Elena Prokopets
To land a top tier job, you must prove you have strong management skills.
Management skills stand for your abilities to lead and organize other people to effectively work on accomplishing a shared goal. It’s an umbrella term that includes a number of sub-group skills pertaining to your analytical, organizational, leadership, and interpersonal skills among others.
While it may seem that everyone’s a ‘manager’ these days, the demand for experienced managers far outweighs the supply. That being said, you still need a file compelling resume for a managerial position.
How do you go about writing one? First, you try to determine what managerial skills the employer values the most and why. We’ve got some prompts for you.
Why Do Employers Value Management Skills?
According to a recent survey conducted by the University of Law Research, these are the skills most employers expect for a business manager to have:
- Communication Skills – 90%
- Relationship Building – 83%
- Time Management – 57%
- People Skills – 47%
- Self-Motivated – 47%
- Management Skills – 43%
You might be wondering why soft skills — communication, relationship building, and people skills — rank above the hard “managerial skills”.
For one, on average, managers spend up to 70% of their time on steering engagement among their people and providing performance coaching. So the bulk of their work is “social”.
Secondly, technical skills can always be taught at the workplace. But nurturing strong soft skills takes much more time and effort. That’s why a lot of employers are often open to hiring candidates with an approachable personality, but gaps in technical, for entry-to-mid level managerial positions.
A manager who can Inspire their team, create great strategy, and execute their vision flawlessly can read a company to greater success. They can also turn around a struggling company.
Management Skills to Put on a Resume
Alright, now you understand the managerial role a bit more and the hiring context around it. Now let’s put that knowledge into practice and break-down the ‘manager’ role into a set of specific skills.
General Management Skills
There are some universal management skills, required to succeed in nearly every manager position. Highlighting these on your resume will show that you can meet the baseline requirements of the job.
Here are some example skills:
- Decision-making
- Strategic planning
- Project management
- Task management
- Problem-solving
- Risk management
- Budgeting
- Scheduling
- Communication
Project Management Skills
In the end, your ability to drive results and delivers on the set KPIs Towill be most important. If you can successfully lead a team through a major project, there will be no doubt about your management skills.
There are two ways to showcase your project management skills:
- By listing project outcomes as achievements on your resume
- By mining the job description for relevant industry keywords
Speaking of the latter, here are some common groups of project management skills, for different roles:
- Agile / SAFe
- Scrum
- PRINCE2
- Team management
- Stakeholder management
- Budgeting
- Business analysis
- Business case writing
- Team management
- Reporting
- Facilitation/Coaching
Product management skills
- Task prioritization
- Scope of work planning
- User stories writing
- Team management
- Strategic planning
- Market analysis
- Research and analysis
- Communication skills
General project management skills:
- Critical thinking
- Planning and forecasting
- Budgeting
- Goal- and KPI-setting
- Performance management
- Meeting facilitation
- Problem-solving
Time Management Skills and Self-Management Skills
It is impossible for a manager to be caught short. You have to manage your time wisely and keep it cool when there’s a lot of moving parts that require your attention. Not only will your employer expect this, but your team will also look for you to set the tone in these areas.
Thus be sure to highlight some of your time management skills on your resume:
- Goal-setting
- Prioritization
- Scheduling
- Delegation
- Flexibility
- Meeting deadlines
- Mental resilience
- Personal accountability
- Motivation
Bonus tip: For even more examples, check out a big list of organizational skills for your resume.
Stress Management Skills
Stress often tags along with management and supervisory responsibilities. Sometimes a lot of it. Therefore, you must be able to manage this stress so that you remain a clear-minded leader regardless of what happens (and how panicked everyone else is).
Consider adding a few of these stress management skills to your resume:
- Early problem identification
- Adaptability
- Emotional intelligence
- Resilience
- Self-control
People Skills
In order to truly succeed as a manager, you must understand people. Your ability to relate to others is absolutely key to proving that you are ready to take on the responsibilities of management. These skills will help demonstrate these competencies:
- Empathy
- Negotiation
- Mentoring
- Motivating
- Building Trust
- Conflict Resolution
To Conclude
When you combine technical proficiency with strong management skills, you become a powerhouse leader that recruiters will pursue aggressively.
All you have to do next is convey those skills via your resume. Remember that you can bolster your claims by showing your management skills in the following ways:
- Describing your duties and responsibilities as an employee or a leader.
- Quantifying your successes in your past positions.
- Detailing your roles in relevant volunteer work, internships, and research projects
Also, keep in mind that you can showcase management and leadership skills in many jobs. You don’t need to have held a supervisory, leadership, or executive role in the past. It is perfectly acceptable to sell yourself based on your capabilities and experience, obtained across a wide spectrum of roles!
