it means an AWS certificate, and in service management, ITIL. These are literal search terms recruiters type into their ATS, so spell them exactly as the issuer does.

Outside those fields, requirements vary by employer and by state, so the posting decides. If a listing names EPA 608 or an OSHA card, mirror that exact wording; if it names nothing, a long certificate list crowds out the experience that would have won the interview. Placement guidance is in where to put certifications on a resume.

The lists above are raw material. Against a live posting, the whole exercise takes about twenty minutes:

Sorting your skills against a posting by hand is the slow part, and it's the step Roleframe automates without taking the writing away from you. Duplicate your resume for the job and the fit report reads the posting, scores your resume against it, and shows which of its keywords you already cover and which are gaps, alongside an ATS score and a prioritized plan. Remi, your career copilot, then helps you rewrite the thin bullets one at a time, and you approve every change before it lands. The full workflow is in how to check your resume against a job description.