Top 12 Communication Technician Skills to Put on Your Resume

In today’s scramble of signals and screens, clear communication keeps everything humming. Communication technicians make that happen. If you want your resume to rise above the noise, stack it with technical muscle and people-savvy proof, showing you can build, tune, and steady the systems that carry voice, video, and data without a hiccup.

Communication Technician Skills

1. Fiber Optics
2. VoIP Systems
3. Ethernet Networking
4. RF Technology
5. SIP Trunking
6. CAT5/CAT6 Cabling
7. Wireless Protocols
8. Cisco Routers
9. Network Security
10. Digital Signage
11. Telephony Systems
12. Broadband Technologies

1. Fiber Optics

Fiber optics moves information as light through hair-thin glass or plastic strands. Blazing speed. Long reach. Tiny loss. It’s the backbone for modern networks, from metro rings to last-mile runs.

Why It's Important

Fiber enables high-capacity, low-latency links that stay stable over distance. For a Communication Technician, that means fewer faults, faster services, and networks that scale without drama.

How to Improve Fiber Optics Skills

Sharper fiber work means cleaner light and sturdier links. Try this:

1. Choose low-loss components: Quality cable, connectors, and pigtails reduce attenuation and reflections.

2. Respect bend radius: Avoid tight bends and crush points; route with gentle curves and proper support.

3. Clean like it matters: Inspect and clean connectors every time. Use proper swabs, cassettes, and scopes.

4. Splice with precision: Fusion splicing beats mechanical for loss and reliability. Calibrate often.

5. Test end-to-end: Validate with power meters, light sources, and OTDR traces to spot breaks, macrobends, and bad terminations.

6. Pick the right mode: Use single-mode for long-haul and higher bandwidth; multimode for short, cost-sensitive runs.

7. Boost and stack light smartly: Use EDFAs where needed and deploy CWDM/DWDM to multiply capacity on existing strands.

Get the fundamentals right, then scale with wavelength multiplexing and disciplined testing. Reliability follows.

How to Display Fiber Optics Skills on Your Resume

2. VoIP Systems

VoIP shifts voice, video, and messaging onto IP networks. It’s call control, media handling, signaling, and quality tweaking, all living on your LAN, WAN, or cloud.

Why It's Important

It cuts cost, folds in features, and rides the same pipes as data. As a technician, you keep conversations crisp, secure, and uninterrupted.

How to Improve VoIP Systems Skills

1. Prioritize traffic: Configure QoS for signaling and media. Police, queue, and shape to tame jitter and loss.

2. Engineer the LAN/WAN: Use Power over Ethernet for phones, redundant switches, and link aggregation. Verify bandwidth headroom during peak hours.

3. Harden security: Enable TLS/SRTP, lock down management access, and deploy SBCs to filter and protect edges.

4. Optimize call routing: Use least-cost routing, local media anchoring, and failover trunks for resilience and lower latency.

5. Monitor relentlessly: Track MOS, jitter, packet loss, and call setup times. Alert on abnormal patterns.

6. Keep firmware fresh: Update phones, gateways, and call controllers. Patch. Reboot windows. Document.

7. Plan redundancy: Geo-redundant call control, backup SIP trunks, and survivable branch setups keep phones alive during outages.

How to Display VoIP Systems Skills on Your Resume

3. Ethernet Networking

Ethernet ties local devices together over copper or fiber. Standards-based. Fast. Flexible. From small office switches to sprawling campus cores.

Why It's Important

It’s the chassis for everything else. Stable Ethernet means stable services—voice, video, apps, you name it.

How to Improve Ethernet Networking Skills

1. Use capable gear: Modern switches/routers, Cat6 or better copper, and clean fiber keep speeds honest.

2. Segment with VLANs: Separate voice, data, and IoT. Reduce broadcast noise and blast radius.

3. Apply QoS: Prioritize real-time traffic. Mark, queue, and police with intention.

4. Design clean topologies: Minimize hops. Use redundant cores with rapid convergence (RSTP/MSTP, or routing with ECMP).

5. Aggregate and scale: Bundle links with LACP. Right-size uplinks to avoid bottlenecks.

6. Tune and secure: Set MTU where it helps, enable storm control, DHCP snooping, and port security.

7. Monitor and log: SNMP, syslog, and flow data reveal issues before users do.

8. Patch and document: Update firmware, track configs, label everything. Future you will be grateful.

How to Display Ethernet Networking Skills on Your Resume

4. RF Technology

RF covers radio waves from kilohertz to gigahertz, moving data through air. Antennas, amplifiers, filters, and the physics that bind them.

Why It's Important

Wireless lives or dies on RF health. From private radio to cellular and satellite, clean spectrum use keeps links alive and usable.

How to Improve RF Technology Skills

1. Model and measure: Use spectrum analyzers, VNAs, and field meters. Validate theory with traces, not guesses.

2. Pick smart modulations: OFDM, efficient coding, and proper symbol rates can lift throughput without more spectrum.

3. Engineer antennas: Aim for the right gain, polarization, and placement. Tune feedlines and keep VSWR low.

4. Fight interference: Filter aggressively, shield where needed, and channel-plan to dodge noise.

5. Mind power and efficiency: Calibrate PAs, consider techniques like Doherty for better linearity and lower heat.

6. Plan the network: Do site surveys, link budgets, and fade margin math. Weather and terrain don’t care about wishful thinking.

7. Stay current: New standards, new bands, new tricks. Keep learning and lab-testing.

How to Display RF Technology Skills on Your Resume

5. SIP Trunking

SIP trunks connect your PBX to the outside world over IP. Fewer legacy circuits, more elasticity, smarter routing.

Why It's Important

It reduces costs, scales fast, and bridges on-prem systems with cloud services. Done right, calls are clear, secure, and resilient.

How to Improve SIP Trunking Skills

1. Pick reliable carriers: Look for strong SLAs, multiple PoPs, and solid support options.

2. Provision bandwidth wisely: Size for peak concurrent calls and codec choices, plus headroom.

3. Prioritize signaling and media: Apply QoS to tame jitter and delay on both LAN and WAN.

4. Secure the edge: Use TLS/SRTP, SBCs, strict firewall rules, and rate limits. Audit call permissions.

5. Route for resilience: Fail over across trunks, regions, and carriers when possible.

6. Watch the metrics: Monitor ASR, ACD, post-dial delay, and error responses to catch issues early.

7. Maintain regularly: Keep PBX and gateways updated, review dial plans, and test DR paths.

How to Display SIP Trunking Skills on Your Resume

6. CAT5/CAT6 Cabling

Twisted-pair copper carries Ethernet and PoE across rooms and floors. CAT5e reliably supports 1 Gbps up to 100 meters. CAT6 supports 1 Gbps to 100 meters and 10 Gbps up to roughly 55 meters. CAT6A pushes 10 Gbps to 100 meters with better shielding and tighter specs.

Why It's Important

Good cabling is quiet cabling—less crosstalk, fewer errors, better speeds. It’s the physical layer you can’t fix with software later.

How to Improve CAT5/CAT6 Cabling Skills

1. Manage cables cleanly: Use Velcro, not zip ties. Keep bend radius, avoid pinch points, and separate from power runs.

2. Use certified materials: Plenum where required, keystones and patch panels that meet standards, and cable from reputable manufacturers.

3. Terminate correctly: Follow T568A or T568B end to end. Use quality tools and maintain punch-down depth.

4. Control interference: Choose shielded cable for noisy environments and ground it properly.

5. Test and certify: Validate with certification testers for length, wiremap, NEXT, return loss, and for PoE load if applicable.

6. Respect distance: Keep total channel length under 100 meters. Add switches or run fiber for longer spans.

7. Label methodically: Panels, jacks, and cables should map to clear documentation for fast troubleshooting.

8. Inspect routinely: Replace damaged cords, re-seat loose terminations, and review patching hygiene.

How to Display CAT5/CAT6 Cabling Skills on Your Resume

7. Wireless Protocols

Wireless protocols set the rules for how devices talk over the air. Think Wi‑Fi standards, Bluetooth, cellular, and more—each with its quirks and strengths.

Why It's Important

Interoperability and performance depend on these standards. Knowing them lets you deploy networks that behave well in the wild.

How to Improve Wireless Protocols Skills

1. Stay current: Wi‑Fi 6/6E is mainstream and Wi‑Fi 7 is arriving. Know the benefits: OFDMA, BSS coloring, wider channels, and lower latency.

2. Tune the RF: Pick channels carefully, respect DFS rules, and balance power levels to limit co-channel interference.

3. Strengthen security: Use WPA3, enable 802.1X where possible, and segment guest and IoT traffic.

4. Design for capacity: Right-size AP density, use band steering, and avoid overusing 80/160 MHz channels in crowded spaces.

5. Mesh and roaming: Enable fast roaming (802.11k/v/r) and mesh only where wiring isn’t feasible.

6. Measure and analyze: Perform site surveys and use packet and spectrum analysis to validate real conditions.

7. Update firmware: APs, controllers, and clients all benefit from bug fixes and performance improvements.

How to Display Wireless Protocols Skills on Your Resume

8. Cisco Routers

These devices steer packets through networks, enforce policies, and secure edges. Versatile workhorses in closets and data centers alike.

Why It's Important

They tie sites together, protect traffic, and keep applications reachable. Properly configured, they quietly prevent chaos.

How to Improve Cisco Routers Skills

1. Keep software updated: Maintain current IOS/IOS XE images with known-stable releases and security fixes.

2. Enable efficient forwarding: Turn on CEF, optimize routing tables, and prune unnecessary routes.

3. Apply QoS and shaping: Prioritize critical apps, shape noisy flows, and enforce SLAs at the edge.

4. Harden access: Use SSH, AAA, role-based access, and secure SNMP. Disable unused services.

5. Instrument the network: Export NetFlow, send syslog, and poll via SNMP for health and capacity planning.

6. Automate and back up: Template configs, version-control changes, and schedule config and image backups.

7. Train continuously: Practice labs, pursue certifications (e.g., CCNA/CCNP), and document design decisions.

How to Display Cisco Routers Skills on Your Resume

9. Network Security

Security keeps data confidential, intact, and available. It’s tools and processes, but also habits and vigilance.

Why It's Important

Breaches disrupt operations and erode trust. As the network’s steward, you reduce risk and keep the lights on.

How to Improve Network Security Skills

1. Patch promptly: Update firmware and software on a regular cadence. Close known holes.

2. Strengthen identity: Enforce MFA, least privilege, and role-based access. Rotate credentials.

3. Encrypt everywhere: Use TLS for services and IPsec or WireGuard for tunnels. Prefer modern ciphers.

4. Segment aggressively: VLANs, ACLs, and firewalls reduce lateral movement. Microsegment critical systems.

5. Monitor and detect: Centralize logs, deploy SIEM/EDR, and alert on anomalies. Hunt routinely.

6. Educate users: Phishing awareness and safe practices matter. People are part of the perimeter.

7. Plan for incidents: Maintain runbooks, practice tabletop exercises, and verify backups and restores.

How to Display Network Security Skills on Your Resume

10. Digital Signage

Screens that inform, sell, and guide—backed by media players and content platforms that schedule and track what shows where.

Why It's Important

One dashboard can update hundreds of displays in real time. That’s powerful for messaging, wayfinding, alerts, and promotions.

How to Improve Digital Signage Skills

1. Elevate content: Crisp layouts, motion where it helps, and resolutions matched to screens. Less clutter, more clarity.

2. Standardize players: Choose reliable hardware, lock down OS settings, and enable remote management.

3. Automate scheduling: Use playlists, dayparting, and rules to deliver the right message at the right time.

4. Monitor proactively: Heartbeats, screenshots, and alerts when a player or panel drops.

5. Design for environments: Proper brightness, orientation, and mounting. Mind heat and ventilation.

6. Measure engagement: Use opt-in analytics and privacy-safe metrics to refine content strategy.

7. Plan for accessibility and safety: Readability, captioning where needed, and emergency override paths.

How to Display Digital Signage Skills on Your Resume

11. Telephony Systems

From legacy PBXs to cloud UCaaS, telephony systems carry voice and often much more—presence, conferencing, messaging, and integration with business apps.

Why It's Important

When phones fail, work stalls. Solid design and maintenance keep conversations flowing and emergency services reachable.

How to Improve Telephony Systems Skills

1. Modernize where it counts: Migrate to VoIP and unified communications for flexibility and features.

2. Secure the perimeter: Deploy SBCs, enforce strong authentication, and restrict dialing to prevent toll fraud.

3. Engineer QoS: Prioritize RTP and signaling end to end. Align codecs with available bandwidth.

4. Integrate smartly: Connect call control with directories, CRMs, and identity providers for a smoother user experience.

5. Test failover: Redundant power, controllers, trunks, and E911 routing with regular drills.

6. Train users: Quick guides and short trainings cut tickets and boost adoption.

7. Document dial plans: Keep clear, versioned dial plan logic and number inventories.

How to Display Telephony Systems Skills on Your Resume

12. Broadband Technologies

Broadband spans fiber, cable, copper, satellite, and wireless to push big data fast. GPON/XGS-PON, DOCSIS 3.1/4.0, 5G, fixed wireless access—different paths to the same goal: capacity and reach.

Why It's Important

Everyone expects instant everything. Broadband delivers the headroom for streaming, cloud apps, telephony, and future growth.

How to Improve Broadband Technologies Skills

1. Upgrade core infrastructure: Extend fiber deeper (FTTx), adopt XGS-PON for symmetric multi‑gig, and improve backhaul capacity.

2. Adopt newer standards: Move to Wi‑Fi 6/6E (and plan for 7), 5G Standalone where feasible, and advanced DSL only where fiber is out of reach.

3. Manage spectrum smartly: Use cleaner channels, dynamic allocation, and licensed or shared bands (e.g., CBRS) to cut congestion.

4. Optimize the network: Apply traffic shaping, QoS, and caching. Instrument with telemetry for capacity planning.

5. Explore emerging tech: Track Li‑Fi pilots, next‑gen PON, and low‑earth‑orbit satellite backhaul for hard-to-reach sites.

Marry robust physical layers with sharp monitoring and you’ll deliver broadband that feels effortless to the end user.

How to Display Broadband Technologies Skills on Your Resume