Including these skills on your resume can be key to getting hired

This is adapted from CNBC’s Work It newsletter on LinkedIn about all things successful — from how to get a job to how to succeed in your career. (Click here to subscribe.)

When thinking about your resume, you tend to think about your experience, job responsibilities, education, etc. But one thing you shouldn’t neglect: your skills.

“Skills are the most important factor in getting a job today,” LinkedIn career expert Blair Heitmann recently told CNBC Make It. “More and more companies are moving away from traditional measures such as degrees and years of experience to skills-based hiring to ensure that they get the most qualified people in jobs that can really pay off.”

So, what skills are we talking about?

Recruiters want to know what hard skills (certification skills like coding or graphic design) you have, but they are also increasingly looking for soft skills (skills that can’t be measured like multitasking and problem solving).

“Let’s say you have a specialty certification that isn’t necessarily a higher education degree like a bachelor’s degree,” Vicki Salemi, careers expert at Monster, tells CNBC Make It. It can be a certificate from an online course in marketing. Or if you are fluent in another language — that would be great to include in the skills.

Some of your skills you can work into bullets under experience but for the rest, include it under the skills section of your resume.

Showing off your skills can put you “head and shoulders above other candidates,” says Salemi.

LinkedIn looks at job listings on its website and finds the skills that are mentioned most often. Here are the top 10 skills recruiters are looking for today:

1. Customer service
2. Sale
3. Accountancy
4. Business development
5. Marketing
6. Leadership
7. Communication
8. Digital Marketing
9. Sales management
10. Problem solving

Of course, not all of these skills apply to your job search. But it’s important to start training your brain to pick out what skills employers are looking for in job descriptions and, if those are skills you have, to highlight them on your resume and underline them in interviews.

Which says: Hey, I have what you’re looking for!

And, if you find yourself unemployed or hating your job and not sure what to do next – check out this list for inspiration. It could lead to your next career move – or it could help in how you sell yourself for the position.

However, just remember: Be honest! Don’t say you have skills if you don’t just get a job. This will soon become apparent in the work and you will lose precious trust right out of the gate. On the other hand, if the employer is looking for a skill that you don’t have, consider taking a class to acquire that skill. Don’t say you have it – until you do.

You may not be in the habit of bragging about your communication skills or your ability to juggle multiple things at once, but you probably started doing so after you read this next section: 93% of employers say soft skills play a key role in their hiring decisions, according to ZipRecruiter.

Wow! That’s a huge number—and a great opportunity to get noticed in a job search.

But what exactly are soft skills?

Soft skills are skills that show how you work. Some of them are about people and interpersonal skills, while others are about process. I think they really fall into the category of how would you fit into an organization. Is the organization or industry moving fast? If so, you need good time management skills. Do things change often at work? In this case, you have to be flexible.

And don’t worry if you don’t have all of these skills, the idea is to find out what you do have and how best to adapt them to future jobs/employers. Finding the right match is as beneficial as it is to your advantage. In the end, it’s great if you enjoy going to work and feel like you’re working hard.

Soft skills can cover a million different things, so it’s important to highlight those that are relevant to the position you’re applying for — and what recruiters are looking for.

ZipRecruiter combed through millions of job listings and compiled a list of the eight most sought-after soft skills:

1. Ability to communicate
2. Customer service
3. scheduling
4. Time management skills
5. Project management
6. Analytical thinking
7. Ability to work independently
8. flexibility

Again, even if not all of this applies to you, you should train your brain to pluck this out of the job description when you apply for jobs, see which ones you have, and then include them in your application – so be it in your resume, cover letter and so on. / or answers to interview questions.

For example, let’s say you were asked to talk about difficult times at work and how you overcame them. Maybe it requires you to use your communication skills to smooth things over or maybe you’re under a tight deadline and really need to demonstrate those time management skills. Maybe you should stop and analyze the situation and work out the best way to proceed. And maybe that requires you to be flexible and pivot in a different direction. These are all important details that you need to include in your answer to show the recruiter that you are the right candidate for the job.

It’s important to have some of your top skills on your resume to show recruiters and employers from the start who you are, why you’re qualified and a little bit about how you work.

Career coaches say you can put those skills at the top or bottom of your resume, but it’s important not to make it a huge list—choose those that best represent your abilities.

“You have to pick six skills that you really excel at,” Julie Bauke, founder and head of career strategy at The Bauke Group, tells CNBC Make It.

Salemi said he would probably limit it to just “the top three or four skills that employers covet.”

And don’t stuff too many generic terms like “sales,” “marketing strategy,” and “public speaking” in your skills section, says Bauke, otherwise you risk looking like “verbal puke.”

Ouch! No, you don’t want that.

The idea is that your experience will be the first thing they see. Including these focused skills can be what sets you apart from other candidates and helps you land a job.

If you’ve ever thought: Oh, wow. If I only knew what they were looking for. If I only had connections like some people.

Well, social media has evened that out! You DO have a connection. Or potential connection. It’s up to you what you make of them.

So start following some recruiters and career coaches on TikTok, Instagram, and other social platforms, because they know what they — and other recruiters — are looking for in terms of skills and qualifications.

Emily Durham is a career coach and content creator with over 200,000 followers. He is also a senior recruiter for Intuit.

In a recent TikTok, Durham offered some great tips to help make your LinkedIn profile stand out:

• Upload a profile photo and banner images — they dramatically increase the chances of your profile being viewed.
• Write something more creative for your title (right below your name) instead of the default — your title. This is visible not only on your profile page, but when your profile appears to others as “People You May Know”, in LinkedIn searches, on LinkedIn job applications, posts, and even invitations. So do something that conveys your value proposition like “I help people find six figure jobs,” and highlights your skills, keywords, accomplishments, values, etc.
• Make sure you list your skills in the skills section! Recruiters actually type in what skills they’re looking for when searching for candidates on LinkedIn.

“If you don’t have a key skill … in the skills section, it’s very unlikely your profile will show up,” says Durham.

And, remember one skill you’ll need throughout this whole process: The ability to sell yourself. You have the skills, tools, and network at your disposal, you just need to use them to convince recruiters that the search is over — they’ve found the perfect candidate.

— With reporting by Morgan Smith, Gili Malinksy And Mikaela Cohen.