Director and VP resume keywords

We counted the skills in 2,234 open director and VP job postings from 294 employers, including iCapital, Braze and Oscar Health. The ones employers ask for most are sales (43% of postings), marketing (34%) and product roadmap (28%). 66% of the postings mention AI, though often in the company's description rather than as a skill the job needs.

Top skills and tools in director and VP postings

#	Keyword	Share of postings
1	sales	43%
2	marketing	34%
3	product roadmap	28%
4	go-to-market	26%
5	partnerships	22%
6	compliance	22%
7	forecasting	16%
8	automation	15%
9	analytics	14%
10	SaaS	12%
11	negotiation	12%
12	onboarding	11%
13	process improvement	11%
14	communications	10%
15	KPIs	10%
16	business development	10%
17	product management	9%
18	product marketing	9%
19	customer success	9%
20	customer experience	9%
21	procurement	9%
22	budgeting	8%
23	manufacturing	8%
24	payments	8%
25	campaign management	8%
26	machine learning	7%
27	quota attainment	7%
28	A/B testing	7%
29	enterprise sales	7%
30	contract negotiation	7%

Share of the 2,234 postings whose description names the skill (plurals and common spellings, such as “JS” and “JavaScript”, count as one).

Soft skills employers mention

leadership · 44%cross-functional · 17%reporting · 15%ownership · 10%communication · 9%collaboration · 9%coaching · 5%analytical skills · 4%

Show these through results in your bullets (“led a team of six”) rather than listing them as adjectives.

How to use these keywords on your director and VP resume

Start with the posting, not this list. These are averages across 2,234 jobs; the one you're applying for has its own priorities. Use this page to spot common gaps, then match the specific posting.
Name skills the way employers do. If you use “sales”, “marketing” and “product roadmap”, write those exact words. Applicant tracking systems and recruiters search for them, and a close synonym can be missed.
Put each skill in a bullet that shows a result. Naming go-to-market inside a bullet about what you achieved with it, with a number where you can, is stronger than listing it alone in a skills section.
Add only what's true. If you've worked with “go-to-market”, “partnerships” and “compliance” but your resume doesn't say so, add it. If you haven't, leave it out: interviews expose padded resumes quickly.

More about director and VP jobs

Resume keywords for other jobs

How these numbers are calculated

Every figure comes from open director and VP job postings on MANY Hired, imported from employers' own career pages. For each posting we pick out the skills, tools, certifications and qualifications its description names, then count how many postings ask for each one. A job counts as director and VP by its title. Updated October 28, 2026.