Receptionist resume skills. The words recruiters search for.
The 19 skills and tools that come up in receptionist 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
- Receptionist (used in Kayla's sample resume)
- Front desk (used in Kayla's sample resume)
- Multi-line phone system (used in Kayla's sample resume)
- Call routing (used in Kayla's sample resume)
- Visitor management (used in Kayla's sample resume)
- Scheduling (used in Kayla's sample resume)
- Calendar management (used in Kayla's sample resume)
- Data entry (used in Kayla's sample resume)
- Insurance verification (used in Kayla's sample resume)
- Mail handling (used in Kayla's sample resume)
- Office supplies (used in Kayla's sample resume)
- HIPAA (used in Kayla's sample resume)
Tools & software · 4
- Microsoft Outlook (used in Kayla's sample resume)
- Microsoft Teams (used in Kayla's sample resume)
- Microsoft Office (used in Kayla's sample resume)
- Dentrix (used in Kayla's sample resume)
Soft skills · 3
- Customer service (used in Kayla's sample resume)
- Professionalism
- Multitasking
17 of 19 appear in Kayla'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.
Front desk, Visitor management
Weak: Skills: Front desk, Visitor management
Strong: Greet 60–80 clients and visitors a day at the front desk of a 45-person law firm and manage visitor management, sign-in and badges
Multi-line phone system, Call routing
Weak: Skills: Multi-line phone system, Call routing
Strong: Answer a multi-line phone system and handle call routing for 120+ calls a day to attorneys and staff
Scheduling, Calendar management, Microsoft Outlook
Weak: Skills: Scheduling, Calendar management, Microsoft Outlook
Strong: Book 8 conference rooms in Microsoft Outlook and handle scheduling and calendar management for client meetings
Microsoft Teams
Weak: Skills: Microsoft Teams
Strong: Cut missed phone messages by moving from paper slips to Microsoft Teams messages and a shared inbox
Strong bullets come from Kayla's sample resume and our receptionist 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 receptionist post asks for Receptionist and you've used it, say Receptionist, in the post's spelling, and show where.
Mirror the job post's wording
If a receptionist post says "Front desk", write "Front desk", 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 Receptionist — what you did and what changed — leave it out.
Show it in a bullet
A skills list says you know Visitor management. A bullet like the one under Receptionist 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.
Which of these does your resume say?
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/ Questions
Receptionist keywords, answered.
Something else? support@launch-cv.com
How many keywords should a receptionist resume have?
There's no magic number. Kayla's sample resume uses 17 of the 19 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 receptionist post says "Receptionist", write "Receptionist" 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 Kayla's sample, Receptionist and Front desk are in the summary and Visitor management shows up in a bullet under Receptionist. Plain text in the body of the page is easiest for applicant tracking systems to read.
Which tools should I list on a receptionist resume?
The ones you've used and the post mentions. Common ones in receptionist posts include Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Office and Dentrix. Name the tool in the bullet where you used it, not only in the skills list.
Keywords for related roles
All 88 rolesSee which of these your resume already says.
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