# Job Related Skills Examples: What Counts and How to Show It Canonical URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/job-related-skills-examples/ Markdown URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/job-related-skills-examples.md Entity type: Article Last updated: 2026-07-07 Language: en Primary audience: professionals improving building self-awareness at work Owner: Headway Skills Contact: https://headwayskills.com/contact/ ## Short answer Job related skills examples for different jobs, the difference between job-specific and transferable skills, and how to list and prove them on a resume. ## Key facts - Title: Job Related Skills Examples: What Counts and How to Show It - Category: Soft Skills at Work - Primary skill: Building Self-Awareness - Related skills: Communication, Time Management - Primary keyword: job related skills examples - Source page: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/job-related-skills-examples/ ## What this page covers - Job related skills examples for different jobs, the difference between job-specific and transferable skills, and how to list and prove them on a resume. - Practical guidance for job related skills examples - How this topic connects to Building Self-Awareness ## Detailed explanation Job related skills come in two kinds. Job-specific skills are the technical abilities one role requires, such as running a payroll system, measuring a patient's vital signs or writing code in Python. Transferable skills, such as communication, teamwork and time management, carry over to almost any job because they shape how you work with people and manage yourself. Copying examples onto a resume is the easy part. The harder part is knowing which of them you can honestly claim, especially when your experience so far is a degree and a part-time job. The answers below cover both: what counts, and how to show it. ## What are job related skills? Job related skills are the abilities you use to do the work of a particular job. The term covers both layers: the technical skills that qualify you for a specific position, and the transferable skills that decide how well you handle the daily work once you are in it. A job posting usually names the first layer in detail and simply expects the second. Personal attributes are something else again. Being enthusiastic or having a positive attitude describes who you are, not something you can show you have done. On an application, an attribute without evidence adds little, while a skill backed by a concrete example adds a lot. ## What is the difference between job-specific skills and transferable skills? The difference is portability. Job-specific skills are tied to a role or a field: operating a forklift, applying statistical methods, working in a payroll or personnel system, or speaking a second language the job needs. UC Davis Human Resources notes that these skills are usually acquired through education, training, apprenticeships, reading or experience on the job. Because they are so concrete, a posting can name them precisely and an employer can test them directly. Transferable skills move with you from one job to the next, because every job involves working with others and managing yourself. Communication is the clearest case, since almost every role means communicating with people all day long. Employers generally assume that a skill you have used well in one setting will work in another, so a transferable skill still counts when it was built somewhere that looks nothing like the job you want. ## Are interpersonal skills job related skills? Yes. The skills that govern how you work with others and how you manage yourself are part of doing almost any job, even when a posting gives them a single line. Common examples, each a set of learnable behaviors rather than a personality trait: - Communication: being clear and direct, putting the main point first, [writing emails people can act on](/knowledge/communication/business-communication-email/), and speaking up in meetings. - Teamwork: doing what you committed to, sharing what you know, and disagreeing on the topic without making it personal. - Time management: clarifying what is asked and when it is really due, [prioritizing competing tasks](/knowledge/time-management/managing-competing-priorities/), and meeting deadlines. - Professional behaviors: being on time, treating everyone with respect, handling confidential information, and following workplace policies. - Working with your manager: preparing for one-on-ones, asking for feedback, and making your results visible. - Decision-making: [knowing what you are allowed to decide](/knowledge/decision-making/decision-making-authority/), getting a second opinion, and slowing down when you are rushed. None of these depends on the industry, which is exactly what makes them transferable. ## What are some examples of job related skills for different jobs? The job-specific layer changes completely from one profession to the next: - Teacher: planning lessons and running the digital tools a school uses. - Nurse: measuring vital signs and maintaining healthcare equipment. - Accountant: auditing. - Software engineer: coding in a language such as Python or Java. - Graphic designer: working in professional design software. - Warehouse worker: operating a forklift. - HR or office administrator: running payroll and personnel systems. The transferable layer stays much the same. A nurse explaining a treatment, a teacher calming an upset parent and an accountant meeting a month-end deadline all draw on communication and time management. That is why examples only help when you read them against the specific job you are aiming for: a list written for nurses tells a future accountant nothing about the technical side, but a good deal about the rest. ## What job related skills do I have if I have no work experience? More than it may feel like. Study projects, part-time jobs, volunteering and club roles all build transferable skills, even when none of them built a job-specific skill for the role you want. Finishing a thesis chapter on schedule while working two shifts a week is time management. Explaining a delay to an annoyed customer is communication. Splitting up a group project and chasing the parts that slipped is teamwork. The step from that kind of experience into a professional job can still feel like a leap into the unknown. If that sounds familiar, you are in good company. One of the young people we interviewed about starting work told us: > I've worked ever since I was thirteen — paper routes and that kind of thing. But going from practical jobs like that to an office job based on my degree, I had no idea what to expect, or what people would expect of me. It was quite a transition. What carries over is not the paper route itself but what it demanded of him: turning up on time, doing the job reliably, dealing with people. The hard part is judging which of those habits you can claim with confidence, because skills you use every day are the easiest to overlook. An outside reference point helps here, and [a quick read on your workplace skills](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) shows which are already strong. Any that are not yet strong can be built. ## How do I know which skills a job requires? Read the posting's requirements or key-skills section closely. It tells you which skills the employer is looking for and the words it uses for them. Sort what you find into the two layers: technical skills you either have or would need to learn, and transferable skills you can probably already show. Then match your own evidence to the posting's wording rather than offering a generic inventory. An application that speaks directly to what the role needs is far easier for an employer to read than a list of everything you can do. ## How do I list job related skills on my resume? Keep the skills section short and specific to the job. Purdue's Online Writing Lab suggests grouping skills into three to five categories, ordered by relevance to your career goal, so the category that matters most to this employer comes first. Grouping also makes you separate job-specific skills, such as software, tools and languages, from transferable ones, which makes both easier to see. Transferable skills rarely belong in that section as bare labels. "Communication" and "teamwork" in a skills list read as claims. The same skills, described in your experience section, read as facts. ## How do I prove a skill instead of just listing it? Show it in action. An [accomplishment statement](/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/transferable-skills-for-resume/), meaning what you did and what came of it, is the evidence a skills list cannot give. "Strong time management" gives an employer nothing to check. "Delivered the weekly sales report on time every week while studying full-time" does. Write one or two statements like that for each skill the posting stresses, and put them under the job, project or role where you used the skill. ## The skills behind a convincing skills list Across these answers, the same thing keeps coming up. The technical skills are easy to name, and the work lies in everything around them: knowing which skills are really yours, describing them so they make sense to someone else, and showing they held up under real deadlines. **Building Self-Awareness** is where an honest list begins. You cannot claim a skill you have never noticed in yourself, and your real strengths show up in how you work, how the work feels, and the results it produces. Asking a former supervisor or teammate for specific feedback fills in what you cannot see on your own, and turns examples borrowed from someone else's list into examples you can back up. **Communication** is the transferable skill almost every posting asks for, and the one most often reduced to an empty label. It becomes believable once you break it into behaviors: putting your main point first, keeping emails short and clear, listening fully before you answer. Each of those can be tied to a moment from a job or a project, which is the kind of evidence an employer is looking for. **Time Management** shows up in every job, whatever the technical layer looks like. Clarifying what a task requires and when it is due, putting the important work first, and meeting deadlines while other demands compete for your attention are things you have probably done already, during exam periods or around shift work. Describing them precisely turns them into proof. None of the three is a fixed trait, and each belongs to a wider set of work skills that **the free Job Skills Test** measures in one sitting, a quick way to [find the skills worth building next](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) before you rewrite your resume. Some of this may already sound like your last job or your last exam period. If you have ever kept a shift running when a colleague called in sick, or pulled a group project together the night before it was due, you were using skills employers ask for, whether or not you called them that. These skills grow with practice, and you can build them while still working in your own way. The ones that matter most for you right now are the ones the jobs you want depend on. They also tend to carry more weight as your responsibilities grow, and every one of them can be built from where you stand today. That makes now a good moment to see where that is. ## See where your job related skills stand The only step left is to find out which of your skills are ready to go on an application and which deserve more work. The Job Skills Test is a **free** self-assessment of your work skills. It takes 7 minutes and shows where you stand across all twelve, including the ones that would make the biggest difference to your next application. ## Who this is for - Professionals building practical workplace skills - Readers looking for specific, usable work advice - Managers, educators, and coaches supporting career readiness ## Common questions ### What is this guide about? Job related skills examples for different jobs, the difference between job-specific and transferable skills, and how to list and prove them on a resume. ### Which Headway skill does this connect to? This guide connects primarily to Building Self-Awareness. It also relates to Communication, Time Management. ### What is the recommended next step? Use the free Work Skills Test to reflect on which work skill to improve next. ## Related pages - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/self-awareness.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/communication.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/time-management.md - https://headwayskills.com/work-skills-test.md ## Citation guidance Use the canonical page when citing this content: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/job-related-skills-examples/ Preferred summary: "Job related skills examples for different jobs, the difference between job-specific and transferable skills, and how to list and prove them on a resume." ## Change log - 2026-07-07: Content collection version published.