# Job Skills List: The Four Kinds of Skill and How to Back Each One Canonical URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/job-skills-list/ Markdown URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/job-skills-list.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 A job skills list should mix hard, soft, transferable and basic skills, matched to one job and backed by examples. See what employers want and how to build yours. ## Key facts - Title: Job Skills List: The Four Kinds of Skill and How to Back Each One - Category: Soft Skills at Work - Primary skill: Building Self-Awareness - Related skills: Communication, Teamwork - Primary keyword: job skills list - Source page: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/job-skills-list/ ## What this page covers - A job skills list should mix hard, soft, transferable and basic skills, matched to one job and backed by examples. See what employers want and how to build yours. - Practical guidance for job skills list - How this topic connects to Building Self-Awareness ## Detailed explanation A job skills list combines hard skills, the technical abilities a job's tasks and tools demand, with soft skills such as communication, teamwork and time management that show how you work with others and manage yourself. The strongest lists are short, matched to one specific job, and backed by a concrete example for every skill. Writing the words down is the easy part. The harder part is knowing [which skills are honestly yours](/knowledge/self-awareness/list-of-strengths/), and making "communication" mean something when the next applicant has typed exactly the same word. Both get easier once you see that a list like this draws on four different kinds of skill, and that each kind is proved in its own way. ## The four kinds of skill on a job skills list Almost anything you could put on the list belongs to one of four kinds: hard skills, soft skills, transferable skills and basic skills. The kinds overlap at the edges, and occupational systems slice them more finely still: O\*NET, the US occupational information system, works with 35 skills in seven groups, according to a 2020 analysis of the system by the Labour Market Information Council. For your own list, four kinds are enough to show what a credible one looks like, which is a deliberate mix rather than a column of words that all mean "hard-working." ### Hard skills Hard skills are the technical skills taught in school, in a training program or by an employer: a programming language, a statistics package, bookkeeping, a foreign language, a piece of equipment you are certified to operate. They are usually tied to particular tasks or jobs, which is why the job decides which ones count. You prove them the direct way, with a qualification, a tool you can name, or something you made. The place to find the right ones is the job itself. As the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry explains in its Top 50 Job Skills data, skills describe a job in more detail than an occupational title can, because they spell out the work activities and the tools and technologies the job typically involves. Read a posting the same way. The activities and tools it names are the hard half of your list for that particular job. ### Soft skills Soft skills are the nontechnical half: how you work with other people and how you manage yourself at work. They are often unwritten rules rather than taught subjects, which is why they are both widely wanted and hard to prove. They sort into three groups. The self-management skills are building self-awareness, setting goals, building confidence and building resilience. The basic work skills that every role draws on daily are professional behaviors, communication, teamwork, working with your manager, time management and decision-making. And two proactive skills help you move forward once you are in: networking and influence. What sets soft skills apart on a list is that the word alone proves nothing. "Teamwork" is a claim; a project where you noticed a teammate falling behind and took over part of the analysis so the deadline held is evidence. The same goes for every skill in this group, and none of them depends on a particular personality. Each is a set of behaviors you can learn and practice. ### Transferable skills O\*NET calls these cross-functional skills: skills that help you carry out activities that occur across many different jobs, such as negotiation, troubleshooting and time management. They are more commonly known as transferable skills. They overlap heavily with soft skills, but the label is about portability rather than kind. What makes a skill transferable is that it travels with you from one role to the next. For a student or recent graduate, transferable skills are the bridge between what you have done and what a first job asks for. Organizing an event for a student society may have meant negotiating a price with a venue, troubleshooting when a speaker canceled the day before, and managing your time through an exam period. None of that came with a job title, but each piece names an activity an employer recognizes, as long as you describe it in those terms. ### Basic skills O\*NET's other category is basic skills, the ones that help you learn and take in knowledge, with reading comprehension, mathematics and critical thinking among them. They rarely need a line of their own, because they show up in everything else, above all in how quickly you pick up the job-specific skills a first role will demand. When a posting does name one directly, such as strong written work or comfort with numbers, treat it like a hard skill and point to something you produced: a report, an analysis, a thesis chapter. ## What employers look for in new graduates Employers have been asked this question directly. In the National Association of Colleges and Employers' (NACE) Job Outlook 2025 survey, the attributes employers most often looked for on [new graduates' resumes](/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/core-skills-resume/) were problem-solving and teamwork, followed by written communication, initiative, a strong work ethic and technical skills. Verbal communication, flexibility and analytical skills were also sought by most of the employers who responded. Notice how little of that is technical. An entry-level candidate has a thin work history, so an employer cannot judge them on years of experience. What is left to screen for is evidence of how they work. That is good news if most of your experience comes from coursework, group projects, part-time jobs or volunteering, because nearly everything on that list can be shown from exactly those places. Nor is it a passing trend. In NACE's Job Outlook 2018 survey, employers already rated problem-solving and teamwork as equally important at the top of the list for students' resumes, with leadership holding steady as a valued attribute. Skills that have led the ranking for years are a sound place to put your effort, because they keep their value from one job to the next. ## How to build your own job skills list Start with the posting for the job you want, not with a master list. Go through its requirements and mark the activities and tools that come up, along with the ways of working it describes. That gives you the hard skills to match, and it tells you which soft and transferable skills carry the most weight in this role. A long requirements section can make that first read discouraging. One of the young people we interviewed about starting work described the same first read, and what came after it: > I was actually a bit surprised by how simple many of the tasks were. You read all these fancy job ads that expect a lot — you have to be able to do this, and that, and the other thing. But I quickly found that even though I was just the student assistant, I felt at least as competent as many of my colleagues, if not more. So in the end, that worry was proved wrong. His experience is not a promise about any particular job, but it points to a useful habit: read a posting for the core of the role, the activities and tools that recur, rather than letting the length of the list decide whether you apply. Then keep your own list short. Lead with the skills that matter most for this specific role and leave out the ones you cannot connect to it. A long, generic list dilutes your strongest items and makes you sound like everyone else using the same words, while a short, matched one shows that you have read the job and know what you bring to it. In practice that means adjusting the list for each application: the core stays, while the order and emphasis change. Every soft skill on the final list needs an example behind it. The test is simple: can you describe one specific situation, what you did, and what happened as a result? A semester-long group project, a weekend job, a sports team or a volunteer role will usually supply one. [Problem-solving](/knowledge/types-of-skills/problem-solver-skill/), at the top of employers' wishes, works the same way: name the problem, what you did about it and what changed. The test doubles as an honesty filter. If you cannot find an example, the skill does not go on the list yet, which keeps you from claiming what you cannot back up. And the effort is never wasted, because the examples you collect now are the ones an interviewer will ask you for later. Building the list and [preparing for interviews](/knowledge/soft-skills-at-work/job-skills-for-interview/) turn out to be the same piece of work. Where you cannot find an example, you have found a gap rather than a verdict. These skills are learned through practice, so a gap is simply the next thing to work on, and a part-time job, a project or a student role is a low-stakes place to work on it. If you cannot tell which of your skills deserve the top of the list, the free Job Skills Test can help you [see your strongest workplace skills](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/), so the ones you lead with are the ones you can back best. ## What makes a skills list believable Look back at what building the list actually asked of you: a judgment about which skills are really yours, words that make those skills checkable, and experiences with other people to draw on. Each of those leans on something you can get better at. **Building Self-Awareness** is what turns a borrowed list into an honest inventory. It starts with separating what you are genuinely good at from what you can merely do: look at how you work when you take on a task, how it makes you feel, and the results it produces. Feedback fills in what you cannot see yourself. A specific, forward-looking question to a teacher, a supervisor or a teammate, such as what they would want you to keep doing, often names a strength you would never have thought to write down. **Communication** is the skill that is easiest to write down and hardest to prove, so it pays to know what it consists of. In practice it means stating your main point first, keeping messages clear and brief, listening fully before you answer, writing an email someone can act on, and disagreeing without heat. It is also tested live in every application: a resume line or an interview answer that leads with the point is itself evidence of the skill it describes. **Teamwork** is the skill you most likely have evidence for already, from group projects, shifts and volunteer work, and the one most often reduced to "team player." What gives it substance is the behavior underneath: being excellent in your own part, asking where the team needs you, doing what you said you would do, disagreeing about the work without making it personal, and raising it respectfully when someone else falls short. Any one of those, tied to a real situation, says more than the label ever could. All three are measured by the **free Job Skills Test**, together with **the other nine skills** from the soft-skill groups above. Each of them is learned rather than inborn, so a weaker result is not a judgment of you. It is a pointer that helps you [pinpoint what to practice next](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/), so a gap becomes your next example instead of a line you leave off. Some of this may already be closer to home than it looks. If a supervisor at a part-time job ever asked you to show a new hire the ropes, someone had already seen a skill in you worth naming, and that moment is an example you can use. The skills you cannot yet back up are simply the ones you have not practiced yet, and you can build them in your own way without turning into someone else. They also count for more as you go. Hard skills often open the door to a first job, but the skills behind how you work weigh at least as heavily in hiring, and more with each step after that. Knowing where you stand now is what makes building them deliberate rather than guesswork. ## See which skills belong at the top of your list The only step left is to find your starting point. The Job Skills Test is a **free** self-assessment of your work skills: in 7 minutes it shows where you stand on all twelve and which of them would make the biggest difference to your next application. **[Get my skills profile](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/)** *Free, takes 7 minutes, results shown instantly.* ## 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? A job skills list should mix hard, soft, transferable and basic skills, matched to one job and backed by examples. See what employers want and how to build yours. ### Which Headway skill does this connect to? This guide connects primarily to Building Self-Awareness. It also relates to Communication, Teamwork. ### 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/teamwork.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-skills-list/ Preferred summary: "A job skills list should mix hard, soft, transferable and basic skills, matched to one job and backed by examples. See what employers want and how to build yours." ## Change log - 2026-07-07: Content collection version published.