Computer Skills to Put on Your Resume

Computer skills on a resume are where a lot of space gets wasted. The section fills with things every applicant can do, while the one system that would actually differentiate goes unmentioned.

The assumed baseline, which you should cut

In any professional role, a reader assumes you can use email, a browser, a word processor and video calls. Listing them does not neutrally take up space; it signals that you could not think of anything stronger.

Cut all of these: Email · Internet research · Microsoft Word · Typing · Computer literate · Social media · Video conferencing.

The exception is a role where these genuinely are the skill, such as high-volume data entry with a stated speed, or a first job where you have little else. Even then, be specific rather than generic.

What is worth listing

Spreadsheets at a real level. Not Excel, but what you can do in it: pivot tables, lookups, Power Query, modelling, macros. This is the single highest-leverage computer skill in most non-technical roles and the one most often understated.

A named CRM or ticketing system. Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk, Dynamics. Naming the one the employer uses removes a training cost, which is exactly what they are scanning for.

Finance, HR or scheduling systems. QuickBooks, Xero, SAP, Workday, Kronos, an EHR, a warehouse management system. Industry-standard platforms are checked for directly.

Collaboration tooling beyond the basics. Not Slack, but Asana or Jira with a real workflow, Confluence, SharePoint administration, Notion databases.

Design and publishing. Canva, InDesign, Figma, where the role touches them.

Data handling. SQL, even at a basic level, is a genuine differentiator in administrative and operations roles.

Saying the level without setting a trap

Self-assessed labels are the risk here. Advanced Excel invites a spreadsheet task in the interview, and the word means something different to every reader.

Two safer options:

Describe the capability instead of rating it. Excel (pivot tables, lookups, Power Query) tells a reader more than Excel (advanced), and it is self-evidencing.

Let a bullet carry it. Rebuilt the monthly reporting pack in Excel, replacing three spreadsheets the team maintained by hand, establishes level better than any label.

Turning listed software into evidence

Listed: Salesforce Shown: Cleaned and merged four years of duplicate records in Salesforce ahead of the CRM migration, and wrote the deduplication rules the team still uses.

Listed: Excel Shown: Built the shift-costing model the site manager uses to plan the rota, replacing a manual estimate that was consistently over.

The pattern holds across every tool: name it, give it a scale, say what came of it.

If you are early career

Coursework and personal projects count, and they are more persuasive than a bare list. A society budget you tracked, a dataset you cleaned for a dissertation, a website you maintained for a volunteer group.

Describe them the way you would describe a job. The tool matters less than the evidence that you used it for something real.

Related

For specialist stacks rather than general literacy, see technical skills. For the underlying rules, see the skills section guide, and for layout see formatting your skills section. For choosing which to include, see the master skills list.

Our resume bullet point writer turns a listed tool into a bullet with evidence attached.

Cut the assumed, name the specific, and prove the important ones. You can check your skills section once it is trimmed.