Teamwork skills are often crucial for success in the modern workplace. Whether your job involves simple communication with others while working on a project, collaborating with colleagues, or leading a team, you need to be able to work together to effectively reach goals.
This article will help you showcase your teamwork skills on your resume in the best way possible. We’ll also give you real-life examples of resume phrases to use to highlight your teamwork skills and a list of tips to help you improve these skills even further.
Let’s get started.
Key Takeaways
The benefits of teamwork skills are multifaceted and range from your ability to communicate effectively to your proficiency in problem-solving.
Some of the most important skills that make for a good team player are communication, conflict resolution, reliability, listening, problem-solving, decision-making, organization, collaboration, persuasion, and leadership.
One of the best ways to add teamwork skills to your resume is to demonstrate them through examples in your work experience section and your resume summary or objective.
You can always improve your teamwork skills by being open-minded, learning from your mistakes, practicing efficient communication and active listening, being proactive, and taking part in team-building activities.
Why Are Teamwork Skills Important For Your Resume?
In a survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), 82.9% of employers noted that they preferably seek candidates with the ability to work in teams.
Therefore, it’s not surprising that teamwork skills share the first spot on the list, along with problem-solving skills. These demonstrate your ability to communicate and collaborate with others. However, their benefits extend far beyond that.
A good team player is flexible and can quickly and effortlessly adapt to different team dynamics. That means your effectiveness and quality of work won’t diminish due to any changes in the team and environment.
Furthermore, these skills indirectly showcase your ability to solve problems and resolve conflicts. They also show that a candidate has a strong work ethic and is dedicated to achieving common goals, which makes it faster and easier to reach those goals when working in a group.
All of this increases the chances of success, both individually and as part of a team. That makes these skills essential in a team-oriented work environment and an invaluable addition to your resume.
Top 10 Essential Teamwork Skills To Include in Your Resume
Let’s see which teamwork skills recruiters usually value the most and why.
#1. Communication
Communication is the foundational skill for any good team player. It allows you to neatly and accurately convey and exchange ideas with others. While communication in person is crucial, nowadays it’s becoming increasingly important to also be able to communicate via phone, video calls, emails, text chats, etc.
Among other things, communication helps you set expectations, meet deadlines, and discuss responsibilities. All of that could have a direct impact on the workplace proficiency of the entire team.
Lastly, open communication doesn’t mean there can’t be any disagreements between team members. However, it could help solve any kind of dispute in a clean and efficient manner, which leads us to the next vital teamwork skill—conflict resolution.
#2. Conflict Resolution
Good conflict resolution skills allow you to first identify and understand conflicts and then manage and resolve them in a constructive and positive manner. They enable you to remain calm under pressure and understand and respect the perspectives of others. All of that can help you maintain a positive and professional attitude in the workplace.
Just like many other teamwork skills, conflict resolution requires a combination of other skills such as communication, listening, compromising, problem-solving, negotiating, and so on.
In professional settings, conflict resolution allows you to maintain healthy relationships with coworkers, resolve any potential issues with clients or customers, and prevent situations from escalating.
#3. Reliability
Reliability refers to your ability to complete tasks and meet deadlines consistently, efficiently, and in a timely manner. That alone makes this skill incredibly valuable for any candidate. Recruiters are always looking for someone they can count on to follow through on their commitments and take responsibility for their actions.
Reliability encompasses everything from dependability and trustworthiness to punctuality and accountability. Most jobs could benefit from some—if not all—of these attributes, as they ensure projects are held to the highest standards while being completed on schedule.
To demonstrate reliability on a resume, you could emphasize specific examples from previous workplaces where you consistently met deadlines and fulfilled all your work responsibilities. You should also showcase any types of recognition gained or outstanding performance evaluations achieved.
#4. Listening Skills
Listening skills represent the ability to actively and attentively hear others. It doesn’t only refer to verbal but also unspoken communication. A good listener doesn’t only pay attention to the words said but also looks for the tone, body language, and other nonverbal cues.
Being able to listen actively is important in a professional environment. It allows you to understand the needs of your clients, supervisors, and colleagues and respond accordingly. In combination with your communication skills, listening skills are vital in building and maintaining healthy workplace relationships.
If you want to highlight your listening skills on a resume, you should give concrete examples of jobs or projects where you listened to and acknowledged the needs and problems of others. You can even mention certifications or training in active listening and communication if you have any.
#5. Problem-Solving Skills
Problem-solving is the ability to identify complex issues and challenges and then analyze them to find optimal solutions. Similarly to many other resume teamwork skills, being an effective problem solver means that you have a number of desirable traits such as creativity, critical thinking, and decision-making.
You can demonstrate problem-solving skills on your resume through past work experiences. Think of the time you ran into a challenge that required outside-the-box thinking and briefly describe how you handled the situation. It helps if you manage to showcase the exact results of your actions.
#6. Decision-Making Skills
Decision-making skills deal with your ability to examine information, evaluate options, and choose the best course of action. Being adept at decision-making also means that you’re good at risk assessment and that you are a critical thinker and problem solver.
Aspects of Decision-Making
Here are some of the key aspects of decision-making:
Gathering and analyzing data
Identifying options
Considering alternatives
Making a decision
Communicating and implementing the decision
Reviewing and learning from the decision
Strong decision-making skills are vital in many different professions and allow you to navigate complex problems effectively. Informed decisions that you end up making could drive the success of the business and make a huge difference.
#7. Organizational Skills
Organizational skills describe your ability to manage tasks, resources, and information. They allow you to plan, delegate, prioritize, monitor, and adapt to changing situations. Moreover, they are multifaceted, implying that you are skilled at everything from time management to planning and that you possess attention to detail and flexibility.
Strong organizational skills are often essential in many job roles. Recruiters always look for them since they allow candidates to work effectively and efficiently, which generally results in tasks being completed on time and to the required standard.
To highlight these skills on your resume, you could mention times when you successfully planned and executed large-scale projects or events. It helps to be specific and talk about the exact tools—such as calendars or task lists—that usually help you manage your workload.
#8. Collaboration
Collaboration is a part of teamwork skills by definition because it means you can work well with other people to reach common goals. It includes the ability to communicate ideas and information, delegate tasks and share the workload, and resolve any possible conflicts.
Having collaboration skills also implies that you’re a flexible and adaptable person who can build and maintain healthy, positive relationships with colleagues and supervisors. All of these are desirable traits that recruiters love seeing on resumes since they help improve workplace productivity and job satisfaction.
You can showcase these on your resume through particular examples of team projects or initiatives where you achieved success. To make these skills even more substantial, mention what your specific contributions were and quantify the exact results obtained.
#9. Persuasion
Most of the time, people talk about persuasion skills in relation to customer service, sales, and marketing. However, they can be vital in any workplace, as they give the ability to influence and persuade others to see a different point of view or take specific actions.
Persuasion directly stems from your ability to communicate with and understand other people. In turn, that gives you the opportunity to present your arguments in both logical and compelling ways. Not only that, but persuasive people can anticipate objections and address them effectively.
The real reason why persuasion skills belong with teamwork skills is that they aren’t just useful from a strictly business standpoint. They are also important for building and managing relationships with other team members.
#10. Leadership
Effective leaders are multi-skilled individuals who can effectively guide and manage teams and individuals. Leadership skills allow you to instruct, motivate, and inspire others to achieve a mutual goal, all of which make these invaluable in many job positions.
Leadership Qualities
Some of the fundamental qualities that capable leaders convey are:
Having a vision
Being able to communicate
Readily making tough decisions
Competently solving complex problems
Thinking strategically
Having emotional intelligence
Acting with integrity
Leadership skills are important for people in management and executive positions, but they can also help improve productivity and teamwork in a wide range of other settings.
How to Add Teamwork Skills to Your Resume
In general, teamwork skills belong to a group of soft, transferable skills that are mostly obtained through real-life experience. Of course, there are jobs where some teamwork skills are considered hard, or position-specific skills (e.g., persuasion skills are priceless in sales).
There are also many different teamwork skills, which is why you want to research the job ad and figure out which ones recruiters are looking for. Once you have a complete list, you can match it with the skills you have and then proceed to add them to your resume.
However, you can do more than just make a list in the skills section and call it a day. You can validate these by mentioning them in your resume objective or summary and your work experience section.
Let’s check out some examples of teamwork skills and see how you can add them to your resume:
General Guidelines
Communication:
Led weekly team meetings andpresented reports to upper management, boosting productivity by 27%.
Conflict resolution:
Mediated andresolved conflicts between team members by actively listening and identifying issues, decreasing the turnover rate by 20%.
Reliability:
Met or exceeded 100% of deadlines, resulting in a 17% productivity boost.
Listening skills:
Utilized active listening to interpret customer feedback and increase customer satisfaction rate by 19%.
Problem-solving skills:
Conceptualized and implemented an innovative problem-solving process to decrease production downtime by 30%.
Decision-making skills:
Made informed decisions based on data analysis to decrease overhead costs by 15%.
Organizational skills:
Effectively organized and managed multiple projects at once, achieving a 20% decrease in completion time.
Collaboration:
Collaborated with cross-functional teams on a marketing campaign that resulted in a 13% revenue increase.
Persuasion:
Tutored new team members on competent persuasion techniques that resulted in a 35% increase in sales.
Leadership skills:
Successfully led teams of up to 35 people, achieving up to a 17% increase in productivity compared to previous results.
17 Other Highly Sought-After Teamwork Skills
We talked about some of the most valued teamwork skills, but the list is much bigger than that. Here are some additional teamwork skills that you can enrich your resume with:
Vital Skills Examples
Adaptability
Trust
Empathy
Respect
Positive attitude
Delegation
Motivation
Responsiveness
Accountability
Emotional intelligence
Cultural awareness
Open-mindedness
Patience
Initiative
Recognition
Tolerance
Empowerment
How to Improve Your Teamwork Skills
Here are some tips to help you build a competitive list of teamwork skills for your resume or perfect the ones you already have:
Expert Tips
Communicate more effectively. Communication is one of the most vital teamwork skills, meaning you should always try to be clear and concise when exchanging information. Try to use language that’s easy to comprehend to get your point across in a simple and impactful manner.
Practice active listening. Being a good communicator is as much about listening as it is about expressing yourself. You should always make an effort to understand others and listen to their ideas, perspectives, and input.
Be open-minded. One of the best ways to ensure that you’re continuously perfecting your teamwork skills is to be open to new perspectives and ideas. You should always be willing to consider other people’s viewpoints while encouraging them to do the same.
Learn from your mistakes. Making a mistake is natural in any line of work. The important thing is to be able to recognize errors when you make them and use the opportunity to grow and develop.
Be proactive. When you put in an effort and take the initiative to solve a potential problem, you’ll learn much faster than if you were a passive observer. Your initiative can further translate to boosting the team’s effectiveness.
Take part in team-building activities. Attending team-building activities can help in many different ways. It builds trust among the team members, improves communication, and enhances relationships.
Closing Thoughts
To sum it up, teamwork skills are an invaluable asset in today’s job climate. Employers are always looking for job candidates who can work well with others and aim toward the same goals. By putting these skills on your resume, you are more likely to stand out from the crowd, so remember to use specific examples to demonstrate them in action!
