Interpersonal Skills: Your Career Edge

Does your resume contain any of these interpersonal skill examples?

When most people think about the skills they need to successfully compete in the workplace, there is a natural tendency to focus on technical and other hard skills required to perform their job duties. Too few consider another important type of skill that employers look for when they are building their teams: interpersonal skills. More commonly known as people skills or “soft” skills, interpersonal abilities can often be the deciding factor in hiring decisions, promotions, and overall career success.

In this post, we will explore a variety of interpersonal skills examples, examine why they are so important in any workplace, and offer some insight into ways you can develop your own people skills to give you a competitive career advantage!

What are interpersonal skills?

One of the easiest ways to think about interpersonal skills is to recognize how they differ from hard, technical skills. Hard skills are those learned abilities that can help you perform daily job duties. They include things like technical proficiencies, writing skills, accounting knowledge, analytical abilities, and similar competencies. Most people learn these skills in school, through an accreditation process of some sort, or via hands-on experience.

Interpersonal competencies are different types of skills that are not usually acquired through any formal educational process. Instead, they are traits that flow from your own personality and your experience in dealing with people in social settings. As a rule, they tend to involve specific skill sets that help you interact with others, such as the ability to effectively communicate ideas, collaborate as a team, and navigate through complex and evolving social environments.

For jobseekers, interpersonal skills can be one of the most important assets for landing a new position. While your hard skills will demonstrate that you have the qualifications needed to warrant an interview for a new position, your interpersonal abilities are often what set you apart from other candidates and help you land the job. Interviewers are looking for candidates who can not only perform their designated job tasks but also work with others to help achieve the company’s mission and goals.

Why are interpersonal skills important in the workplace?

Most people can only truly thrive when they work with others to achieve things that they might struggle to accomplish on their own. While it is important for each employee to have the skills needed to do their job, no employee can ever make a company successful without acting as part of a larger whole. Those interpersonal relationships and interactions help make a company stronger, more productive, and better positioned to achieve its mission.

The people skills you bring to any organization can help you be a better communicator, enable you to quickly adapt to any new situation, and make it easier for others to relate to you as a co-worker and human being. Whether you are a subordinate or supervisor, strong interpersonal abilities can enable you to earn the trust of your co-workers, deal more effectively with customers, and make a positive and meaningful contribution to your team.

Interpersonal skills examples for different jobs

To better understand how important these skills can be, just consider some of the various roles that rely on well-developed people skills. For example:

Management roles

No matter what industry you’re in, a role in management requires strong interpersonal skills. These abilities can help you deal with employees, customers, and higher-level executives within your organization. Great managers are adept at communication, employee empowerment, leadership, active listening, negotiation, and conflict resolution.

Customer service and sales

Customer service agents interact with many different types of individuals throughout their day. Those interactions require a high degree of emotional intelligence, keen conflict-resolution skills, active listening, and patient communication.

Social Media management

Social media and other online content management is another job that relies heavily on strong interpersonal skills. Interpersonal skills examples for Social Media Managers include the ability to inspire and motivate an audience, convey important information to customers, and strengthen engagement with the target market.

Educators

Teachers and other educational professionals rely on a wide array of interpersonal skills. For example, they need to use strong communication skills to convey ideas that broaden students’ minds. They also need to collaborate with other staff, parents, and community stakeholders to create a learning environment that enriches their students’ lives and educational opportunities.

Attorneys

Obviously, lawyers rely on strong interpersonal skills to manage clients, communicate with opposing counsel, and present information to the court. In addition to communication skills, attorneys also need to be able to persuade others, inspire judges and juries to align with their arguments, and negotiate deals that are in their clients’ best interests.

Marketing professionals

Today’s marketing professionals need well-honed interpersonal skills to achieve their goals. Whether you’re engaged in offline or online marketing, those goals remain the same: to build brand loyalty and awareness, increase your company’s market reach, and inspire greater customer engagement that can contribute to sales growth and a boost in profitability.

Interpersonal skills: examples

Your interpersonal skills may take many different forms, encompassing a wide range of abilities that you can use to add value to any organization. It’s also important to note that these abilities are also transferable skills – core soft skills that can be relevant in almost any industry or position. As a result, employers often place a high priority on hiring candidates who possess at least some of these key skills. Here are just a few of the many interpersonal skills examples that employers prize:

1. Effective communication

Both written and verbal communication skills are vital for working in any team environment. To be an effective member of a team, you need to be able to communicate clearly and easily. You can demonstrate communication skills to an interviewer by presenting a clear and concise resume and an equally clear and engaging verbal presentation during your interview.

2. Active Listening

Active listening is about more than just hearing what the other person is saying. It requires thoughtful consideration of the other person’s words, meaning, and intent. Active listeners are focused on understanding other people and are genuinely curious and interested in hearing their thoughts and ideas. It is important to practice active listening during any interview to demonstrate this skill to the interviewer.

3. Conflict resolution

Human interaction always presents an opportunity for conflict. Whether it is a disagreement with co-workers, clients, or vendors, you are almost certain to encounter some type of conflict in virtually any job. Your ability to resolve those disputes in a way that satisfies everyone involved can be one of your greatest assets as an employee. A good conflict manager is always a good listener, counselor, and mediator, with the ability to find creative solutions to almost every problem.

4. Negotiation

In team settings, the ability to negotiate an agreement can be vital for getting things done in an efficient and timely way. Effective negotiators listen to others, work to find areas of common ground, and devise creative solutions that enable the team to move forward toward its goal. Genuinely great negotiators are also highly skilled in areas like research and persuasion, making them an invaluable addition to any work environment.

5. Leadership traits

Much has been written and said about the important role that leadership plays in any business enterprise. Unfortunately, many job candidates underestimate the value of their own leadership traits and only emphasize them when applying for management roles. But those traits are of immense value even in subordinate positions since your ability to make decisions, inspire those around you, and serve as a positive mentor can strengthen any organization or team.

Related reading: Leadership Traits Every Leader Needs to Succeed

6. Teamwork

There are very few job roles that do not involve some level of teamwork. As a result, your ability to collaborate with others can be critically important for your success in the workplace. Teamwork requires a combination of skills, including many of those listed in this post. To be a real team player, you need to have strong communication and listening skills, a talent for conflict resolution, and leadership skills like the ability to motivate others.

7. Adaptability

Are you flexible and quick to adapt to new situations and processes? If so, then your adaptability may be a highly prized asset during the hiring process and throughout your career. The workplace is constantly evolving, as new technologies and shifts in the economy require companies to be more agile than ever before. Employees who can quickly acclimate to change are in high demand, so be sure to include some examples in your resume of how this trait helped you to be successful in previous job roles.

8. Problem Solving

Throughout your career, your ability to solve problems will be vital for advancement and overall success. Given the rapid pace at which the world is changing, it is no longer enough to just have the skills needed to perform your assigned tasks. New problems arise every day, and successful employees need to be able to solve those challenges in creative ways. If you are a true problem solver who enjoys those types of challenges, then this interpersonal skill will likely serve you well throughout your career.

9. Emotional intelligence

In recent years, emotional intelligence has become an even more prized skill in many workplaces. This term refers to the ability to maintain your own emotional balance to help you more effectively navigate different types of social situations and interactions. If you’re someone who typically remains calm and cool in almost any situation or who easily interacts with different types of personalities, then chances are that you possess a relatively high level of emotional intelligence.

How to improve interpersonal skills

While you don’t acquire most interpersonal skills through the same formal processes used to learn hard skills, that doesn’t mean that you can’t develop and enhance your people skills. You can and should continually work to improve your interpersonal competencies. Below are some key steps you can take to make sure that your soft skills continue to develop throughout your career:

Identify weaknesses in your interpersonal skill set

Take stock of your soft skills and carefully review your strengths and weaknesses. This requires self-awareness and reflection but can yield powerful results. Once you identify areas where you can improve your interpersonal abilities, you can begin to focus on strengthening those specific traits.

When in doubt, start with communication

Communication skills, including active listening, can always be improved. More importantly, as you develop those skills, you will also find that your other interpersonal abilities improve. So, start to think more about the words you use, the nonverbal cues you send while communicating with others, and just how carefully you are considering the words that you hear from others. Becoming a better communicator can take time, but that time can yield a tremendous payoff over the course of your career.

Gain better control over your emotions

In the workplace, emotions can sometimes be an impediment to sound communication, teamwork, and productivity. Those who can control their emotions and approach people and problems in an empathetic and even-tempered way always seem to have an advantage when it comes to finding solutions and common ground. Develop your emotional intelligence!

Focus on being positive

A positive mindset can be contagious, so focus on improving your outlook on life, work, and interpersonal relations. Positive thinking makes communication more effective, draws others to you, and enables you to be assertive without becoming overly aggressive. People tend to view positive individuals as self-confident leaders who can be trusted to get things done.

Practice your people skills

Make a conscious decision to practice your interpersonal abilities everywhere you go. Hone them in your interactions with family, when communicating with others while you are out and about in town, and throughout your day at work. Every situation and interpersonal interaction can be a learning opportunity that can improve your people skills.

Include strong interpersonal skills in your resume

Since interpersonal skills can often be the deciding factor differentiating you from other job candidates, it is important to highlight them in your resume. As a general rule, it is usually best to include a few of your strongest people skills in the “skill” and “experience” sections of your resume. Here are some tips to help you with that process:

Begin by reviewing the job description so that you can determine which interpersonal skills best match the job requirements.
If possible, try to select skills that can be verified by your references.
Include no more than three to five of these people skills in your “core competencies” section unless the job primarily relies on interpersonal skills.
You can include more detail about your people skills in your resume’s experience section by offering examples of how each skill helped you to add value to your previous job roles.
For example, “Strong collaborative and leadership skills helped me to build a team of project developers who effectively increased our company’s client base by 12% while boosting sales revenue by more than 20% in the first year.”
You can also include one of your most important people skills in your cover letter. Again, try to provide details that explain how the skill helped you be more successful in a previous job.
Finally, make sure that you use all your interpersonal skills during your job interview. Listen attentively, focus on the interviewer, and make sure that your responses are courteous and informative. Remember, the interview is your best opportunity to really showcase your people skills and make the best possible impression.

Interpersonal skills examples can help you land your dream job

Interpersonal skills may not always receive the attention they deserve, but they can often give you the edge you need to land a great job and enjoy greater success in any job endeavor. By recognizing your own interpersonal strengths and weaknesses and including some of these interpersonal skill examples in your resume, you can more effectively convey your people skills to employers and enhance your job search prospects.

Does your resume contain the interpersonal skills examples you need to make the right impression on hiring managers? Get your free resume review from our team today to make sure that you have the job search tools needed to land your next interview.