Many jobs require consistent, if not constant, interactions with other people. So naturally, employers expect you to have strong interpersonal skills. 

Wondering what are those exactly and how to best describe them on your resume? Get the answers to these questions and more from this guide. 

What are Interpersonal Skills?

Interpersonal skills, also known as people skills, are abilities you use to communicate well with others, build rapport, and diffuse any lingering tensions. It’s a wide group of soft skills, which includes everything from active listening and empathy to adaptability, teamwork, and non-verbal communication. 

In simpler words, people with strong interpersonal skills know how to get along well with others. And that’s an important quality employers seek in almost every industry. For instance, 62% of employers say that graduate medical students must possess strong interpersonal skills (on top of functional knowledge).  Likewise, strong people skills are necessary if you want to advance to a leadership position. A ten-year study found that strong interpersonal skills impact positively workers’ mobility, promotion chances, and salary growth. 

Several Quick Interpersonal Skills Examples for Resume

The best way to describe interpersonal skills is through context. Let’s you’re making a resume for a customer service role. For such a position, the employer will be looking for someone with excellent communication and negotiation skills such as:

• Collaborative problem-solving focused on getting a win-win outcome 
• Emotional intelligence and strong self-regulation abilities 
• Patience in concessions to increase their perceived value of the concession 
• Willingness to compromise on less important points to reach a resolution 

On the other hand, if you’re writing a program manager resume, you may want to focus more on the people skills related to teamwork and relationship-building such as:

• Diplomacy — navigating diverse personalities and viewpoints with tact, respect, and cultural sensitivity 
• Transparent communication — being forthcoming about risks, bottlenecks, and timelines. 

• Prioritization — establishing the optimal program delivery cycle to ensure ongoing value creation. 

List of Interpersonal Skills for Resume

Interpersonal skills include a wide range of personality attributes and learned behaviors. It’s a diverse skill set every person has (or can cultivate!). However, it can be a challenging one to convey on a resume. 

To help you out, we’ve made a list of in-demand interpersonal skills to put on a resume to gain the hiring manager’s attention. 

Communication 

Most people above the age of three know how to communicate per se, but far fewer know how to do it well. Strong communication remains one of the most in-demand skills that few candidates have. Over half of recent college graduates struggle with eye contact and clear communication. Even more worrisome, 69% of managers admit to being uncomfortable communicating with their employees. 

So your natural (or trained) abilities to speak clearly, confidently, and with candor can single you out among other candidates. Moreover, being a confident speaker also sets you up for faster promotion. 

Obviously, your strong communication skills will come through the most during an interview. But to get your foot into the door, we also recommend using the following keywords on your resume: 

Teamwork 

Almost every job involves teamwork. The earlier you are in your career, the greater importance strong teamwork skills play: 80% of employers want to see graduate applicants with strong teamwork skills. Why? Because the junior staff is more likely to hold supporting or contributor roles i.e., help others with different parts of the job and actively learn. 

Further down your career path, strong teamwork skills help you build strong relationships with others and gain internal support to go after a management position. 

Here are several ways to describe your teamwork skills on a resume:

• Proactively offer assistance to colleagues during the busy season
• Collaborated with cross-functional team on several projects 
• Provide constructive feedback to ensure good team dynamic 
• Consistently deliver on the deadline, so teammates can depend on me 
• Ensure effective documentation handover between shifts 

Emotional Intelligence 

Emotional intelligence (EI) involves your ability to well understand, manage, and deal with your own emotions and those of others. It encompasses skills such as self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and motivation among others. 

Everyone can have a bad day, but people with high EI don’t let their negative moods affect their performance or create tensions with colleagues. Likewise, emotionally intelligent people know how to best approach different personalities and help diffuse tensions.

You can use the following words to describe your high levels of emotional intelligence:

Negotiation 

Negotiation skills indicate your aptitude for reaching mutually beneficial agreements — such that respect each side’s needs and become the start of a positive new relationship. Having strong negotiation skills is a must-have ability for jobs in sales and marketing, banking and finance, and any job that involves you having to negotiate deals with clients or business partners.

Here are several examples of how to spotlight your negotiation skills on a resume:

• Always entering the room with a Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BANTA) offer 
• Successful usage of anchoring techniques to establish a favorable starting point in negotiations
• Openness to compromises and concessions on non-critical deal elements to ensure faster closure 
• Frame reframing during the tough part of negotiations to avoid active confrontation 

Leadership 

If you are applying for a management role or a job where you will have supervisory responsibilities over other staff or team members, then you will need to detail your leadership skills.

Leadership skills indicate your ability to organize and guide other people toward a shared goal — a task that’s easier said than done. Good leaders can influence and inspire others to accept their point of view, support their initiatives, and follow the suggested path forward. You can highlight your leadership skills by giving a good example of how you took control of a negative situation and solved a problem with your forethought and positive direction.

For example: 

Assisted retail businesses that were plagued with reputation issues due to greenwashing. Helped change public opinion by launching a campaign, developed in collaboration with sustainability advocates, environmental scientists, and “green” YouTubers. Achieved a brand reputation lift of 25% in 6 months.

Relationship-Building Skills

Having good relationships at work doesn’t mean being best friends with everyone. It’s a more nuanced skill that involves adaptability to different personality styles, cultural backgrounds, and communication preferences. In other words — your ability to establish and maintain positive and productive interactions with others.

Here are several examples of relationship-building skills for your resume:

Openness 

Many workplaces will often experience problems that will need solving. You will need to be able to talk openly and honestly to help resolve difficult situations, whether that be disputes between work colleagues or between staff and customers. 

So being transparent and honest in your communications is a highly valued skill that not all candidates possess. Over half of employees admit to lying at work, mostly to avoid getting in trouble or to hide mistakes. Showing that you can be candid about your mishaps and direct even with not-so-great news can set you apart among others. 

Try using the following words to describe this interpersonal skill:

How to Put Interpersonal Skills on a Resume?

Ideally, you should include your most marketable interpersonal skills in the resume header area, both in a summary and in a features Skills section. You one of our well-structured resume templates to ensure the optimal layout. 

Next, you should also highlight your interpersonal skills within your Work Experience section. Include some of the above examples in the bullet points for each job entry. Also, try to contextualize your skills through precise examples. 

For example, showing the results of your actions with some related increased sales figures, or statistical data can impress the employer and deliver real-life proof that you have very effective negotiation skills. If you lead a team of six colleagues on a sales project that led to an 18% increase in sales, then mention this fact.

You can give an example of how your communication skills and conflict management skills helped to resolve a workplace incident between colleagues or departments. Should your success have led to the company implementing some staff training that you were asked to present, then include this on your resume. Keep your focus on what your skills helped to achieve.

Final Tip: Less Is More 

Most interpersonal skills are linked to some level so you don’t need to list them all. The fact that you have shown your strong communication skills will also convey that you must also be a good listener and be able to pick up on non-verbal clues in people. 

Re-read the job description and zoom in on the qualities the employer mentions. Separately, hop on their website and check if they have any public materials about the company culture. Many companies openly share what types of qualities and behaviors they value among employees, and you can use that data to tailor your resume accordingly!

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