Top 10 Management Skills for a Resume (Examples & List)
Most C-Level executives don’t believe "managerial skills" is good enough on resumes. Anyone can say, “I’m skilled in leadership, communication, and collaboration”.
Are theretopmanagement skills that convince employers you’ve got what they need?
What are manager skills that make recruiters say “If I met a person like that in an interview, I would not let them go”?
I asked the executives who hire managers, “What skills can you not live without?” And, here’s a golden list of management skills, the top 10 skills managers want—plus 5 hidden skills executives fight for.
This guide will show you:
The 10 most common management skills. Five lesser-known but potent managerial skills execs can’t resist. How to know what skills a targeted company wants most. How to prove your manager skills to employers so they’ll hire you.
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1 Most Common Management Skills
Just need a quick list of managerial skills to peg your resume to the job?
We’ve got you covered. The manager skills list below shows the best hard skills and soft skills of a manager.
They make great resume keywords for managers too.
Management Skills List
Here’s the shocker:
Listing manager skills on a resume won’t get the interview.
You need the specific few skills the employer thirsts for.
Then prove you’ve got them.
I’ll show how next.
Pro Tip: Do you need help developing management skills? Online leadership training programs like eCornell and AMA courses can fast-track your talents. They’re no substitute for achievement, but they’ll help an entry-level manager stand out.
Looking for more good management skills to put on a resume? Look at job offers online. Also, see our guide: 99 Key Skills for a Resume (Best List of Examples for All Types of Jobs)
To laser-in on hard managerial skills, see: Resume Hard Skills: Best Definition & Examples
For a list of transferable skills, see: Resume Soft Skills: Definition & Examples
2 Key Management / Managerial Skills Examples
Queasy-stomach time:
You put 10 common management skills on your resume.
But so did everybody else!
You’re as generic as an off-the-rack suit. Don't list meaningless Microsoft Office skills or computer skills from the '80s.
You need to show you’re different and worth hiring.
I posed that question to Lucjan Samulowski.
His successful startup operates in seven countries and employs a team of 500.
He frequently hires managers. Yet he skips past thousands of “qualified” applicants.
His advice?
“The ‘management skills’ term is popular,” Lucjan says. “The right way to think about it is ‘management behaviors and abilities.’”
It all comes down to proving you know how to be a good manager.
These top five managerial skills fly under the radar:
Past Success
Got managerial achievements? Show them.
Past success means you can do it again in. That’s a green light for executives to hire you.
Can’t point to past success? Take heart. The other management qualities below can shine a spotlight on your hireability.
Success is universal. Savvy employers look for it in their leaders. Lucjan Samulowski Co-founder,
People Follow You
What’s the most valuable of all manager skills?
People management skills or interpersonal skills.
Psychologist Daniel Goleman calls interpersonal skills the strongest predictor of leadership success.
The best evidence? People follow you. Not on Facebook or LinkedIn, but in real life.
It could mean they stick around in your team a long time. Or they follow you to other teams or companies when you switch jobs. Lucjan Samulowski Co-founder,
Pro Tip: What if you have no management experience but you want to prove potential? Demonstrate the three key manager skills below. “If I met a person like that in an interview,” Lucjan says, “I would not let her go.”
Have High Empathy
Next on our list of hidden but effective management skills is empathy.
Empathy is defined as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.”
That’s the secret sauce that makes employees want to succeed for you.
Empathy lets you see and provide for your employees’ needs––a one in ten-million motivator. Having high empathy means you understand your team’s work at ground-level. It means you possess a strong set of active listening skills.
“I worked with a director once who couldn’t gain the respect or command of his staff,” says Elle Torres, Senior Process Consultant at Blue Cross and Blue Shield. “He didn’t feel like he needed to know the details of their jobs. He just needed them to ‘do it better.’”
The director humbled himself and took a week to work alongside his frontline staff. This seemed like a waste of time. But the real waste was sitting in his office and remaining ineffective.
“You must acknowledge you don’t share the same expertise as your subordinates, regardless of your work title,” says Torres. Admit your team knows more than you, then allow them to teach you.
Show you’ve done that, and employers will fight over you.
Learn Fast
Today’s business world turns on a dime. Companies that seem rock-solid today may vanish tomorrow, while billion-dollar firms pop up overnight.
Executives prize the manager skills of quickly spotting and exploiting shifting tides.
Learning fast lets you pick up and apply lessons about others. It also lets you master the behaviors of great leaders around you. Lucjan Samulowski Co-founder,
Be Results-Driven
Does “results-oriented” belong on a managerial skills list?
We can debate that, but C-Suite leaders crave it like air.
Execs don’t have to tell a goal-oriented manager what to do. They can aim her at the target and walk.
Employees like results-driven managers because they understand the goal.
“Everyone wants to be part of a winning team,” says Lucjan.
Being results-driven means being accountable, too. “You shouldn’t be caught by surprise by anything your team delivers,” Torres says.
Pro Tip: Can you just say, “I’m a results-driven fast learner with high empathy” and get hired? Maybe in cartoons. In the real world, you must prove your business management skills. I’ll show how next.
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3 How to Prove Manager Skills
Anyone can show a long list of management skills.
The problem?
Executives can see through that like a corner office window.
They’re mobbed by long lists of managerial skills.
You must cut through the noise.
The good news? It’s not hard.
Pick the Few Right Manager Skills
First, forget about generic manager skills lists as long as the company directory.
Focus on the few skills the employer wants.
Of course show the key managerial skills that fit you best.
Share your past success, connections, empathy, fast-learning, and results-driven mindset.
Find other skills in the job offer, or by talking to executives or team members.
Pro Tip: Not sure what skills the employer needs? Conduct informational interviews. Employees and executives are often happy to share their challenges.
Show How You’ve Used the Skills
Here’s a big mistake.
You tell the C-Level exec you have these important management skills:
wrong I’m a fast learner. I’ve got high empathy. I’m results driven, I know people, and I’m very successful. I’m also a great communicator and leader, with high-level interpersonal skills.
Well, you’re hired.
No.
You might as well say, “I’m the best manager in the universe.”
They’ll toss you on the pile with all the other unqualified applicants.
Instead, prove your managerial skills.
On a resume, list past achievements that show you’ve used those skills.
In an interview, tell stories that get at the same thing.
Here are a few managerial skills examples:
How to Prove Management Skills To prove... Say... Past Success My team raised monthly revenue 40% through implementing a company-wide retraining focused on customer needs. Knowing People When I left XYZ co., three key team members elected to follow me to ABC co. High Empathy My team increased productivity by 30%. This wasn't from any specific policy, but from working to understand and meet the personal goals of team members. Fast Learner Moved from construction management to healthcare management, where I led a team that raised revenue 75% in one year. Results-Driven When leadership tasked us with boosting revenue and sales leads 25% in 2 months, my team hit 35% instead. Communication Through increased face time with employees and by sharing company metrics, boosted engagement for our Lean program 65%. Collaboration Implemented team-wide use of Google Docs, Slack, and Trello to slash project time-to-delivery 35%.
Pro Tip: According to Robert Katz, the three basic types of management skills are conceptual skills (big-picture leadership skills for top managers), people management skills (for all managers), and technical skills (for front-line types of managers).
Coming into management from another career? See our guide: Career Change Resume: Sample and Complete Guide
Plus, a great cover letter that matches your resume will give you an advantage over other candidates. You can write it in our cover letter builder here. Here's what it may look like:
See more cover letter templates and start writing.
Key Takeaway
Here’s a recap of the best management skills and how to prove them:
Don’t list all the managerial skills in the book. Pick the ones the employer craves. Find them through online digging and informational interviews.
Pick the ones the employer craves. Find them through online digging and informational interviews. Show a few key, hidden management skills and abilities. Those are past success, high empathy, results-driven, fast learner, and having people follow you.
Those are past success, high empathy, results-driven, fast learner, and having people follow you. Add some common, valuable manager skills. Communication, collaboration, organization, and interpersonal skills are crucial.
Communication, collaboration, organization, and interpersonal skills are crucial. Don’t just say you’ve got the skills––prove them. Do that with past accomplishments you couldn’t have achieved without those skills.
Do you have questions about listing management skills on a resume? Not sure how to prove yours in an interview? Give us a shout in the comments! Let's get the conversation rolling.
What are the 7 Basic Quality Tools for Efficient Project Management?
Quality is one of the modern project constraints which leads the project management processes and activities. There are 3 processes of quality management throughout the project lifecycle. These are-
Plan quality management Perform quality assurance Control quality
Know more about agile vs traditional project management and conflict management.
Each of the 3 processes have their own tools, but there are some tools that can be used in all the 3 processes. These 7 basic quality tools are examples of shareable tools :
Know more about project description.
1- Flow Chart:-
It is a graphical description of workflow steps. So it can describe the steps of any process through graphical symbols which are connected to each other by paths that represent the direction of the workflow. The symbols can be circles, rectangles, diamonds or any other shapes which must be predefined to make the flowchart easy for understanding.
We begin the flowchart by the start node, which is often represented as a circle shape. Then we represent each action or step we do by a rectangle shape. When we want to make a decision or a test that will give more than one result, each result will direct us to a different path with a different action. Flowcharts are very useful when we want to make a correction for any process. It helps us eliminate redundancy and unuseful work steps. Also, it is very useful when we use it for creating the project statement of work.
2- Pareto Diagram:-
It is a special vertical chart that is divided into categories that show all possible probabilities or events that can occur. Categories are ordered by the frequency of each category from high frequency on the left side of the vertical axis to the low frequency on the right side of it. Pareto depends on the rule of 80/20, which proves that 80/100 of problems come from 20/100 of causes. So when we know that 20/100 of the causes and give more attention and resources to avoid them, we will solve 80/100 of the errors and problems. So Pareto Diagram is very useful when we use it with a cause and effect diagram (also called Ishikawa or fishbone). The below example shows Pareto Diagram for the reasons that lead to delays in a software project.
3- Histogram:-
It is a tool for showing the central tendency, statistical distribution, and dispersion of a given set of measurements that will be shown on a vertical bar chart. It is very useful when we want to know which categories have a larger frequency. We can use it in many applications such as defining the resources that will perform the project work by using Resource Histogram which is shown below
We can do the same thing with one resource in a timely manner such as dividing the categories by months and defining the number of one resource such as senior developer via each month of the project lifecycle.
Read more about the characteristics of project management.
4- Cause and Effect Diagram (Ishikawa or Fishbone):-
It is a diagram that represents the cause and effect of a fishbone. Its head represents the problem or objective and the body represents the causes of the problem or the actions that should be performed to reach the goal or objective at the head of the fishbone. When we find a problem with any process such as a process variation or an increasing number of defects, we can use the fishbone to find the source of the problem. Each resource can also be divided into a number of resources, till we reach the original resources of the problem. The Fishbone problem statement often comes from the Control Chart when its measurements point to a problem in the process stability. The following diagram shows the cause and effect diagram for the delay of software projects
5- Checksheets (Tally sheets):-
The check sheet is a sheet that contains items of inspections and tests and the attribute that each test can result in. The acceptance criteria of each test must be listed on the sheet to be a guide for determining if the inspected item of the sample such as a piece of code in the software project has passed a test item (such as a unit test). Then we gather the frequencies of each defect and represent them in Pareto Chart.
6- Scatter Diagram:-
A Scatter diagram (called also Correlation Diagram) is a diagram represented by two axes X and Y. So any measurement or data shown in Scatter Diagram is represented by a pair of (X, and Y). The correlation between x and y shown is based on the rule that Y is dependent on X but X is not dependent on Y. So there are many types of correlations such as positive correlation (proportional), negative correlation (Inverse), or pattern of no correlation (Zero Correlation). An example of a positive correlation is- the weight of the human and its relation to his age (between one year and 40). We find that the weight of the human depends on and is affected by age (an increase in age will lead to an increase in weight but the reverse is incorrect). So we will consider the age on is X axis and the weight on is Y axis. In a negative correlation, when X is increased, Y decreases.
Are you looking to get PMP certified? If you are, it’s best that you enroll in a PMP exam prep course. You can learn online, from the comfort of home, and at your own pace.
7- Control Chart:-
When we want to determine if a process is stable or not, we use a control chart. It consists of-
Upper Specification Limits (USL) and Lower Specification Limits (LSL) which come from specification Upper Control Limits(UCL) and Lower Control Limits (LCL) which come from statistical calculation +_3 standard deviation above and below mean Mean which equals UCL+LCL/2
The process is considered unstable if one point exceeds the UCL or LCL or seven consecutive points are above or below the mean.
When we ensure that the process is unstable, we perform corrective action and monitor the result of these actions to measure its effect on the process stability.
So these 7 tools are very useful and can be used throughout the project lifecycle to plan and maintain the quality of associated activities.
1.1 What Is Human Resources? – Human Resource Management
Every organization, large or small, uses a variety of capital to make the business work. Capital includes cash, valuables, or goods used to generate income for a business. For example, a retail store uses registers and inventory, while a consulting firm may have proprietary software or buildings. No matter the industry, all companies have one thing in common: they must have people to make their capital work for them. This will be our focus throughout the text: generation of revenue through the use of people’s skills and abilities.
Have you ever had to work with a human resource department at your job? What was the interaction like? What was the department’s role in that specific organization?
It’s necessary to point out here, at the very beginning of this text, that every manager has some role relating to human resource management. Just because we do not have the title of HR manager doesn’t mean we won’t perform all or at least some of the HRM tasks. For example, most managers deal with compensation, motivation, and retention of employees—making these aspects not only part of HRM but also part of management. As a result, this book is equally important to someone who wants to be an HR manager and to someone who will manage a business.
Human resource management (HRM) is the process of employing people, training them, compensating them, developing policies relating to them, and developing strategies to retain them. As a field, HRM has undergone many changes over the last twenty years, giving it an even more important role in today’s organizations. In the past, HRM meant processing payroll, sending birthday gifts to employees, arranging company outings, and making sure forms were filled out correctly—in other words, more of an administrative role rather than a strategic role crucial to the success of the organization. Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric and management guru, sums up the new role of HRM: “Get out of the parties and birthdays and enrollment forms.… Remember, HR is important in good times, HR is defined in hard times” (Frasch, et. al., 2010).
The Role of HRM
Keep in mind that many functions of HRM are also tasks other department managers perform, which is what makes this information important, despite the career path taken. Most experts agree on seven main roles that HRM plays in organizations. These are described in the following sections.
Staffing You need people to perform tasks and get work done in the organization. Even with the most sophisticated machines, humans are still needed. Because of this, one of the major tasks in HRM is staffing. Staffing involves the entire hiring process from posting a job to negotiating a salary package. Within the staffing function, there are four main steps: Development of a staffing plan. This plan allows HRM to see how many people they should hire based on revenue expectations. Development of policies to encourage multiculturalism at work. Multiculturalism in the workplace is becoming more and more important, as we have many more people from a variety of backgrounds in the workforce. Recruitment. This involves finding people to fill the open positions. Selection. In this stage, people will be interviewed and selected, and a proper compensation package will be negotiated. This step is followed by training, retention, and motivation.
Development of Workplace Policies Every organization has policies to ensure fairness and continuity within the organization. One of the jobs of HRM is to develop the verbiage surrounding these policies. In the development of policies, HRM, management, and executives are involved in the process. For example, the HRM professional will likely recognize the need for a policy or a change of policy, seek opinions on the policy, write the policy, and then communicate that policy to employees. It is key to note here that HR departments do not and cannot work alone. Everything they do needs to involve all other departments in the organization. Some examples of workplace policies might be the following: Discipline process policy
Vacation time policy
Dress code
Ethics policy
Internet usage policy These topics are addressed further in Chapter 6 “Compensation and Benefits”, Chapter 7 “Retention and Motivation”, Chapter 8 “Training and Development”, and Chapter 9 “Successful Employee Communication”.
Compensation and Benefits Administration HRM professionals need to determine that compensation is fair, meets industry standards, and is high enough to entice people to work for the organization. Compensation includes anything the employee receives for his or her work. In addition, HRM professionals need to make sure the pay is comparable to what other people performing similar jobs are being paid. This involves setting up pay systems that take into consideration the number of years with the organization, years of experience, education, and similar aspects. Examples of employee compensation include the following: Pay
Health benefits
401(k) (retirement plans)
Stock purchase plans
Vacation time
Sick leave
Bonuses
Tuition reimbursement Since this is not an exhaustive list, compensation is discussed further in Chapter 6 “Compensation and Benefits”.
Retention Retention involves keeping and motivating employees to stay with the organization. Compensation is a major factor in employee retention, but there are other factors as well. Ninety percent of employees leave a company for the following reasons: Issues around the job they are performing Challenges with their manager Poor fit with organizational culture Poor workplace environment Despite this, 90 percent of managers think employees leave as a result of pay (Rivenbark, 2010). As a result, managers often try to change their compensation packages to keep people from leaving, when compensation isn’t the reason they are leaving at all. Chapter 7 “Retention and Motivation” and Chapter 11 “Employee Assessment” discuss some strategies to retain the best employees based on these four factors.
Training and Development Once we have spent the time to hire new employees, we want to make sure they not only are trained to do the job but also continue to grow and develop new skills in their job. This results in higher productivity for the organization. Training is also a key component in employee motivation. Employees who feel they are developing their skills tend to be happier in their jobs, which results in increased employee retention. Examples of training programs might include the following: Job skills training, such as how to run a particular computer program
Training on communication
Team-building activities
Policy and legal training, such as sexual harassment training and ethics training We address each of these types of training and more in detail in Chapter 8 “Training and Development”.
Dealing with Laws Affecting Employment Human resource people must be aware of all the laws that affect the workplace. An HRM professional might work with some of these laws: Discrimination laws
Health-care requirements
Compensation requirements such as the minimum wage
Worker safety laws
Labor laws The legal environment of HRM is always changing, so HRM must always be aware of changes taking place and then communicate those changes to the entire management organization. Rather than presenting a chapter focused on HRM laws, we will address these laws in each relevant chapter.
Worker Protection Safety is a major consideration in all organizations. Oftentimes new laws are created with the goal of setting federal or state standards to ensure worker safety. Unions and union contracts can also impact the requirements for worker safety in a workplace. It is up to the human resource manager to be aware of worker protection requirements and ensure the workplace is meeting both federal and union standards. Worker protection issues might include the following: Chemical hazards
Heating and ventilation requirements
Use of “no fragrance” zones
Protection of private employee information We take a closer look at these issues in Chapter 12 “Working with Labor Unions” and Chapter 13 “Safety and Health at Work”.
Communication Besides these major roles, good communication skills and excellent management skills are key to successful human resource management as well as general management. We discuss these issues in Chapter 9 “Successful Employee Communication”.