Marketing job descriptions read like alphabet soup — SEO, SEM, CRM, ABM, CRO. Most applicants list all of them and impress no one. The candidates who get interviews pick the four or five skills they can genuinely demonstrate.
Skills worth claiming
- •Campaign analytics: GA4, Looker Studio, Mixpanel — name the tool and attach a result you drove.
- •Content strategy: editorial calendars, SEO briefs, audience personas, keyword research.
- •Paid acquisition: Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads — plus the CPA or ROAS you improved.
- •Email and lifecycle: HubSpot, Mailchimp, Braze — tie to open/click/retention metrics.
- •CRM and lead routing: Salesforce, HubSpot CRM — say which objects and flows you own.
- •Design fluency: Figma, Canva — enough to ship without blocking on a designer.
- •SQL and spreadsheets: the quiet superpower — running your own numbers beats requesting a dashboard.
- •Marketing automation: Marketo, Customer.io — trigger-based flows, AB tests, segmentation.
Skills that dilute your resume
Drop "Microsoft Word," "teamwork," "communication skills," and "self-starter." Every applicant claims these; none of them get you shortlisted. Show them through bullets and outcomes instead.