Your resume should give employers a culmination of your education, work experience, and skills. When describing your skills, you should not only include the hard skills, but also the soft skills that makes you a great fit for a role. These skills can help make you stand out from the crowd in a sea of applicants and can show that you’ll succeed in the workplace. If you’re wondering what the best soft skills are to have on your resume, keep reading for tips!

Don’t Generalize

Be as specific as possible when listing out your soft skills. Rather than writing communication, use related words like negotiation, public speaking, or conflict resolution. For work ethic, you can use attention to detail, dependability, and integrity instead. This specificity will show that you’re qualified for the position and will boost your reputation.

Do Compare

First, you need to list out the skills that you think you possess. Then, you need to cross reference this with the type of employee the company is looking for. Oftentimes, you will find keywords like “team player” or “detail-oriented” within a job description’s requirements. The best soft skills to have on your resume will overlap in this comparison. These skills will vary from position to position, so pay attention and use your assets to your advantage!

Don’t Lie

In the interview, anything that’s on your resume is fair game for the interviewer to ask about. With any soft skill you list, make sure you can correlate it with an example or story of how you developed or used that skill. This will show the interviewer that you really do fit the position well. Although you want to supplement your resume with traits that they want to hear, you also need to be authentic in order to land a position.

Soft skills are an important part of a resume and are not considered “fluff” to hiring managers. Take this statistic for example: 67% of HR managers said they’d hire a candidate with strong soft skills even if technical skills were lacking, while only 9% would hire someone with strong technical skills but weak soft skills. Make sure you’re using the tips above to help determine the best soft skills to have on your resume!