Good CV skills examples show both what you can do and where you have used it. A short skills section can name relevant tools or tasks; experience, project or volunteering bullets should demonstrate your most important claims. Choose examples that fit the vacancy and replace the fictional details below with your own.
This page focuses on writing a usable skills section and supporting evidence. If you are still deciding which skills belong on your application, start with how to choose skills for a resume. For a full first application, use our first-job CV examples.
Four example skills sections
These are original fictional examples, not a list of abilities every applicant should claim. Keep only the tools and tasks you could explain in an interview.
Administrative assistant
Skills: Excel filters and basic formulas; appointment scheduling; document formatting; accurate record keeping; customer email enquiries.
Supporting evidence:
Updated the appointment spreadsheet each morning, compared changes with booking emails and flagged duplicate entries before the team handover.
This distinguishes practical spreadsheet use from an unsupported claim of “advanced Excel”. If you have never used a particular formula, leave it out.
Retail or customer service
Skills: Customer enquiries; stock checks; order preparation; till operation; clear shift handovers.
Supporting evidence:
Checked shelf labels against delivery records and reported mismatches to the supervisor before putting new stock out.
Till operation belongs here only if you have used one. A first-job applicant can instead describe answering visitors’ questions at a school or community event.
Junior technical role
Skills: Python scripts; SQL queries; Git version control; writing test cases; documenting troubleshooting steps.
Supporting evidence:
Built a course-project script to check CSV files for missing values, wrote tests for the validation rules and documented how classmates could run it.
Identify the context as coursework if it was coursework. Do not describe a personal project as commercial production experience.
First job or apprenticeship
Skills: Group presentations; organising shared tasks; spreadsheet data entry; following written instructions; explaining information clearly.
Supporting evidence:
Coordinated the task list for a group presentation, checked which sections were unfinished and arranged a rehearsal before the deadline.
You do not need to invent a paid role to show useful skills. The National Careers Service’s skills advice explains that transferable skills develop through school, life and work. The examples here show ways to describe that evidence in a CV.
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Ten skills, with evidence you can adapt
| Skill | Weak label | Fictional evidence example |
|---|---|---|
| Communication | Excellent communicator | Explained collection times to event visitors and answered questions using the organiser’s information sheet |
| Teamwork | Great team player | Shared the research tasks with three classmates and checked the final presentation for gaps |
| Organisation | Highly organised | Maintained a weekly task list and prepared the documents needed for each appointment |
| Attention to detail | Detail-oriented | Compared order references against the dispatch sheet and corrected mismatches before packing |
| Problem solving | Natural problem solver | Reproduced a spreadsheet error, checked the source formula and documented the correction |
| Customer service | Customer-focused | Listened to an enquiry, checked the available options and referred exceptions to the supervisor |
| Prioritisation | Works well under pressure | Agreed the urgent tasks with the team lead and updated colleagues when a deadline changed |
| Leadership | Born leader | Allocated event setup tasks, checked progress and helped volunteers complete unfinished work |
| Digital skills | IT expert | Used spreadsheet filters to find incomplete records and wrote a short guide for colleagues |
| Learning | Fast learner | Practised the new booking workflow with a supervisor and used feedback to correct missed steps |
These examples demonstrate actions. They are not verified customer achievements. Use a number only when you know what it measures and can explain where it came from. A clear responsibility or observable result is better than an invented percentage.
Turn your own experience into a CV bullet
Start with four notes:
- Requirement: What does the advert ask you to do?
- Situation: Where have you done something relevant?
- Action: What did you personally do?
- Evidence: What output, change or result can you support?
For example:
Requirement: Maintain accurate records
Situation: Volunteer event registration
Action: Checked names against the booking list and noted amendments
Evidence: Gave the organiser an updated attendance list after the event
CV bullet:
Checked attendee names against the booking list, recorded amendments
and supplied the organiser with an updated attendance list.
If you cannot fill in the situation and action, reconsider the skill rather than finding a more impressive adjective. For help with personal qualities, see how to describe yourself on a resume.
For more layout options, compare the six resume skills section formats. To distinguish technical abilities from behaviours, see hard and soft skills with evidence.
Where skills belong on your CV
Use a short dedicated section for specific tools, languages or task capabilities that matter to the role. Put fuller examples under the relevant job, project, course or volunteering activity. Your profile can summarise a strength, but it should not repeat the entire list.
For example, “Excel filters and formulas” identifies a capability in the skills section. A bullet about maintaining a booking report explains how you used it. Those two statements complement each other.
For a full document layout, adapt the copyable Google Docs CV template. If you already have a draft, compare your CV with the job description and review whether each suggested skill is actually supported.
Common questions
How many skills should I include?
Use enough to cover the role’s relevant requirements without filling space with unrelated claims. There is no universal number. A short, specific section with supporting examples is easier to assess than a long list of generic adjectives.
Should I use skill bars or percentages?
Prefer descriptions of what you can do. “Excel: filters, lookups and pivot tables” communicates more than “Excel: 80%”, provided those are skills you actually use. A percentage with no defined scale is difficult to interpret.
What if I have no professional experience?
Use relevant evidence from study, projects, volunteering or other responsibilities. Name the context accurately. You can describe teamwork or organisation without pretending the activity was paid employment.