In many organizations, the responsibilities assigned to a great Team Lead are critical for mission success. Whether they’re training and coaching team members, creating clear plans and communicating instructions, or working to maximize the group’s efficiency, these professionals make an invaluable contribution to project success. The position is so important that job seekers who aspire to this low-level management role must ensure that they’re relying on a truly compelling Team Lead resume.
We’ve created this Team Lead resume guide to help you learn how to create that type of resume for your own job search needs. Within this guide, you’ll find helpful tips, including invaluable insight into what today’s employers want to see when they examine your resume and a sample resume that you can reference as you construct your job search document. If you’re ready to learn everything you need to know to create a resume that highlights your skills, experiences, and achievements, then you’ve come to the right place.
How to write a resume
Given the intense competition for Team Lead jobs, your resume needs to do more than just list your prior jobs and skills. To get attention from hiring managers and make the right sort of impression, you need to sell your candidacy by highlighting your qualifications in a way that showcases the value you can provide to the company. To do that, your resume needs to have the right format and structure and deliver a narrative that emphasizes your unique value proposition as an employee.
Format
Your resume will be useless if employers can’t easily scan it and find the information that they want to see. The format that you choose will help to determine its readability, which is why we recommend the reverse chronological format over the functional or hybrid options. This format has the advantage of being instantly recognizable to most hiring managers, who prefer it to the alternatives. To use it, you simply provide key details like your work experience in reverse order, starting with your most recent job.
Structure
The structure of your Team Lead resume needs to be simple and straightforward, with information separated into sections. This enables employers to scan through your document to review qualifications without reading it from start to finish. The following structure works well with the reverse chronological format:
Contact information: These details include your name and location, email and phone number, and relevant social media like a LinkedIn URL.
Resume headline: This heading should include the title of the job you’re seeking, along with some compelling text that can catch an employer’s attention. For example: “Results-Driven Team Lead with 10 Years of Project Management Success.”
Summary: The summary statement is your resume’s version of a salesperson’s elevator pitch. Use three to five sentences to quickly highlight your most relevant skills and achievements. Use real numbers to quantify the value that those achievements provided to your previous employers.
Core competencies: This section should showcase your relevant skills, including both hard and soft abilities. We’ll go into this section in greater detail later in the guide.
Work history: List the companies you’ve worked for over the last 10-15 years, in reverse chronological order. Include the dates of employment, your job title, and several bullet point examples of accomplishments for each position.
Education: As the name suggests, this section is where you highlight your educational achievements. Include the school’s name, course of study, and degree you earned. You can also include information about certifications, continuing education, and other training.
How to show your value
When we talk about demonstrating your potential value as an employee, what we’re really talking about is providing prospective employers with clear examples of how your accomplishments have translated into measurable value for previous employers. To showcase that value, you should try to describe your achievements using real numbers that quantify the positive results you’ve provided throughout your career.
You can include this type of measurable accomplishment within your summary section, as well as in the bullet point achievements you include for every job listed in your work history. For example:
Led team that successfully reduced product waste by 24%, reducing resource costs by 12% over a 2-year period.
Devised and implemented a new client management process that resulted in a 27% increase in customer retention and a 19% increase in upsell success.
Team Lead resume example
The tips we just reviewed should provide you with enough insight to help you outline and craft a basic Team Lead resume that showcases your experiences and achievements. If you’re still wondering what the final product might look like, however, it might help to see an example resume that incorporates these ideas. That’s why we’ve included this Team Lead resume example that you can use as inspiration or as a template for simplifying your own resume creation efforts.
Name
Title
City, State or Country if international
Phone | Email
LinkedIn URL
TEAM LEAD PROFESSIONAL
Results-producing Team Lead demonstrating year-over-year improvements in sales and marketing efforts, customer service ratings and team productivity. Strong and decisive leader with excellent analytical, organizational, team building and planning skills. Maintains an uncompromising focus on high quality standards and bottom-line profit improvement. Effective technical and communication abilities. Excel at turning under-producing individuals into teams that work efficiently and exceed all expectations. Customer service orientated and excellent at performing crisis management and ensuring customer loyalty and increasing bottom line revenues. Managed more than 40+ staff to deliver multi-million dollar projects on time and under budget.
CORE COMPETENCIES
Sales/Marketing
Customer Service
Project Management
Staff Supervision
Crisis Management
Operations Management
Staff Mentoring
Time Management
Scheduling
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Team Lead
ZipJob, New York NY | Year to Year
Responsibilities
Promoted to positions of increasing authority and responsibility due to my outstanding customer service ratings, team
Maximize profitability through superior customer service, effective and prompt communication and follow-up on all pending matters with the customer
Utilize superior communications skills to motivate staff and develop effective working relationships with peers, executives and clients
Managed 40+ employees and developed a team focused on customer service and results
Handled escalated customer concerns/complaints and devised creative solutions to ensure customer loyalty
Monitored phone activity to assure each member was providing top service and working to their potential
Coached and developed customer service representatives to meet and maintain company goals
Organized staff meetings in regards to new products and procedures
Generated daily, monthly and annual sales reports
Customer Service Representative
ZipJob, New York NY | Year to Year
Responsibilities
Provided exceptional customer service to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty while answering multiple phone lines and assisting new applicants with the complex employment process.
Solved a range of customer queries by providing timely and effective outcomes, resulting in first call resolution of issues.
Increased revenues and customer service by developing a team focused on providing top level service and ensuring each customer had an enjoyable visit
Hired and mentored new employees
Developed strategic marketing plans to increase revenues
EDUCATION
Complete School Name, City, St/Country: List Graduation Years If Within the Last Ten Years
Complete Degree Name (Candidate) – Major (GPA: List if over 3.3)
Relevant Coursework: List coursework taken (even include those you are planning on taking)
Awards/Honors: List any awards, honors or big achievements
Clubs/Activities: List clubs and activities in which you participated
Relevant Projects: List 2-3 projects you have worked on
Key hard & soft skills for a Team Lead
One thing that employers will always be looking for is whether you have the right skills for the job. Remember that Core Competencies section that we discussed in the resume-writing part of the guide? Well, employers will often dash to that section when they scan your resume. When they get there, you need to make sure that they see a balanced mix of hard and soft skills that align perfectly with the qualifications they listed in their job posting.
In fact, you should try to include those listed qualifications in your skill section, using the exact same words they used to describe the abilities they seek. Why, you ask? It’s simple. The terms they use in their job posting are often keywords that need to be used in your resume if you want it to get past applicant tracking systems that may be screening candidate resumes. Keep that in mind as you decide which skills to include in your resume.
Examples of Team Lead resume hard skills
The hard skills you include in your Team Lead resume will help to showcase your ability to perform the job-specific duties of the role. Hard skills include technical abilities and are typically acquired through education or other formal and informal training methods. To help you identify your own job-related hard skills, we’ve created a list of some common abilities that a Team Lead may need to be successful in their position, including:
Project management
Data analysis
Digital communication
Computer skills
Agile/Scrum
Lean management
Industry knowledge
Examples of Team Lead resume soft skills
While hard skills ensure that you can fulfill the technical requirements of the position, your soft skills will often determine just how successful you can be. Your Team Lead resume should include a number of these critical interpersonal skills and abilities to show that you have what it takes to lead a team and manage projects. Below are some of the most common soft skills Team Leads use to organize people and resources in the most efficient and productive way.
Teamwork
Collaboration
Leadership
Motivation
Conflict resolution
Time management
Problem-solving
Summary & last words
When you’re seeking any type of leadership position, it’s vital to make sure that your resume helps you stand out from the competition. That’s why it’s so important to understand what employers are looking for when they review candidate resumes. They want to be assured that the candidate they choose has the right skills, experiences, and measurable accomplishments to not only perform the job duties but add real value to the organization. These tips can help you learn how to convey that impression.
Introduction to ZipJob: Professional resume writers
On the other hand, you may want to take your resume to the next level by partnering with professional resume experts. If so, it’s important to recognize that you’re not alone. Many managers and leaders rely on expert assistance to ensure that their resumes provide a competitive advantage over their rivals in the marketplace. At ZipJob, our team of resume writers have years of experience creating the type of personalized Team Lead resume you need to sell yourself as the best candidate for any open position.
Why you should make use of our resume writing services to land your next job as a Team Lead
There are many resume writing services out there, so it is vital to choose the right one for your needs. When you partner with ZipJob, your assigned writer will have deep industry knowledge and experience crafting Team Lead resumes that make a real impact on hiring managers. We work with you every step of the way to develop a powerful and compelling resume narrative that showcases not just your effectiveness as a Team Lead but also your value as an employee and a person.
Resume writing service for Team Lead: Let us write your resume
Creating the right resume may be the most important investment you make in your career success. Resumes are the ultimate personal marketing piece and often determine just how effective you can be in your job search efforts. By partnering with the professionals at ZipJob, you can ensure that you receive a customized, individualized resume that catches employers’ attention and helps you secure more interviews. Reach out to us today to learn more about how we can help you enjoy greater career success.