QA Engineer resume skills. The words recruiters search for.
The 18 skills, tools and credentials that come up in QA engineer 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 · 12
- Test automation (used in Natalia's sample resume)
- TypeScript (used in Natalia's sample resume)
- Java (used in Natalia's sample resume)
- API testing (used in Natalia's sample resume)
- Regression testing (used in Natalia's sample resume)
- End-to-end tests (used in Natalia's sample resume)
- Test planning (used in Natalia's sample resume)
- Test cases (used in Natalia's sample resume)
- SQL (used in Natalia's sample resume)
- CI/CD (used in Natalia's sample resume)
- Agile (used in Natalia's sample resume)
- Defect tracking (used in Natalia's sample resume)
Tools & software · 5
- Playwright (used in Natalia's sample resume)
- Selenium (used in Natalia's sample resume)
- Postman (used in Natalia's sample resume)
- TestRail (used in Natalia's sample resume)
- Jira (used in Natalia's sample resume)
Licenses & certifications · 1
- ISTQB (used in Natalia's sample resume)
18 of 18 appear in Natalia'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.
Playwright, TypeScript, End-to-end tests
Weak: Skills: Playwright, TypeScript, End-to-end tests
Strong: Built a Playwright and TypeScript suite of 600 end-to-end tests that runs on every pull request in GitHub Actions
Regression testing
Weak: Skills: Regression testing
Strong: Cut regression testing from 3 days of manual work to 40 minutes, letting the team release weekly instead of monthly
Postman
Weak: Skills: Postman
Strong: Wrote 250 API tests in Postman collections that run in the pipeline, catching contract breaks before front-end work starts
Test planning
Weak: Skills: Test planning
Strong: Introduced risk-based test planning for each sprint; customer-reported defects fell from 18 to 5 a quarter
Strong bullets come from Natalia's sample resume and our QA engineer 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 QA engineer post asks for Test automation and you've used it, say Test automation, in the post's spelling, and show where.
Mirror the job post's wording
If a QA engineer post says "Playwright", write "Playwright", 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 Test automation — what you did and what changed — leave it out.
Show it in a bullet
A skills list says you know Playwright. A bullet like the one under QA Engineer 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
QA Engineer keywords, answered.
Something else? support@launch-cv.com
How many keywords should a QA engineer resume have?
There's no magic number. Natalia's sample resume uses all 18 terms on this page, because each one 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 QA engineer post says "Test automation", write "Test automation" 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 Natalia's sample, Test automation, CI/CD and Agile are in the summary and Playwright shows up in a bullet under QA Engineer. Plain text in the body of the page is easiest for applicant tracking systems to read.
Which tools should I list on a QA engineer resume?
The ones you've used and the post mentions. Common ones in QA engineer posts include Playwright, Selenium, Postman, TestRail and Jira. Name the tool in the bullet where you used it, not only in the skills list.
How should I list ISTQB 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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