Organizational Skills For Your Resume: Definition and Examples

There is no role in which organizational skills aren’t useful. Every employer wants to have someone on board, who’s capable of staying atop of their agenda and completing all the tasks promptly. But the bigger question is — how do you convey your organizational abilities in a resume? And more importantly – which of the myriad of organizational skills you should highlight? Let’s provide you with answers to these questions and more! 

What Are Organizational Skills?

Organizational skills refer to your ability to be smart with your time and effective in task execution. People with strong organizational skills are good at setting goals and priorities, creating systems and processes for effective task execution, and scheduling work at an optimal cadence. 

In short, organizational skills you use to create structure and order in your day-to-day work, stay personally productive, as well as prompt others to do their part effectively.  

Why Organizational Skills are Important for Employers? 

People with well-rounded organizational skills are more likely to stay focused, motivated, and productive — all great qualities employers value. 

As a recent survey found, 84% of hiring managers expect candidates to demonstrate strong soft skills during the hiring process. Time management and communication, in particular, are in the limelight. 

That’s not surprising, given the wider context of global productivity decline. American productivity experienced the sharpest decline over the last 75 years, dropping by 2.7% last year.  Productivity levels are also in decline across the UK and the European Union. 

Yet, the speed of doing business has increased tremendously and thus businesses are looking for effective performers, who are good at planning, prioritizing, and task execution. If that sounds like you, be sure to make your organizational qualities evident on your resume. 

Organizational Skills Examples For Your Resume

If you are a Type-A personality, you already take pride in being super organized. But the challenge is convincing the hiring manager. Yes, you could simply put ‘Strong Organizational Skills’ on your resume and call it a day. But that’s what all other candidates will do. To stand out, describe your organizational skills using different words and sprinkle them in every section of your resume. 

Here are examples of organizational skills that are a must-have for your resume (and cover letter too!). 

1. Time Management

When you have strong time management skills, your employer can count on you to get things done effectively, prioritize multiple tasks, and always make productive use of your time.

Here are some power words to use on your resume if you want to highlight your time management skills: 

Bonus tip: Mention specific time management strategies. Add extra “meat” to your job application by explaining which time management techniques you like using. For example, you can mention popular frameworks like the Eisenhower Matrix or the Getting Things Done (GTD) method. Or highlight your more prolific knowledge of project management techniques like Kanban or Agile Results.

2. Communication and Collaboration

Effective collaboration is impossible without good communication. When it comes to group work, your ability to stay on top of things and communicate effectively will make you stand out. This makes you a great asset to have on board as you’re an effective solar performer and a great team player.

Here’s how to showcase your strong collaboration skills on a resume:

You can learn more about how to best describe your interpersonal skills from our previous post. 

3. Task Management 

Task management refers to your ability to not just complete assigned work, but do so in the right order, minding the different priority levels, dependencies, and blockers. This leads to a better consistency of work, higher productivity, and better-managed expectations for all parties, involved in the project.  

So if task management is your strong suit, use the following words to describe this competency on a resume: 

Pro tip: Talk about your broader self-management competencies to demonstrate your full spectrum of management skills.  

4. Delegation

Delegation isn’t just the ability to assign tasks to others. It is the ability to recognize when you cannot use your talents efficiently. So that you can complete the task by handing it over 

to someone more competent than you are. Delegating allows you to streamline your workload and stay on top of things. 

Use the following words to describe your delegation skills:

Pro tip: The ability to effectively delegate is particularly valued among senior and executive-level employers. If that’s the position you’re after, check the respective resume samples. They’ll provide further guidance on how to best describe your ability to delegate and empower others to do their best work. 

4. Administration

Can you make a team or project run smoothly? Can you keep others rallied around a shared project? Are you good at supporting others in whatever it is that they are doing? If so, you should definitely highlight your administrative skills on the resume.

Here are several examples of administrative skills worth mentioning: 

You can get even more examples from our post about administrative skills. 

6. Information Management 

As we’re switching to the knowledge economy, most roles now require strong information management abilities. Many teams are distributed and much of the produced information exists in silos. 

People with strong information management skills are thus an asset to every company. If you’re good at organizing documents, summarizing information, and building internal knowledge systems (checklists, templates, guides, etc), make that known on your resume.

Here’s how to best convey this type of organizational competencies on your resume: 

Pro Tip: Bring up your data analytics skills. Your ability to find and analyze information is incredibly valuable. Even more so, if you can also work with raw data sources to perform statistical or semantical analysis. Bring up your experience with different business intelligence tools or even your above-average proficiency in Excel analytics. This can win you extra brownie points with the hiring manager. 

How to Describe Organizational Skills on a Resume?

To effectively convey your organizational skills to a prospective employer, do the following: 

• Analyze the job description and pick out the terms the employer uses
• Match the desired qualifications against your skill set 
• Introduce your most relevant organizational skills in the resume summary 
• Highlight work experience where you employed your organizational skills
• Emphasize some more organizational skills in a featured Skills section

Let’s look at the above tips in the context of a manager’s resume, where organizational skills are strategically presented across sections. 

Sample Organizational Manager Skills for a Resume

Final Thoughts 

Organizational skills are valued in every field and every role, from entry-level ones to the C-suite. So when working on your new resume, be sure to drop systematic cues of your organizational abilities across different sections, and then add some to your cover letter!