8 Best Soft Skills to Include on a Resume in 2026 (+ Examples)
Soft skills matter on a resume, but simply listing “communication,” “leadership,” or “team player” proves very little.
In 2026, employers are increasingly focused on demonstrated skills. LinkedIn reports that 93% of talent acquisition professionals consider accurately assessing a candidate’s skills crucial to improving quality of hire. Companies making the greatest use of skills-based candidate searches were also 12% more likely to make a quality hire, according to LinkedIn’s methodology.
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, based on more than 1,000 employers representing over 14 million workers across 55 economies, found that analytical thinking is the most important core skill for employers, followed by resilience, flexibility and agility, and leadership and social influence.
The best soft skills to put on a resume in 2026 are:
| Soft skill | What it proves | Best way to show it |
|---|---|---|
| Problem-solving | You can identify and resolve problems | Show the problem, action, and measurable result |
| Communication | You can explain, influence, and align | Show audiences, communication method, and outcome |
| Teamwork | You can perform effectively with others | Name the teams involved and the shared result |
| Adaptability | You can respond effectively to change | Show a change you handled successfully |
| Leadership | You can take ownership and influence outcomes | Show responsibility, scope, and result |
| Analytical thinking | You can make evidence-based decisions | Show what you analyzed and what improved |
| Creativity | You can develop better approaches | Show the idea and its impact |
| Time management | You can prioritize and deliver reliably | Show workload, deadlines, or efficiency |
The important part is not the keyword itself. It is the evidence attached to it.
What are soft skills?
Soft skills are transferable abilities that affect how you solve problems, communicate, collaborate, lead, and respond to change.
Hard skills describe what you can technically do—for example, SQL, financial modeling, Salesforce, or Python. Soft skills describe how effectively you apply your knowledge while working with other people and solving real business problems.
For example:
Hard skill: Salesforce
Soft skill: Communication
Proof: “Trained 14 sales representatives on a new Salesforce workflow, reducing CRM data-entry errors by 23%.”
That sentence is considerably stronger than listing:
Salesforce | Communication | Teamwork
The first version gives an employer evidence. The second provides keywords without context.
Why soft skills matter more in 2026
AI is changing both the work people perform and how companies hire.
The World Economic Forum estimates that 39% of workers’ existing skill sets will be transformed or become outdated between 2025 and 2030. Although AI, big data, cybersecurity, and technological literacy are among the fastest-growing technical skills, employers also expect human capabilities including creative thinking, resilience, flexibility, curiosity, leadership, and analytical thinking to become increasingly important.
Recruiting itself is becoming more skills-focused. LinkedIn found that 73% of talent acquisition professionals believe AI will change how organizations hire, while recruiters already using generative AI reported saving about 20% of their workweek on average. The same research found that employers became dramatically more likely to request relationship-development skills for recruiting roles.
The practical implication for job seekers is simple:
Your resume needs both technical capability and evidence that you can think, communicate, adapt, and work effectively with other people.
1. Problem-solving
Problem-solving is one of the strongest soft skills you can demonstrate because employers can connect it directly to business performance.
For U.S. employers recruiting new college graduates, NACE’s Job Outlook 2025 found that 88.3% sought evidence of problem-solving skills on candidates’ resumes. The survey included 237 responding employers and specifically reflects the U.S. early-career market, so it should not be treated as a universal figure for every worker or country.
Weak resume example
“Strong problem-solving skills”
Better resume example
“Identified recurring billing errors and redesigned the reconciliation process, reducing monthly discrepancies by 31%.”
Why it works: the bullet shows the problem + action + result instead of asking the employer to accept a self-assessment.
Other keywords related to problem-solving
Root-cause analysis, troubleshooting, decision-making, process improvement, critical thinking, conflict resolution.
Use only terms that genuinely match your experience and the job description.
2. Communication
Communication consistently ranks among employers’ most important workplace competencies.
In NACE’s 2025 employer survey, 96.1% rated communication as very or extremely important for new graduates, while only 53.5% rated recent graduates as highly proficient in it. That gap makes strong evidence of communication particularly useful for early-career resumes.
Communication does not mean writing “excellent communicator.”
Show who you communicated with, what you communicated, and what changed because of it.
Weak resume example
“Excellent written and verbal communication”
Better resume example
“Presented weekly performance reports to senior leadership, helping resolve project bottlenecks and reduce average turnaround time by 18%.”
Another example:
“Translated technical product requirements for sales and customer-success teams, reducing clarification requests by 25%.”
Communication can include presentations, negotiation, writing, stakeholder management, client communication, training, facilitation, and cross-functional coordination.
3. Teamwork and collaboration
Most jobs require people to work across functions, locations, seniority levels, or specialist teams.
NACE found that 93.9% of surveyed employers rated teamwork as very or extremely important, making it one of the highest-rated career-readiness competencies in its 2025 study.
Avoid generic claims such as:
“Team player”
Instead, identify who you collaborated with and what the group accomplished.
Better resume examples
- “Partnered with product, engineering, and design teams to launch a customer portal used by 50,000+ users.”
- “Coordinated with sales and operations teams to redesign order processing, cutting average fulfillment time by 1.5 days.”
The more specific the collaboration, the more credible the skill becomes.
4. Adaptability
Adaptability matters because jobs, tools, workflows, and skill requirements are changing quickly.
The World Economic Forum ranks resilience, flexibility, and agility among employers’ most important core skills in 2025, and expects these capabilities to remain increasingly important through 2030.
Adaptability is especially useful to demonstrate when you have:
changed industries, learned a new platform quickly, taken on responsibilities after restructuring, adjusted to new customer requirements, adopted AI or automation tools, or managed changing priorities.
Weak resume example
“Adaptable and flexible employee”
Better resume example
“Learned the company’s new CRM within two weeks and created a team onboarding guide that reduced training time by 30%.”
Or:
“Reprioritized a six-project portfolio after a mid-quarter client change while maintaining all contractual delivery dates.”
The evidence shows the change and your response to it.
5. Leadership
Leadership does not require a management title.
A strong resume can demonstrate leadership through ownership, initiative, mentoring, decision-making, project leadership, or influencing people without formal authority.
The World Economic Forum identifies leadership and social influence among the core skills employers value most.
Weak resume example
“Strong leadership skills”
Better resume examples
- “Led a six-person cross-functional project team that delivered a client implementation two weeks ahead of schedule.”
- “Mentored four new analysts, three of whom reached full productivity ahead of the standard 90-day onboarding target.”
- “Proposed and led a revised quality-control process that reduced customer complaints by 17%.”
Leadership becomes credible when your resume establishes scope + responsibility + outcome.
7. Analytical thinking
Analytical thinking deserves a more prominent position on a 2026 resume than it receives on many traditional soft-skills lists.
According to the World Economic Forum, seven in 10 surveyed employers identify analytical thinking as an essential core skill, making it the highest-ranked core skill in its Future of Jobs Report 2025.
Analytical thinking does not only apply to analysts.
Salespeople analyze pipelines. Marketers analyze campaign data. Operations employees investigate bottlenecks. Managers interpret performance metrics. Customer-service teams identify recurring issues.
Weak resume example
“Strong analytical skills”
Better resume examples
- “Analyzed customer-support data to identify three recurring failure points, helping reduce repeat tickets by 22%.”
- “Reviewed quarterly sales data across 12 territories and identified underperforming segments that generated $180K in additional pipeline after reallocation.”
Where possible, specify what you analyzed, what conclusion you reached, and what happened next.
7. Creativity
Creativity is not limited to designers, writers, or advertising professionals.
Employers need people who can develop new approaches to processes, products, customer problems, operations, and communication.
The World Economic Forum expects creative thinking to continue increasing in importance through 2030, alongside AI-related technical skills and adaptability.
Weak resume example
“Creative thinker”
Better resume examples
- “Redesigned the employee onboarding workflow, reducing the average time to complete required training by 26%.”
- “Developed a new customer re-engagement campaign that increased inactive-account conversions by 34%.”
Creativity becomes meaningful when you connect an idea to an improvement.
8. Time management and prioritization
Employers rarely hire someone because their resume says “good time management.”
They do care whether candidates can manage competing priorities, meet deadlines, organize work, and deliver consistently.
Weak resume example
“Excellent time-management skills”
Better resume examples
- “Managed 12–15 active client accounts simultaneously while maintaining a 98% on-time project-delivery rate.”
- “Reorganized weekly production scheduling, reducing missed internal deadlines by 27%.”
For project-heavy positions, you can also show prioritization through portfolio size, deadlines, budgets, project volume, or turnaround times.
Which soft skills should you put on your resume?
Do not copy all eight skills into every application.
Select the soft skills that appear to matter most for the specific position.
| Role | Soft skills likely to matter |
|---|---|
| Project manager | Leadership, communication, prioritization, problem-solving |
| Software engineer | Problem-solving, analytical thinking, teamwork, adaptability |
| Sales representative | Communication, relationship-building, adaptability, problem-solving |
| Customer service | Communication, problem-solving, empathy, adaptability |
| Marketing manager | Creativity, analytical thinking, communication, leadership |
| Operations manager | Problem-solving, leadership, prioritization, analytical thinking |
Then verify your assumptions against the actual job advertisement.
If a job repeatedly mentions stakeholder management, presentations, executive communication, and cross-functional work, communication belongs high on your priority list.
If it repeatedly asks for data-driven decisions, process optimization, troubleshooting, and performance analysis, problem-solving and analytical thinking matter more.
Where should soft skills go on a resume?
The best place for most soft skills is your work experience section, because that is where you can prove them.
Compare these two approaches.
Skills section
Communication, leadership, problem-solving, teamwork
Experience section
- “Led weekly meetings across sales, operations, and product teams to resolve implementation issues, reducing project delays by 21%.”
The second bullet demonstrates at least four skills without needing to label them.
You can still include relevant soft-skill keywords in a skills section when they match the job description, but your experience section should provide the evidence.
A good hierarchy is:
- Work experience:prove the skill.
- Resume summary:highlight one or two important strengths supported by results.
- Skills section: reinforce relevant keywords where appropriate.
How to prove soft skills on a resume
Use this formula: Action + skill in context + measurable result
For example:
“Coordinated three departments to redesign the returns process, reducing average resolution time from 4.2 days to 2.8 days.”
This demonstrates teamwork, communication, problem-solving, and ownership without explicitly saying:
Excellent communicator and team player with strong problem-solving skills.
You do not always need a percentage.
Useful evidence can include:
Money: increased revenue by $120K
Time: reduced processing time by 6 hours per week
Volume: supported 75+ clients
Quality: cut errors by 23%
Scale: managed 14 employees
Speed: delivered 12 days early
Retention: maintained 96% client retention
Ranking: ranked #2 of 37 representatives
The metric must be truthful and defensible. Never invent numbers simply to make a bullet look stronger.
Soft skills vs. hard skills: what employers want
You need both.
| Hard skills | Soft skills |
|---|---|
| Technical or job-specific abilities | Transferable abilities that affect how you work |
| Often easier to test or verify directly | Usually demonstrated through behavior and results |
| Examples: Excel, Python, bookkeeping, CAD | Examples: communication, leadership, adaptability |
| Show what you can do | Show how you apply your skills in real work situations |
This distinction is becoming more important as skills-based hiring expands.
LinkedIn reports that the share of paid job postings on its platform that did not require a degree increased 16% between 2020 and 2023, while 93% of recruiting professionals said accurately assessing candidates’ skills was crucial for improving quality of hire.
That does not mean qualifications no longer matter. It means employers increasingly want evidence of what candidates can actually do in addition to credentials.
Common soft-skill resume mistakes
Listing too many skills
A long list such as “leadership, communication, creativity, teamwork, adaptable, motivated, organized, hardworking, strategic…” looks generic because there is no evidence behind it.
Prioritize the skills most relevant to the role.
Describing yourself instead of demonstrating performance
Avoid self-assessments such as “great communicator,” “strong leader,” or “excellent team player.” These statements are difficult for a recruiter to verify because they describe how you see yourself rather than what you actually achieved. Instead, demonstrate the skill through a specific action and result.
Avoid: Great communicator
Use: Delivered monthly financial briefings to 20+ department leaders, improving forecast submission compliance from 76% to 94%.
The second version proves communication by showing the audience, the responsibility, and the measurable outcome.
Using the same skills for every application
A software engineer, account executive, nurse, and marketing manager should not have identical soft-skill sections.
Review the job description and prioritize the soft skills that appear repeatedly or are clearly tied to the role’s responsibilities. Then support those skills with relevant examples from your experience.
Adding keywords unnaturally for ATS
Applicant tracking systems can help employers search, organize, and evaluate applications, but keyword stuffing does not make an unqualified resume stronger.
Use the terminology from the job posting when it accurately describes your experience, then support those skills with evidence.
Inventing metrics
A fabricated “increased productivity by 37%” is worse than a truthful result without a percentage”.
If no metric exists, specify scope instead:
“Coordinated onboarding for five new employees across three departments.”
Specificity creates credibility even when exact financial or percentage data is unavailable.
FAQs
What are the best soft skills for a resume in 2026?
The strongest soft skills for most resumes in 2026 include problem-solving, communication, teamwork, adaptability, leadership, analytical thinking, creativity, and time management. However, the best skills for your resume depend on the job. Prioritize skills mentioned in the job description and prove them through specific achievements.
What soft skill do employers value most?
There is no single answer across every occupation and labor market. In the World Economic Forum’s global 2025 employer research, analytical thinking ranked as the most important core skill, with about seven in 10 employers identifying it as essential. In NACE’s U.S. early-career research, communication and critical thinking were among the highest-rated competencies.
How many soft skills should you put on a resume?
There is no evidence-based universal rule requiring an exact number. A better approach is to include only soft skills that are relevant to the target job and supported by evidence. For most resumes, a short, focused skills section is more useful than a long list of generic traits.
Should you list soft skills in the skills section?
You can, particularly when a soft-skill term appears in the job description. However, your work-experience bullets should also demonstrate the skill. “Leadership” in a skills list is weaker than a bullet explaining that you led a seven-person team to complete a project 10 days early.
Are soft skills important for ATS?
Relevant skill terminology can help employers and recruiting systems identify matches between a resume and a job description. Do not optimize for ATS by repeating keywords. Use the employer’s terminology naturally and back important skills with accomplishments.
Can soft skills replace technical skills?
No. Most jobs require an appropriate combination of technical and human skills. AI and technological change are increasing demand for capabilities such as AI literacy and technological literacy while employers continue to prioritize analytical thinking, adaptability, creativity, leadership, and collaboration.
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