How to Show Soft Skills on Your CV When AI Screening Looks for Hard Skills
There is a mismatch at the heart of UK hiring right now. Employers say the skills they struggle most to find are human ones: communication, problem-solving, working well with people. Yet the tools many of them use to screen applications are far better at spotting technical qualifications than any of those.
If you are applying for jobs, you have to get past both. Here is what the latest research says, and how to write your CV so the software and the person reading it both take your soft skills seriously.
What did the City & Guilds research find?
City & Guilds published its employability report, Counting the Cost, in September 2026. It surveyed 908 HR professionals and line managers and 1,014 young people aged 18 to 24 (City & Guilds). The headline findings:
- 74% of employers now see interpersonal skills as more important than technical expertise.
- 64% struggle to find applicants with skills like communication and problem-solving.
- 69% believe AI screening tools emphasise technical qualifications and overlook human skills.
- Only 40% of young people feel completely confident communicating face to face.
In other words, employers are asking for one thing and filtering for another, and candidates are caught in the middle.
Why do AI screening tools miss soft skills?
Screening software is good at matching. It compares the words in your CV with the words in the job advert and the requirements the employer has set. Hard skills are easy to match because they are named things: Excel, Python, a CIPD qualification, a driving licence.
Soft skills are harder. "Excellent communicator" matches the word communication, but it carries no weight with a person, because nearly every CV says it. Meanwhile, a genuinely impressive example of calming down an angry client might never use the word the software is looking for.
That is the gap. Adjectives get past the machine and fail with the person. Stories impress the person and can slip past the machine.
How do you write soft skills that both will believe?
Use the formula we use when reviewing CVs: the skill word the advert uses, plus the situation, plus what happened as a result.
The skill word gets you matched. The situation and the result make it credible. Here is how that looks in practice:
| Soft skill | What most CVs say | What works |
|---|---|---|
| Communication | "Excellent written and verbal communication skills." | "Communicated delivery changes to 30+ customers a day by phone and email, keeping complaints below the team average." |
| Problem-solving | "Strong problem-solver." | "Solved a recurring stock shortfall by redesigning the weekly order sheet, ending last-minute emergency orders." |
| Teamwork | "Great team player." | "Worked with three course mates on a client research project, leading the interviews and the data analysis." |
| Adaptability | "Adaptable and flexible." | "Covered front-of-house and kitchen shifts during staff shortages, learning both roles within a fortnight." |
| Leadership | "Natural leader." | "Led a 12-person student society committee, recruiting 80 new members and managing a termly events budget." |
Each strong version names the skill or an obvious synonym, and each one could only have been written by one person. That is what makes it believable.
Where should soft skills go on your CV?
In three places, each doing a different job.
Your personal statement. Pick the one or two soft skills the advert stresses most and mention them with a short piece of proof. Recruiters read this section first, so it frames everything else.
Your skills section. List soft skills using the exact words from the advert, alongside your technical skills. This part is mostly for the software, so keep it short and precise.
Your experience. This is where the evidence lives. Every soft skill you claim higher up should be backed by at least one bullet point here.
What doesn't work is a standalone list of adjectives. "Hard-working, motivated, reliable, punctual" tells a recruiter nothing and uses space the software could have matched on.
What if you don't have much work experience?
Use the experience you do have. Soft skills are built everywhere: part-time jobs, volunteering, sports teams, caring for a family member, university projects, society roles and customer-facing work of any kind.
The trick is to describe it with the same care you would give a professional job. What was the situation, what did you do, and what changed because of it? If you can put a number on it, even a rough one, do. Our guide to quantifying your CV shows how to find numbers in jobs that don't seem to have any.
How do you prove soft skills in an interview?
The CV gets you into the room. The interview is where soft skills are really tested, because you are demonstrating them while you talk about them.
That is why the City & Guilds finding on confidence matters. If only 40% of young people feel fully confident communicating face to face, practice is an obvious edge. Rehearse your best three or four examples out loud until they come out clearly and in order. Focus on what you did and why, not just what the team achieved. Our breakdown of how UK employers score interview answers explains what separates a pass from a hire.
MyPathfinder's Interview Simulator lets you practise out loud with Elise, our AI interviewer, with feedback after every answer, so the first time you tell your best story isn't in front of a real panel. And the CV Builder tailors your CV to a pasted job description line by line, so the skill words the advert uses make it onto the page.
The bottom line
Employers want human skills, and their screening tools are poor at spotting them. You can't change the tools, but you can write for both audiences: name the skill in the advert's words so the software finds it, then prove it with a real example so the person believes it.