Trying to find something is scanning. It's as if searching for a word in a book. You flip the pages quickly, until you see it.

Skimming is reading headlines. As long as you read the first few words, it's intuitive what is being said.

Examples:

Scanning: A job seeker rapidly scans through a job posting looking for terms such as experience required, salary range and an application deadline.

Skimming: The job seeker mainly skims the job description to understand what kind of roles and qualifications are required in the position.

Scanning: A student scans a research paper to find specific data points, such as statistics or experimental results.

Skimming: The student skims the paper's introduction and conclusion to get an overview of the main argument and findings.