In recent conversations with job recruiters, I've noticed an emerging theme in what they're looking for in a resume: the inclusion of so-called "soft skills." While many recruiters still think a resume should speak exclusively to more measurable "hard skills," there is an argument to be made that soft skills aren't just unnecessary filler but say enough about what you might bring to a team to warrant being included.
What are soft skills?
Soft skills are the personal abilities you have with regards to how you work, how you interact with others, and how you communicate—things like communication style, time management, flexibility, teamwork, self-discipline, goal-setting, integrity, open-mindedness, critical thinking, and anything else you can’t necessarily quantify or demonstrate with a certificate or degree.
The opposite is hard skills, or concrete, measurable, technical skills—skills you pick up from a training course or years of working with a particular type of software or tool. Knowing how to code is a hard skill; staying organized enough to consistently complete projects on time is a soft skill.
The pros and cons of including soft skills on a resume
William Vanderbloemen, author of Be the Unicorn: 12 Data-Driven Habits That Separate the Best Leaders From the Rest, has conducted more than 30,000 job interviews in the last 16 years and says that almost each of his team’s candidate searches required them “to find people with really good soft skills” or “human skills.”
“What we’re seeing now is those skills are everything, particularly as AI starts to take over some of the tasks that would have been done with a human brain,” he says. As those kinds of job duties go away—for humans, at least—”the ability to have those soft skills is going to determine who’s really going to come out on top over the next 10 years.”
It is, he says, “the whole ballgame,” because as automated chatbots and number-crunching algorithms gain more traction, “there’s going to be a pretty deep craving from humans to talk to other humans and the people who are really good at it are going to come out on top.”
While Vanderbloemen and others, like LinkedIn Career Expert Andrew McCaskill, say that human skills or "transferable people skills" are elemental on a modern resume, there still can be cons to adding soft skills to yours that you should consider. For one, they can be seen as unnecessary, especially when they're too obvious. Recruiters and employers might assume you are a good communicator or participant on a team—or at least consider yourself to be—especially if your past work experience points to prior successful collaboration.
Listed soft skills, therefore, should be specific and relevant to the position you're applying for, rather than acting as a substitute for hard skills that are more so relevant or concrete to highlight. If they're too obvious or common and they're not specific or relevant, consider leaving them off in favor of something more demonstrable and directly related to the job.
The best ways to highlight soft skills on a resume
Adding soft skills to your resume doesn’t have to be arduous. Don’t chunk out a whole section titled “Soft Skills.” Rather, in your existing “Skills” section, include a few bullet points highlighting your best ones and the ones that align with the job posting. Take care to select skills that you can back up with a succinct anecdote if asked in an interview. Or, you can skip a skills section altogether and pepper the soft skills into the bullet points in your work experience. "Led a team of 10 during a record-breaking quarter," "Worked directly with customers by phone and email to resolve problems with a 98% success rate," and, "Communicated directly with clients to establish deadlines and protocols" all demonstrate soft skills while also highlighting technical skills and focusing on past actions and results.
Vanderbloemen even goes as far as to say that if you have a little space, you should mention a hobby on your resume—within reason. He gave an example: If you hit an 800-day streak on Duolingo or fundraised successfully to take an educational trip, it reveals you’re dedicated and intellectually curious. He says he’s always interested in knowing if a candidate is “a learner," so if you have room to mention a volunteer opportunity, a side project, or a continuing education course you recently took, go for it.
The goal is to highlight your work experience, education, and technical abilities, but make yourself stand out as a valuable addition to company culture—not just a number.
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