What Are Job Skills?

Job skills are the various abilities you use to complete your work—from workplace skills like time management to technical skills like programming. 

While employers still value credentials like a bachelor's degree, more and more have been turning to skills-based hiring in order to fill positions. As of January 2024, over half of all job postings on Indeed (52 percent) did not list an education requirement for applicants [1]. This represents an increase from 48 percent in 2019. This mirrors research from the National Opinion Research Council, which found in 2022 that the majority of Americans believe they can earn a good living without earning a college degree (59 percent) [2].

Job skills, then, matter more and more than formal education. Expand your understanding of job skills with detailed definitions and examples, learn how to use them on your resume, and find out what the top job skills currently are based on Coursera’s own user research. 

What are job skills?

Job skills are the entire collection of skills you use to complete your work. They typically comprise:

• Workplace skills: The personal skills that ensure you do your job well, such as being adept at teamwork, time management, or solving problems. Occasionally, some refer to these as “human skills,” “employability skills,” or “soft skills.”

• Technical skills: The skills that relate to technical or job-specific knowledge, such as the ability to code in Python, conduct data analysis, or use specific accounting software. These are sometimes called “hard skills.”

• Transferable skills: The workplace and technical skills that you can take from one job to another, such as when someone uses their aptitude for teamwork and their ability to code in Python to change careers from being a programmer to being a STEM educator. Transferable skills are any of the various skills that you can transfer between jobs. 

You can acquire job skills in many ways. While in some cases, they may simply be a part of your personality, in other cases, you may have learned them through formal education or work experience. Whatever your skill level, you can always strengthen your current skill set and acquire new skills through practice. 

Learn more: Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills: What's the Difference?

What are the top 6 skills?

According to a 2024 survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, the six most sought-after job skills are problem-solving, the ability to work in a team, written and verbal communication skills, a strong work ethic, flexibility, and technical skills [3].

Examples of job skills

If we do something often enough, it can become so natural to us that we forget it is actually a skill that many others may not possess.  It can be helpful to read examples of others employing their skills to help you identify your own. 

The following examples describe hypothetical people alongside a list of likely skills that they employ as they maneuver in their unique life circumstances. As you read through it, think about the many skills you already possess. 

Top job skills for 2024

Every year, Coursera compiles a Job Skills report detailing the top skills that some 148 million learners on the platform have been developing over the past year. If you are looking to identify the most relevant skills for the near future, you will likely find the following job skills lists useful.

Top workplace skills for 2024

Coursera’s research names the top ten skills in 2024 as [4]: 

• Geovisualization

• SQL

• Business Communication

• General Accounting

• Epidemiology

• Bayesian Statistics

• Spreadsheet Software

• Change Management

• Python Programming

• Project Management

These skills represent resume skills found in some of the most sought-after careers, which Coursera lists as: 

• Personal financial advisor

• Business intelligence analyst

• Bookkeeper

• Risk analyst

• Technology consultant

• Network engineer

• Financial quantitative analyst

• Database architect

• Cybersecurity analyst

• Financial analyst

Popular transferable resume skills

Some skills are relevant in a wide range of roles. You can take these skills from job to job and build on them in nearly every career. Popular transferable skills include: 

• Storytelling: The ability to craft engrossing narratives that engage audiences

• Change management: Systematically helping individuals or organizations change their processes, goals, or technologies

• Organizational development: Furthering an organization's mission by incorporating new skills, tools, and strategies into established processes

• Influencing: The ability to create change and impact decisions through communication

People management: Recognizing, nurturing, and retaining an individual's talent in order to further an organization's goals

• Collaboration: Working in cooperation with others

• Decision-making: The ability to make informed decisions by collecting information, analyzing it, and creating alternative choices

• Communication: The ability to effectively communicate ideas to diverse audiences through various media

• Planning: The ability to identify goals and create a concrete path toward accomplishing them

Popular technical resume skills

Technical skills can be more specific to the role you’re working in but can still be transferable among technical careers. For example, you might use your e-commerce skills to build massive e-commerce websites, or you may use e-commerce skills to manage a sales department. Some popular technical skills include: 

• Scrum software development: A project management framework used to develop new software products and features

• Data visualization: Graphic representation of data and statistics through graphs and other visually descriptive media

• Customer success tools: Tools used to track and understand user experience

• E-commerce: Buying and selling products online

• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software: Software used to track and manage customer sales and processes

• User experience (UX) design: Subset of design that specifically focuses on the ways that users interact with the product

• Agile software development: An approach to project management for software development

• Software framework development: A methodology for enacting efficient software development processes

• System software development: Designing, building, and supporting a network of interconnected software

• Search engine optimization (SEO): Increasing a website or webpage's visibility on search engines

What are some good skills for employment?

If you aren’t sure where to start, transferable skills like communication, problem-solving, and flexibility are universal to a lot of different careers. Consider a course like Professional Skills for the Workplace Specialization from UC Davis to begin. 

Job skills for resumes 

Job skills—both workplace and technical—are very important to employers looking to fill positions. Many employers are increasingly removing education requirements from their job postings [1]. It's important to showcase your unique talents on your resume. Review one of the key ways to do that below.

Learn more: How to Feature Key Skills on Your Resume

Job skills as keywords

To deal with the large number of job applications they receive, many companies today use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to pre-screen resumes. These programs use algorithms to scan through resumes, and identify qualified applicants by identifying keywords describing relevant job skills. 

Unfortunately, while the systems are well-suited to efficiently parse large numbers of applications, they also have been found to disregard qualified applicants who have not optimized their resumes for the system. 

Try to use the same phrasing or keywords that employers use in their job descriptions to highlight your particular job skills. Follow these steps to help identify keywords and phrases to use on your resume:

1. Find a job listing that appeals to you and read through the job description.

2. Take note of any required or preferred skills an employer wants candidates to have, and think about how your skill set fits.

3. Adapt your resume by using the exact (or similar) keywords and phrases in the job description that you possess. For example, if you see a job posting asking for an applicant adept at “conflict resolution,” then you might use that phrase to describe your skill set rather than the similar phrase “dispute resolution.”

4. Make sure your resume is easy to scan by using a clean and straightforward layout. A chronological resume is often best suited for this purpose. While it may be tempting to use flashy graphics, many systems struggle to read overly designed resumes and may inadvertently overlook important information. 

Figuring out the right resume skills

Consider putting a job description into an online word frequency program to identify the skills that are repeated throughout the listing—these are likely the most important skills to an employer. 

Some free online text analyzers include Lexicool and Online Utility.

Learn job skills on Coursera 

Figuring out the right skills for jobs can help you prepare for career planning and market yourself more effectively to potential clients. Develop or strengthen your skills by earning a Professional Certificate from industry leaders such as Google, Meta, IBM, Salesforce, and more on Coursera. Programs take between four and seven months to complete, depending on the time you're able to dedicate, and are designed to teach you career-ready skills. You can learn more about project management, software development, and data analytics, among other topics.

Give your team access to a catalog of 8,000+ engaging courses and hands-on Guided Projects to help them develop impactful skills. Learn more about Coursera for Business.