Skip to Main Content

Front Desk Must-Have Resume Skills and Keywords

Are you interested in improving your job outlook and increasing your salary? How can you demonstrate that you are the most qualified candidate for a Front Desk position? Of course continuing to gain experience working as a Front Desk may be your best qualification, but there are other ways you can also develop your skills, like continuing education or volunteer opportunities. More immediately, however, you can be ready for your next opportunity or promotion by educating yourself about the duties, responsibilities, and required skills of a Front Desk and making sure your resume reflects your experience properly.

In order to do so, you’ll want to know that both employers hiring for a Front Desk and those who list the position of Front Desk on their resumes predominantly feature Receptionist and Customer Service as the most common and important terms, respectively. But the list quickly begins to diverge with resumes showing Scheduling, Cashier and Communication Skills at positions three, four and five, while job listings show a different pattern. Do you know what you would list?

We designed the ZipRecruiter Career Keyword Mapper to help you solve this problem and hopefully improve your resume. Using machine learning tools paired with industry research, our Marketplace Research Team helped analyze millions of job postings and resumes to identify the most important keywords related to Front Desk jobs. Our goal is to help you discover opportunities to improve your resume or to help you understand what skills and qualifications you need to be a Front Desk or to advance your career into beyond this role.

Top Skills Mentioned in Job Descriptions

Top
10
Job Skills
Employers list the keywords Receptionist and Customer Service in 50.54% of Front Desk job postings. Having such a significant share of the pie suggests these terms are critical to your resume. Scheduling, Detail Oriented and Answering Phones are still quite important, but a smaller sliceof the employer Front Desk job postings with their combined total of 21.11%. At 18.12%, Multi Tasking, Reservation Management, Clinic, and Clerical Skills appear far less frequently, but are still a significant portion of the 10 top Front Desk skills and requirements according to employers.

Top Skills Mentioned in Resumes

Top
10
Job Skills
The top three keywords people who held Front Desk descriptions listed on their resumes are Receptionist (appearing on 24.82%), Customer Service (appearing on 18.96%), and Scheduling (appearing on 10.33%). 54.11% of resumes with Front Desk descriptions have at least one of these terms. The Resume Checklist will help you make sense of whether or not employers are also demanding these skills. Cashier, Communication Skills, and Answering Phones are still quite common, and a respectable share of skills found on resumes for Front Desk with 21.98% of the total. At 23.93%, English Speaking, Microsoft Excel, Data Entry, and Multi Tasking appear far less frequently, but are still a significant portion of the 10 top Front Desk skills and qualifications found on resumes.

Most Important Skills Required to Be a Front Desk as Listed by Employers and Employees

Here is a simple table of the top 10 skills and qualifications as listed by employers in Front Desk job postings since January of 2018, followed by the top 10 skills and qualifications most commonly listed by people who held the title of Front Desk on their resumes.
Top Front Desk Skills
Skills Required by Employers Share
Receptionist 32.70%
Customer Service 17.84%
Communication Skills 10.23%
Scheduling 9.07%
Detail Oriented 6.25%
Answering Phones 5.79%
Multi Tasking 5.30%
Reservation Management 4.49%
Clinic 4.32%
Clerical Skills 4.01%
Skills Listed by Employees Share
Receptionist 24.82%
Customer Service 18.96%
Scheduling 10.33%
Cashier 7.61%
Communication Skills 7.47%
Answering Phones 6.90%
English Speaking 6.77%
Microsoft Excel 6.27%
Data Entry 5.62%
Multi Tasking 5.27%

Front Desk Resume Checklist

Our Resume Keyword Checklist is based upon an analysis of the most commonly found terms within both job descriptions and resumes for Front Desk positions. Our algorithm helps isolate phrases and patterns to identify the most frequently recurring and reused keywords from each data source, while correcting for uncommon and outlier results. Various heuristic methodologies are then applied to ultimately create two top 20 lists of the most important and significant skills, certificates and requirements found within Front Desk job postings and resumes. We then merge the two lists together and use a combination of statistics and rules-based scenarios to create a list that is audited by the Marketplace Research team, and finally turned into the checklist you see below. Our hope is that knowing this information can help you make your best impression with your next potential employer.
Uncommon Keywords on Front Desk Resumes
We did not find any skills or qualifications that were common on Front Desk job descriptions, but uncommon on Front Desk resumes.
Common Keywords on Front Desk Resumes
Job Descriptions
Resumes
25%
50%
75%
100%
Memorization
Innovation
Computer Literacy
Guest Service
Clerical Skills
Both employer job listings and resumes from people who’ve held the position of Front Desk tend to always include skills and requirements found in this list. Whether you’ve only got Memorization, Innovation, Computer Literacy, Guest Service or Clerical Skills in your background and experience, make sure to highlight the term prominently on your resume. As a candidate you’ll be competing with many others who are bound to have as many as you (or more!) of these common resume keywords highlighted in their application for a job as a Front Desk.
Uncommon Keywords on Front Desk Job Descriptions
Job Descriptions
Resumes
25%
50%
75%
100%
Hospitality
Front Office
Clinic
Communication Skills
Detail Oriented
Receptionist
Interpersonal Skills
HIPAA
Reservation Management
Multi Tasking
Customer Service
Scheduling
Answering Phones
Employer job listings rarely list Hospitality, Front Office, Clinic, Communication Skills, Detail Oriented, Receptionist, Interpersonal Skills, HIPAA, Reservation Management, Multi Tasking, Customer Service, Scheduling or Answering Phones as important skills or qualifications in Front Desk job descriptions. Nevertheless, candidates mention them much more commonly in their resumes. If you possess any or all of these experiences, including these keywords prominently on your resume when applying for a Front Desk position may go unnoticed or even discounted by hiring managers.

FAQs about Front Desk Skills and Resume Keywords

What are the most important Front Desk job skills to have on my resume?

The most common important skills required by employers are Memorization, Innovation, Computer Literacy, Guest Service and Clerical Skills. These skills and requirements are just as likely to be mentioned by employers as well as on resumes of people that held a position as a Front Desk, suggesting that having these keywords on a resume are important for success as a Front Desk.

What are the least important Front Desk job skills to have on my resume?

Although you'd probably love to load up your resume with every possible keyword you can, employers tend to look for the things they specify in the job description. Our analysis suggests that highlighting too prominently terms like Hospitality, Front Office, Clinic, Communication Skills, Detail Oriented, Receptionist and Interpersonal Skills may be something to reconsider. These 7 terms appear 2.48, 2.73, 2.74, 2.95, 2.99, 3.07 and 3.08 times less frequently, respectively, than in job descriptions for a Front Desk role. This implies that highlighting any of these keywords on your resume may not be a great way to impress a potential employer.

How do I make sure my resume has all of the right keywords for a Front Desk position?

Unless your resume has a good density of the following skills and experience listed, you may not be considered for the role of Front Desk. Make sure to include a strong showing for the following keywords on your resume:
  • Memorization
  • Innovation
  • Computer Literacy
  • Guest Service
  • Clerical Skills
Finally people who held the position of a Front Desk and list it on their resume are adding these terms that are less likely to be noticed by employers. You may want to consider downplaying these terms on your Front Desk application:
  • Hospitality
  • Front Office
  • Clinic
  • Communication Skills
  • Detail Oriented
  • Receptionist
  • Interpersonal Skills
  • HIPAA
  • Reservation Management
  • Multi Tasking
  • Customer Service
  • Scheduling
  • Answering Phones

Before applying for a Front Desk job

At ZipRecruiter, we understand better than anyone the importance of using the right keywords to describe your experience — it’s crucial to attracting the right employers! We built our business on the ability to effectively match job seekers with employers using AI-technology that understands your resume and how likely you are to be noticed by a potential future employer. Having a ZipRecruiter profile that showcases your most relevant skills and abilities can help you get recruited into a new role as a Front Desk. Get started on your journey with a new ZipRecruiter Profile today!