A generic keyword list gets you through a generic filter. What you actually need is ATS keywords by industry, because the terms that mark you as credible in nursing are invisible in logistics, and the software a finance recruiter searches for never appears in a marketing posting. This guide gives nine sector lists — role terms, tools and certifications — and shows how to check that yours is still current.
Use it twice. Before you write, so no obvious term is missing; and after you write, as a gap check against the posting in front of you.
The Three Kinds of Keyword Every Sector List Contains
Recruiters do not read a database the way they read a resume. They run searches against it, and those searches are built from three kinds of term — which is why every list below is split the same way.
Role and process terms name what the job does: month-end close, demand planning, curriculum design. They are the hardest to fake and the most likely to be missing from a resume written from memory rather than from a posting.
Tools and software are the most searched of the three because they are unambiguous. Either your resume says Salesforce or it does not. There is no partial credit on a tool name.
Certifications and credentials behave as filters rather than ranking signals. In regulated sectors — healthcare, accounting, teaching, food service — a missing licence is a hard stop, not a lost point.
A fourth category is deliberately absent from every table: soft skills. Team player and detail-oriented match every candidate in the database, so they rank none of them, and they cost you the line they sit on. The same logic applies to the resume buzzwords worth deleting.
ATS Keywords by Industry: Nine Sector Lists
Each table is a starting vocabulary, not a shopping list. Take the terms you can defend, written the way your sector actually writes them.
Sales and Business Development
| Keyword type | Terms to use |
|---|---|
| Role and process | pipeline management, quota attainment, lead qualification, account management, territory planning, contract negotiation, forecasting, upselling, churn reduction, B2B sales cycle |
| Tools and software | Salesforce, HubSpot CRM, Pipedrive, Outreach, Salesloft, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Gong |
| Certifications | Salesforce Certified Administrator, HubSpot Sales Software, MEDDIC, Challenger Sales |
Customer Service and Support
| Keyword type | Terms to use |
|---|---|
| Role and process | first-contact resolution, ticket triage, escalation management, SLA compliance, CSAT, Net Promoter Score, omnichannel support, knowledge base maintenance, customer retention |
| Tools and software | Zendesk, Salesforce Service Cloud, Freshdesk, Intercom, Jira Service Management, Talkdesk |
| Certifications | Zendesk Support Administrator, HDI Support Center Analyst, ITIL Foundation |
Marketing and Communications
| Keyword type | Terms to use |
|---|---|
| Role and process | demand generation, content strategy, SEO, paid acquisition, conversion rate optimisation, marketing automation, lifecycle email, brand positioning, attribution, campaign management |
| Tools and software | Google Analytics 4, Google Ads, Meta Ads Manager, HubSpot, Semrush, Mailchimp, Looker Studio, Figma |
| Certifications | Google Ads certifications, Google Analytics certification, HubSpot Inbound Marketing, Meta Blueprint |
Finance and Accounting
| Keyword type | Terms to use |
|---|---|
| Role and process | month-end close, financial reporting, variance analysis, budgeting and forecasting, accounts payable, accounts receivable, reconciliation, internal controls, audit support, IFRS, cash flow management |
| Tools and software | SAP, Oracle NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics 365, QuickBooks, Sage, Power BI, advanced Excel (pivot tables, Power Query) |
| Certifications | CPA, ACCA, CIMA, CFA, Certified Internal Auditor |
Healthcare and Nursing
| Keyword type | Terms to use |
|---|---|
| Role and process | patient assessment, care planning, medication administration, triage, infection control, clinical documentation, discharge planning, patient safety, wound care, vital signs monitoring |
| Tools and software | Epic, Oracle Health (Cerner), MEDITECH, electronic health records (EHR), electronic medical records (EMR) |
| Certifications | registered nurse licence, Basic Life Support (BLS), Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS), Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), Certified Nursing Assistant |
Education and Training
| Keyword type | Terms to use |
|---|---|
| Role and process | curriculum design, lesson planning, differentiated instruction, formative assessment, learning outcomes, classroom management, individualised education plan (IEP), instructional design, ADDIE model, student engagement |
| Tools and software | Google Classroom, Canvas LMS, Moodle, Blackboard, Articulate Storyline, Kahoot |
| Certifications | state teaching licence or qualified teacher status, PGCE, CELTA, TEFL or TESOL, Google Certified Educator |
Retail and Hospitality
| Keyword type | Terms to use |
|---|---|
| Role and process | inventory control, shrinkage reduction, visual merchandising, footfall conversion, upselling, cash handling, staff scheduling, stock replenishment, food safety, guest satisfaction |
| Tools and software | point-of-sale systems (Square, Lightspeed, Toast), Opera PMS, SAP Retail, UKG (Kronos), OpenTable |
| Certifications | HACCP, food hygiene certificate, ServSafe, first aid, alcohol service licence |
Logistics, Supply Chain and Manufacturing
| Keyword type | Terms to use |
|---|---|
| Role and process | demand planning, inventory optimisation, warehouse management, route optimisation, lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, Kaizen, 5S, overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), supplier management, customs compliance, Incoterms |
| Tools and software | SAP MM, SAP WM, Oracle SCM, Manhattan WMS, AutoCAD, Power BI |
| Certifications | APICS CPIM, APICS CSCP, Six Sigma Green Belt, Six Sigma Black Belt, ISO 9001 internal auditor, forklift licence |
IT and Software Engineering
| Keyword type | Terms to use |
|---|---|
| Role and process | CI/CD, code review, test automation, microservices, API design, infrastructure as code, incident response, observability, Agile, Scrum, technical debt reduction |
| Tools and software | Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Java, SQL, AWS, Azure, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Git, Jenkins |
| Certifications | AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Azure Administrator Associate, Certified Kubernetes Administrator, Certified ScrumMaster, CompTIA Security+ |
How Many of These Keywords Should You Actually Use?
Between ten and fifteen distinct terms across the whole resume — not per section. Past that point the density that made the list useful starts working against you, because modern parsers weigh context: a keyword sitting in a comma-separated wall scores lower than the same keyword inside a sentence about something you delivered.
Choosing which ten to fifteen follows the same triage as any tailoring pass: non-negotiable terms first, differentiating terms second, generic filler never. Our guide to resume keywords for ATS sets out that triage in detail, including how to spot the terms a hiring manager dictated rather than the ones HR pasted in.
Do
- Start with the terms that also appear in the posting you are answering
- Keep the exact form your sector uses — Salesforce, not CRM software
- Spell an acronym out once, then use it: Certified Public Accountant (CPA)
- Drop any term you could not discuss for two minutes in an interview
Avoid
- Pasting a whole sector list into the skills block
- Repeating the same keyword in every bullet point
- Claiming a tool you have only watched somebody else use
- Borrowing terms from a sector you have never worked in
Where Do Industry Keywords Belong on the Page?
Three places, in order of weight: the headline under your name, the skills block, and the experience bullets. The headline and the skills block are where a tool keyword registers fastest. The bullets are where a process term becomes believable.
Listing a term in the skills block alone is the most common half-measure. Inventory optimisation as a skill is a claim; the same phrase inside a bullet that names the stock reduction you delivered is evidence. Our bullet point examples by industry show that shape sector by sector, so you can see where a keyword earns its place.
Certifications are the exception to the ranking logic: give them their own line with the full name and the acronym, because a filter looking for CPA will not infer it from chartered accountant.
Which Sector's Keywords Do You Use If You Are Changing Industries?
The target sector's, with one exception. A filter built for the job you are applying to searches the vocabulary of that job, so a resume still written in the language of the sector you are leaving reads as a near-miss however strong the experience underneath it is.
The exception is the transferable middle of the two lists. Demand planning means the same thing in manufacturing and in retail; SLA compliance travels from IT support to customer service intact. Those overlaps are where you keep your own wording and still match, so find them before you rewrite anything.
Put the two tables side by side and mark every term that appears in both. Those go in first, because they are the only lines on the page that are at once true of your past and searchable by your future employer. Terms that exist only in the sector you are leaving move to the bottom or come out — a filter scores them as noise, and a reader takes them as a candidate who has not made the switch yet.
How to Check the List Is Still Current for Your Sector
Sector vocabulary moves, and a list copied from a blog post ages quietly. Three public databases let you check yours in about ten minutes, and none of them charges for it.
For tool keywords, start with O*NET's Hot Technologies list. O*NET defines these as requirements frequently included across employer job postings, and under each technology it sorts occupations by the percentage of that occupation's postings that mention it — so you can tell whether a tool is definitional for your role or merely adjacent to it.
For role and process terms, the Occupational Outlook Handbook, published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, groups occupations by family and describes the duties of each in the language the sector itself uses.
If you apply in Europe or in Spanish, use ESCO, the European Commission's classification of skills and occupations. Its skills pillar carries 13,939 entries in 28 languages, which gives you the accepted local wording instead of an English term you translated yourself.
What If Your Industry Is Not on the List?
Build the list yourself in about twenty minutes. The method works for any sector, including the narrow ones no keyword article will ever cover.
- Collect four current postings for the job title you want, from four different employers. Four is enough to separate the vocabulary of the role from the vocabulary of one company.
- Mark every term that appears in three or more of them. That overlap is the definitional core of the role — the part no posting leaves out.
- Sort the overlap into the three types above: role and process, tools and software, certifications. A type with nothing in it is a signal, not an omission; some sectors genuinely have no credential gate.
- Cross out anything you cannot evidence. What remains is your list, already ordered by how often employers ask for it.
Whichever route you take, the final step is the same: compare the finished resume against the posting, not against the list. Our resume and job description match does that comparison for you — it reads both documents, scores the overlap and names the terms from the posting your resume never mentions, which is precisely the gap a sector list cannot see.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does an ATS reject a resume for missing keywords?
Not on its own. Most systems rank rather than reject, so a resume with few matching keywords lands far down a list a recruiter may never scroll. The practical effect is the same as a rejection, but the cause is position, not a rule.
Should I copy my whole industry list into my resume?
No. Ten to fifteen well-placed terms beat forty stuffed ones, because parsers weigh the context around a keyword as well as its presence. A long undifferentiated list also reads as padding to the person who opens the file afterwards.
Are ATS keywords the same for the same job in different countries?
The tools usually are; the process terms and credentials often are not. CPA in the United States, ACCA in the UK and Grado en ADE in Spain point at comparable roles with entirely different search terms, so check the local wording before you reuse a list abroad.
Do I need the exact wording from the posting, or will a synonym do?
Use the exact wording for tools, certifications and job titles, where a filter matches strings rather than meaning. For process terms a close synonym is usually safe, though mirroring the posting costs nothing and removes the doubt.
Where should certifications go so the filter finds them?
On their own line in a dedicated certifications section, with the full name followed by the acronym in brackets. Burying a licence inside an experience bullet works for a human reader and fails for a keyword search.