Key Takeaways
- Many important skills, like Cloud, DevOps, automation, and soft skills, are often missed in tech CVs.
- Recruiters should not just search for keywords; they need to ask about the real results a candidate achieved.
- Soft skills such as teamwork, communication, and adaptability are hard to see on a CV but are very important.
- Automation and scripting can save a lot of time and money, but candidates usually write them too simply, so recruiters may overlook them.
- Depending only on CV tools can make companies lose good talent.
- The best hiring happens when technology is balanced with human judgment.
- Fortray helps by combining smart tools with expert recruiters who carefully check both hard and soft skills.
- With Fortray, companies don’t just hire someone for the job; they hire someone who can work well with the team, grow, and add long-term value.
When recruiters look at a tech professional’s CV, their first instinct is usually to check for the basics. Basics include the job titles, the years of experience, and the list of technical skills like programming languages, tools, and frameworks. Undoubtedly, these things matter a lot, but you cannot put your entire focus on this, as this will result in missing the real story behind the CV. A strong tech CV is not just about what tools a person knows, but how they’ve used those tools to solve problems.
Moreover, another common blind spot is the less obvious skills. Many recruiters overlook tech skills like Docker, Terraform, or even a new programming language, simply because they don’t recognise them or they’re not on the official job description. The same happens with transferable skills. A system administrator moving toward DevOps or a data analyst stepping into machine learning. On paper, their old title may not match the new role, but their experience and adaptability could be a perfect fit. Unfortunately, recruiters often don’t make that connection.
Soft skills are another area that rarely gets the attention it deserves. Tech is not just about coding in a corner. It’s not just about knowing the tools; it’s about working well with different teams, explaining ideas clearly, adapting to changes, and sometimes even leading projects. Many candidates show these strengths through side projects, contributing to open-source, mentoring juniors, or writing tech blogs. These are signs of good communication, leadership, and initiative, but they can be missed if a recruiter only looks for technical keywords.
In short, recruiters often focus too much on hard skills and forget to notice the bigger picture. They miss important qualities like creativity, problem-solving, eagerness to learn, and cultural fit. These qualities are what truly make a tech professional valuable. So if you are also a recruiter or an employer looking for credible candidates, then this blog is a jackpot for you. This will help you explore the top 5 key tech skills recruiters frequently fail to spot and how to fix these blind spots to improve hiring outcomes.
Top 5 Overlooked Tech Skills
1. Cloud & DevOps Skills
Cloud and DevOps skills are some of the most in-demand areas in tech today, yet recruiters fail to fully spot them on a CV. Why is that? The main reason behind it is that candidates don’t always spell out the depth of what they’ve done.
For example, a CV might just mention “AWS” or “Azure” under technical skills. But writing one word doesn’t explain much. It doesn’t tell the recruiter if the person only hosted a small website on the cloud or if they actually built a full system with automation, pipelines, containers, and monitoring.
How to fix it?
Recruiters who rely only on keyword scanning often treat both cases as the same, which means they miss the real experts. Another reason is that job titles don’t always reflect DevOps responsibilities. For instance, a Software Engineer or a System Administrator may have done serious DevOps work, but if the recruiter does not read it thoroughly, they will miss the credible candidate.
2. Cybersecurity Awareness
Cybersecurity awareness is one of the most underappreciated skills in tech CVs. The issue is that many tech professionals don’t have “cybersecurity” in their job title, but they still practice it every day. If you are in the tech industry, you must be aware that a software engineer might secure APIs, a DevOps engineer might set up access controls in AWS, or a data analyst might encrypt sensitive data.
Right? These are important security measures, but on a CV, they usually get buried under broad technical descriptions. Since recruiters often scan for direct keywords, they completely miss the fact that the candidate has hands-on security knowledge built into their work.
How to fix it?
This problem can be solved if recruiters look closely at the details and ask smart questions. Instead of just searching for job titles with the word “security,” they should notice phrases like “set up authentication,” “fixed security issues,” or “created role-based access.” These show that the person really understands cybersecurity.
During interviews, they can go deeper by asking candidates. This approach uncovers hidden strengths that aren’t always obvious on paper. Recruiters can also encourage candidates to highlight security practices as part of their achievements, not just list them as tools. This way, it becomes easier to see the value of each candidate.
3. Data Engineering & Integration
Data engineering and integration is another overlooked tech skill. Many tech professionals don’t just use databases or write code. What they do is actually build systems that move data smoothly from one place to another, clean it up, and make it ready for business use.
For example, someone might have created a process that pulls information from different apps, organises it, and delivers it quickly for reporting or machine learning. But on their CV, it usually shows up as just “SQL” or “Python,” which is too basic. Due to this, what happens is that recruiters often think the candidate only ran simple queries, when in fact they were designing smart pipelines that keep a company’s data flowing without issues.
How to fix it?
The fix for this problem is pretty simple. Recruiters need to look beyond the tool names and focus on what the candidate actually did with them. Instead of just checking the basics, move forward with a thorough evaluation. Ask thorough technical questions in the interview. These questions help uncover hidden strengths that might not be written clearly on a CV. Also, by doing this, recruiters can spot strong data engineering talent before their competitors do.
4. Automation & Scripting
Automation and scripting are very important in today’s tech world. Many tasks like setting up servers, testing, managing backups, or moving data are repeated again and again. If these are done by hand, they take a lot of time and mistakes can happen. With automation and scripting, the same work can be done quickly, without errors, and on a larger scale. This saves companies a lot of time and money, and it also shows that the person has strong problem-solving skills. Even though these are powerful abilities, recruiters often overlook them on a CV.
Why do they miss it? The main reason is presentation. Candidates often mention automation in very short, technical lines like “wrote a Python script” or “used Bash for automation.” To a recruiter who isn’t technical, that might sound vague and unimportant. What they don’t realise is that the same script could have saved a whole team hours of work every single week.
How to fix it?
Automation doesn’t always come with a flashy title. A system administrator, QA tester, or support engineer might build amazing scripts, but if their job title doesn’t scream “DevOps” or “Software Engineer,” recruiters might skim past it. The only solution to this is to dig deeper, asking what those scripts achieved, rather than just checking if the candidate listed a tool.
5. Soft Skills in Tech Contexts
Soft skills are usually undervalued. Why? The reason is simple. It is because most recruiters are trained to scan CVs for hard technical skills like programming languages, frameworks, or certifications. These are easy to see because they’re written as keywords. But skills like communication, teamwork, adaptability, or problem-solving don’t always show up in bullet points. A developer may have led daily stand-ups, explained complex systems to non-technical stakeholders, or mentored juniors, but unless this is clearly stated in the CV, recruiters skim it.
Another issue is that recruiters sometimes assume that if someone is good at coding, then the soft skills don’t matter as much. When in reality, tech projects succeed or fail depending on collaboration and communication across teams.
How to fix it?
The fix is to shift how recruiters evaluate candidates. Instead of just relying on keyword searches or job titles, recruiters should look for signals of soft skills hidden in project descriptions or side activities. They should evaluate by posing different questions and giving different situations. These open-ended questions bring out the human side of the candidate that a CV parsing tool will almost always miss.
How Fortray Helps You Spot Hidden Tech Skills
Fortray knows that hiring the right tech professional is about much more than ticking off a list of technical skills. Many recruitment processes focus only on tools and certifications. They miss to see the softer side of what makes someone successful in a role, like their ability to collaborate, communicate, and adapt.
You must be thinking how Fotray handle this issue? Right? Our recruiters go beyond keyword scanning and job titles to understand the person behind the CV. We carefully screen candidates, asking the right questions to analyse how they’ve worked in teams, solved real challenges, and explained complex ideas in simple ways.
By combining smart technology with the human insight of our recruitment experts, we make sure our clients never miss out on candidates who have both the hard skills to deliver and the soft skills to drive projects forward. Fortray’s role is to connect businesses with tech talent that doesn’t just fit the job, but fits the team. We make sure that our protocols are not compromised at any cost.
Start hiring smarter with Fortray’s customised recruitment solutions designed to identify, assess, and secure the best tech professionals for your business needs.
Final Thoughts: A Shift in How We Read Tech CVs
Recruiting tech professionals in today’s fast-moving digital world needs more than just scanning for job titles and a list of technical tools. We witnessed that many recruiters unintentionally overlook vital capabilities such as deep cloud and DevOps experience, cybersecurity awareness, hidden data engineering expertise, automation skills, and, most importantly, soft skills that define how a candidate will perform within a team.
Missing these qualities doesn’t just mean losing out on good talent. It means losing people who can actually drive success to your business. By blending smart technology with hands-on recruitment expertise, we identify not only what candidates can do but also how they work. Our role is to make sure employers never miss the professionals who bring both technical and human strengths to the table.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Recruiters shouldn’t just look for words like AWS or Azure on a CV. They should check how the candidate used those tools. For example, did they build an automated system or create a CI/CD pipeline that saved time? Asking about results in interviews is the best way to find real DevOps skills.
Soft skills don’t usually show up as clear keywords. They’re often hidden in project stories like leading daily meetings, helping juniors, or explaining complex tech to non-tech teams. Recruiters need to look closely at these details or ask questions that reveal teamwork and communication.
Automation can save a company lots of time and money. But candidates often write it simply, like “made a Python script.” Without asking what that script actually solved, recruiters might miss how strong the candidate’s problem-solving skills are.
Companies should mix technology with human review. CV tools are useful for shortlisting, but expert recruiters — like those at Fortray — go deeper. They ask better questions, hold structured interviews, and check cultural fit to make sure no important skill is ignored.
Fortray uses both smart tools and human expertise. We review CVs, ask real-life scenario questions, and check for both technical and soft skills. Our goal is to help businesses hire people who bring long-term success.
