Hiring managers, business owners, and HR professionals preparing to advertise for a job need to create a job description. A job description summarises the role and job responsibilities and states the parameters of what constitutes a ‘qualified candidate.’ The qualifying text is usually added as a skills section, including bullet points on soft and hard skills.

Failing to define all the hard skills required is risky, adding time to the screening and interviewing parts of the hiring process. In the worst-case scenario, you may end up recruiting a candidate who cannot competently complete the role, damaging your company’s reputation, losing customers, or leaving you vulnerable to fines for non-compliance issues.

A job description template will help you create a job listing with suggestions of relevant hard skills for the role. This article will further help you write compelling job descriptions and choose the hard skills that will enable you to fill your job effectively by exploring:

• What are hard skills?
• Hard skills vs soft skills
• Examples of hard skills
• Accounting skills
• Computer skills
• Hard communication skills
• Leadership skills
• Marketing skills
• Project management skills

What Are Hard Skills?

A hard skill is a specific job ability or knowledge learned during formal education at a school or university, workplace training, online courses, or hands-on experience. Job-specific abilities and hard skills are usually described as technical skills required to complete job duties. Qualifications and certification programs are excellent informers of the candidate’s proficiency level.

A hiring manager should include a list of hard skills in job descriptions. Job seekers often add a hard skills and soft skills section to their CVs, which hiring managers can use for screening and candidate filtering.

Hard Skills VS Soft Skills

A soft skill is usually a character trait, including personality traits such as emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills. Whereas hard skills and technical skills can generally be taught in a classroom, soft skills and character traits are developed through positive or successful interactions in a personal or professional setting.

Hard Skills Examples

Below is an example list of hard skills and proficiencies that are highly relevant for today’s jobs:

• Accounting and finance
• Business analytical skills
• Civil engineering
• Cloud computer skills
• Copywriting
• CSS/HTML/Javascript
• Data analysis
• Data mining
• Database management
• Electrical engineering
• Graphic design skills
• Language skills
• Photo editing
• Programming language
• Project management
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
• Social media platforms
• Statistical analysis
• Troubleshooting computer technology
• User interface design
• Video editing

Accounting Skills

Accounting, finance, and banking jobs most often require a hard skill set, formal qualifications, certifications, and associations.

Accounting skills for your job descriptions include:

• Anti money laundering
• Bookkeeping
• Congos Analytics
• Data entry
• Data processing
• Enterprise resource planning
• Financial modelling
• Microsoft Office
• QuickBooks
• Reporting
• SAP software
• Visual Basic

Also read What Are The Duties, Tasks, And Skills To Include In An Accounting Job Description.

Computer Skills

Businesses and customers are online, making computer skills some of the most relevant skills to seek in job seekers. Basic computer skills are needed for almost all jobs, whereas advanced knowledge is necessary for IT roles, such as web development or data analysis.

BASIC COMPUTER SKILLS

Basic computer technology hard skills include:

• Data entry
• Microsoft Office Suite – (Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Word)
• Social media
• Trello
• Zoom

IT SKILLS

The following skills are IT hard skills:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Azure
• Blockchain
• Cloud architecture
• Cloud applications (JSON, Rest, RPC)
• Computer science
• Cryptography
• Cybersecurity
• Debugging
• Firewall configuration
• GitHub and Gitlab
• Google Analytics
• Google Drive Suite
• Internet of Things (IoT)
• Inventory management
• Machine learning
• Mobile development
• Natural language processing
• Networking communication
• Programming languages (Apache, AWS, CSS, C++, HTML, Java, Javascript, Linux, MySQL, Perl, Python, SAS, Swift, XML, .net)
• Responsive design principles
• Software testing
• Storage and data management
• Technical support
• Virtual Reality (VR)
• Web architecture

Also read What Are The Duties, Tasks, And Skills To Include In An IT Job Description.

Design Skills

Design skills have predominantly moved online, aided by specialist design software and applications.

The design skills to consider adding to your job listing include:

• Adobe Creative Suite (Illustrator, InDesign, PhotoShop)
• Adobe Premiere Pro
• Ad design
• Branding
• Colour correction
• Composition
• Coral VideoStudio
• Digital printing
• Figma
• Illustration
• Infographics
• InVision
• Logo creation
• Media design
• Print design
• Sketch
• Typography
• User Experience (UX) Design
• User Interface (UI) Design
• Visual communication

Hard Communication Skills

Communication skills generally appear in the soft skills section of your job description. However, they can crossover into the hard skill section, mainly when an advanced proficiency level is necessary for a certain job or specific tasks.

A hard communication skill set might include:

• Copywriting
• Digital communications
• Foreign languages
• Investigative journalism
• Presentation writing skills
• Proofreading
• Report writing
• SEO copywriting
• Storyboarding
• Technical writing

Management And Leadership Skills

If you are writing a job description for a management or leadership role, we include a list of hard skills below. We also recommend reading our article What Leadership Skills To Include In A Job Description.

• Employment law
• Forward planning
• Human Resources
• Process improvement
• Proposal writing
• Psychology

Also read What Are The Duties, Tasks, And Skills To Include In A Management Job Description.

Marketing Skills

Hiring candidates with marketing skills, mainly digital marketing skills, has become increasingly valuable as more B2B and B2C customers are reached through online media.

Marketing skills include:

• A/B testing
• Adobe Creative Suite
• B2B marketing
• Brand management
• Content Management System (CSM) – WordPress
• Data visualisation
• Email marketing – MailChimp
• Google Search Console
• Keyword optimisation
• Marketing campaign management
• Mobile marketing
• Pay Per Click (PPC)
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
• Web analytics

Also read What Are The Duties, Tasks, And Skills To Include In A Marketing Job Description.

Project Management Skills

The hard skills of a Project Manager are needed by companies operating in various business sectors, including construction, healthcare, and IT.

Project management hard skills include:

• Agile methodology/Agile software
• Budget management
• Process management
• Procurement
• Project lifecycle management
• Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification
• Risk management
• Scheduling
• Scrum management
• Strategic planning

Hard Skills FAQs

Here we answer your hard skill questions.