Maintenance Technician resume skills. The words recruiters search for.
The 18 skills, tools and credentials that come up in maintenance technician job posts, sorted by type, and how to put them in bullets a recruiter believes.
By Nazir Elmurodov, Founder, LaunchCV · Updated
/ The list
Keywords by type. Use only the ones that are true for you.
Hard skills · 13
- Preventive maintenance (used in Brian's sample resume)
- Troubleshooting (used in Brian's sample resume)
- Electrical systems (used in Brian's sample resume)
- Mechanical repair (used in Brian's sample resume)
- Hydraulics (used in Brian's sample resume)
- Pneumatics (used in Brian's sample resume)
- Motors and drives (used in Brian's sample resume)
- Conveyor systems (used in Brian's sample resume)
- Lockout/tagout (used in Brian's sample resume)
- Root cause analysis (used in Brian's sample resume)
- Welding (used in Brian's sample resume)
- Blueprint reading (used in Brian's sample resume)
- Downtime (used in Brian's sample resume)
Tools & software · 3
- PLC (used in Brian's sample resume)
- CMMS (used in Brian's sample resume)
- Allen-Bradley (used in Brian's sample resume)
Licenses & certifications · 1
- OSHA 30 (used in Brian's sample resume)
Soft skills · 1
- Problem solving
17 of 18 appear in Brian's sample resume. See where
/ How to use them
Put keywords in bullets, not just in a skills list.
A skills list tells the software you have a skill. A bullet shows a recruiter what you did with it.
Conveyor systems
Weak: Skills: Conveyor systems
Strong: Troubleshoot and repair conveyor systems, case packers and palletizers across 3 high-speed lines
Preventive maintenance, CMMS, Downtime
Weak: Skills: Preventive maintenance, CMMS, Downtime
Strong: Cut unplanned downtime by 27% in a year by moving 40 assets onto a preventive maintenance schedule in the CMMS
PLC, Motors and drives, Allen-Bradley
Weak: Skills: PLC, Motors and drives, Allen-Bradley
Strong: Diagnose Allen-Bradley PLC faults, motors and drives, and swap VFDs to restore production
Root cause analysis
Weak: Skills: Root cause analysis
Strong: Led root cause analysis on repeat gearbox failures, ending a problem that had stopped Line 2 six times a quarter
Strong bullets come from Brian's sample resume and our maintenance technician bullet examples. Names and figures are illustrative.
/ Use them honestly
Keywords get you found. Proof gets you hired.
Mirror the job post's wording for skills you really have. If a maintenance technician post asks for Preventive maintenance and you've used it, say Preventive maintenance, in the post's spelling, and show where.
Mirror the job post's wording
If a maintenance technician post says "Troubleshooting", write "Troubleshooting", not a near-synonym — as long as it's accurate. Recruiters search for the post's exact term.
Only claim what you can back up
Expect to be asked about every term you list. If you couldn't spend two minutes on Preventive maintenance — what you did and what changed — leave it out.
Show it in a bullet
A skills list says you know Conveyor systems. A bullet like the one under Maintenance Technician II in the example above shows what you did with it.
No stuffing, no hidden text
Repeating a word or hiding keywords in white text doesn't make you a better match. A person reads the resume in the end.
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/ Questions
Maintenance Technician keywords, answered.
Something else? support@launch-cv.com
How many keywords should a maintenance technician resume have?
There's no magic number. Brian's sample resume uses 17 of the 18 terms on this page — the ones that fit that job. Cover what your post asks for that you can back up, each where it fits; repeating a keyword doesn't help.
Should I copy keywords exactly from the job post?
Use the post's wording for skills you really have. If a maintenance technician post says "Preventive maintenance", write "Preventive maintenance" rather than a synonym, so a recruiter searching for that term finds you. Don't add skills you don't have just because the post lists them.
Where should keywords go on my resume?
In your summary, a short skills section and, above all, the bullets under each job, where you show what you did with the skill. In Brian's sample, Preventive maintenance is in the summary and Conveyor systems shows up in a bullet under Maintenance Technician II. Plain text in the body of the page is easiest for applicant tracking systems to read.
Which tools should I list on a maintenance technician resume?
The ones you've used and the post mentions. Common ones in maintenance technician posts include PLC, CMMS and Allen-Bradley. Name the tool in the bullet where you used it, not only in the skills list.
How should I list OSHA 30 on my resume?
Spell it the way the job post does, and include both the abbreviation and the full name if you have room. Put licenses and certifications in their own section or next to your education, and only list ones that are current.
Keywords for related roles
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