Pursuing a career in management gives you many opportunities for professional advancement. To land a management job, it is crucial to include the right skills on your resume. In this guide, we will discuss the best management skills and how to use them on your resume.
Any time you are applying for a job, it is essential to tailor your resume for that job.
Thus, it makes sense to include management skills on a resume being submitted for a management position.
Including management-specific skills helps you to relate them to the job you are applying for.
Plus, it is a good opportunity to emphasize key skills found within the job description.
The inclusion of the right management skills on your resume can drastically increase your chances of impressing employers.
If you want to know how to optimize your entire resume, read our career advice article on how to Tailor Your Resume to Any Job in 4 Easy Steps!
Before choosing which skills to add to your resume, you should divide them into two main categories:
Soft skills are those that deal with social interactions and emotional intelligence.
They include skills such as communication, collaboration, and teamwork.
Hard skills have to do with technical abilities.
Being trained in specific methodologies or knowing how to use specific software or equipment are examples of hard skills.
Let’s look at two skills involved in management: empathy and scheduling.
Empathy is an entirely emotionally-based skill.
It allows a manager to view a situation from either an employee's or a customer’s perspective.
This skill falls into the interpersonal category.
Comparatively, the ability to create a schedule is a more well-defined skill.
Scheduling involves interpersonal skills, such as communicating with your team.
Yet, it ultimately falls into the hard skills category because it is a technical ability that must be learned.
When adding management skills to your resume, you should aim to include both interpersonal and technical skills.
Adding both gives employers a more well-rounded view of you as a professional.
For even more skill ideas for your resume, read our guide on 100+ Key Skills for a Resume (with Examples for Any Job).
There are two main formatting options for listing your management skills on a resume:
While you can certainly choose just one or the other, including skills in both these places can be highly beneficial.
The key to using both methods is to highlight different skills in each.
For instance, if you mainly talk about your interpersonal skills in your work experience section, you should use the skills section to highlight more technical skills.
Here is a breakdown of how to use these two formatting options:
Incorrect:
Work Experience
Assistant Office Manager, Bay Area Rentals
November 2018 – June 2021
• Interpersonal Skills: Leadership, Collaboration, and Conflict Resolution
• Technical Skills: Schedule Creation, QuickBooks, and Business Logistics
Why It’s Wrong:
In this example, the applicant has used the descriptive bullet points to list skills.
You don’t want to transform your work experience section into a pseudo-skills section.
Each bullet point should give a clear example of a responsibility or accomplishment from your previous position.
Adding the skills should simply provide extra detail.
Correct:
Work Experience
Assistant Office Manager, Bay Area Rentals
November 2018 – June 2021
• Lead an office staff of over 30 employees
• Optimized the staff schedule to reduce operational costs by 10 percent
• Managed company logistics including inventory, storage, and transportation
In this corrected example, the bullet points imply the applicant’s skill level by providing real-life examples of how the skill was used.
Plus, these bullet points are much more descriptive and offer quantifiable evidence.
Incorrect:
Interpersonal Skills
• Communication
• Delegation
• Leadership
Technical Skills
• Negotiation
• Hiring
• Budgeting
Why It’s Wrong: Separating your skills into interpersonal and technical categories is inherently bad.
Managers often have distinct soft and hard skills that employers look for.
However, the skills listed are too vague and lack context.
Without a small amount of extra detail, the skills can seem pointless and end up being overlooked.
Correct:
Interpersonal Skills
• Empathetic Communication with Staff
• Delegation of Daily Tasks
• Leading a Staff of 50+
Technical Skills
• Employment Contract Negotiations
• Interviewing and Hiring
• Creating Operational Budgets
In this corrected example, the bullet points are still short and sweet but provide significantly more context.
Pro Tip: When writing your resume, it is highly beneficial to use active language.
Take a look at our list of 350+ Action Verbs to Make Your Resume More Effective for more help brainstorming!
Being a good manager requires many skills.
Learning and improving these skills can have significant impacts on how you perform in the role and your chances of being hired.
If you are looking for ways to improve your management skills, try these 3 tips:
Becoming a manager is all about honing and highlighting your best skills.
Here are our top 5 takeaways for including management skills on a resume:
Writing your resume doesn’t have to be a headache.
At Easy Resume, we strive to provide you with all the resume resources and tools you need!
While you’re here, make sure to check out our large collection of free resume guides and career advice articles.
Ed is a co-founder of Easy Resume. His background in scaling teams at tech startups over the last decade has given him extensive experience and knowledge around how to hire top talent and build successful teams. He enjoys mentoring, coaching, and helping others reach their career goals. When he's not writing about career-related advice, he's playing with his dog, Lilo, or going on long hikes in upstate New York.
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