Over half of all employees have said they never included soft skills in their resumes. By doing so, you can ensure you have significant career success by communicating more ways in which you are suited for the role. So, what are soft skills you can put on your resume to give you a leg up?
Below, we list many of the most useful soft skills one can have in a corporate environment. Work out which ones apply to you the strongest and follow our advice to apply them to your resume-writing tasks moving forward.
In today's modern world, there might be all sorts of things that cause a project to change partway. This is why adaptability is one of the most important soft skills to have and also why Agile development of projects is so popular.
One of the main benefits of adaptability you can highlight is how it helps you learn new skills. Difficult situations push you in new directions, and this is something many companies respect. It can also help a potential employer see you are willing to work with diverse or changing teams if that is the experience you have.
When writing your resume, you can talk about earlier experiences in handling a project when it changed scope. If prior roles have had you handling the need to move resources as the floor underneath you shifted, this is the perfect thing to highlight.
Other examples of how to discuss this can include pointing out when you worked in a fast-paced environment. If you need to think on your feet and follow through with snap decisions, bring those up during later interviews.
Communicating well is one of the most critical soft skills when it comes to working in a busy office. Luckily it is one that you show off through the act of resume writing itself.
There are many different types of good communication, though. First, you will want to discuss how good your written communication skills are. This is often done by discussing earlier examples of where you have created clear and concise documentation for others.
You can also express how well you have communicated. For example, you may have conducted meetings or collaborated with others, or you might have given presentations. Each of these is an example of a place or time you could use to highlight good communication.
Communication does not only involve expression, though. So, you will want to share times when you have used active listening skills in the workplace to improve a situation.
Some examples include when resolving interpersonal or professional conflicts. Or, you could have needed to understand and resolve another worker's needs.
If you work directly with clients, this is another perfect way to show how you listen. You can use customer collaboration as an example of both listening and expressing in the workplace.
On top of these suggestions, if you work in a diverse or cross-cultural workplace, you can highlight this. It will help your potential employers see how your communication skills can span cultural barriers. This can help them if they expect to increase their internal diversity or if they have external clients from other cultures.
Conflict resolution is highly valued by management across the world. It helps them avoid drama, HR issues, or even lawsuits. It can also maintain a positive environment and help companies complete work by stopping issues from escalating.
If you wish to speak about conflict resolution on your resume, do not go into detail on any specific issue. People may see it as both rude and also a breach of any non-disclosure agreement you may have signed at an earlier company.
Instead, discuss your ability to manage difficult situations or conversations. Use examples that do not have details or that cannot be traced back to any company. This can include tense negotiations with clients or issues related to customer complaints.
By putting this on your resume, you can show how you can be diplomatic as well as your level of tact and grace. It also shows the company can likely trust you with difficult situations and expect you to come out of them all the better for it.
Another benefit of talking about these skills is that you can highlight your emotional intelligence. You can show off how you can both manage your own emotional state as well as avoid getting embroiled in the conflict. It also allows people to see how you can empathize with and understand others' positions.
This is a very difficult skill to foster, and many companies are open to new employees who can help them with this.
One of our best resume tips is to discuss your creativity when talking about earlier projects. In the modern workplace, thinking outside the box is often lauded due to how it can lead to useful shortcuts and save money. Many companies have even appeared out of people thinking outside established boxes, such as Uber or delivery services.
In the resume, discuss how you have generated new ideas for the companies you have worked for. Talk about your process if you can, or discuss one example of a relevant creative project you are especially proud of.
Specifically, think of a time when you were not only creative on your own, but in a group. Diversity in creative groups is often shown to produce better results. Thus, it is important to show you can accept others' creativity as well as employ your own to solve a task.
Critical thinking is a skill that helps one solve complicated problems by evaluating them from several points of view. Making decisions from such an informed position can help with debating or fixing issues others may struggle with.
When writing your resume, discuss how you have been able to analyze difficult situations or tasks with the tools provided. Discuss challenges in this, especially when not given the resources one would usually receive in such a situation.
When talking about solutions, make it clear how you weighed the pros and cons of each choice, leading to a conclusion. You may not be able to get into this kind of detail in the resume, though it may act as a prompt for questions that come into play during a later interview.
Expressing your understanding of both your own emotions, as well as others, can be a fantastic boon to any worker. Our resume tips would be lax if we did not suggest you talk about how this skill has helped you in earlier roles.
Push the idea that it helps you manage your response in difficult or high-pressure situations. Many people might have difficulty in a role with intense pressure. Instead, you must emphasize how you have been able to engage with others without boiling over.
Also, talk about your ability to empathize with those around you in other roles. This is especially true if it has helped resolve conflict or aided in collaboration.
Mention that you were not only able to understand but also manage others' emotional states if you can. This will make you look like someone fit to engage with a high-profile and skilled team.
As you continue your career development, you might want to think about leadership roles you can take up. Emphasizing your ability to lead others instead of only delegating puts you head and shoulders above others in the same position.
When you write your resume, talk about how you were able to motivate others in the teams you worked in. If you manage to inspire better work out of others, mention how you do it and what the results are if you have data.
If you need to delegate work or make important decisions for the rest of a team, discuss that. Talk about how you did this, and if your work involved changing criteria discuss what you did to keep productivity up in such a situation. In the modern world, you can sometimes expect work demands to change at short notice and you should be able to roll with that.
Alongside earlier soft skills in this article, you can also talk about how you were able to manage your team on a more personal level. Have you needed to resolve conflicts, or make tough decisions that led to the company performing better? If so, speak of them.
Career success starts with putting both hard and soft skills on your resume when you apply for a job. With the above advice, you should be on your way to writing better applications in the future.
Still, it can sometimes be a lot to write your resume yourself. You might be busy with another role, or you might feel more comfortable with someone else putting your application together.
We have experts who can apply for you. All you need to do is give us a call, and we can get you started on the road to a perfect resume today.
