Unique Ways To Use Communication Skills for Success

Updated July 24, 20231.5k

Communication skills are crucial for any industry. What are some ways to feature your communication skills in your resume?

Communication Skills

If you want to achieve workplace success, there are a variety of skills you might want to actively work on. Effective communication is one of those skills. Most soft skills are important for success in the workplace, but communication is a particular skill that can help you in both your personal life and your professional life. If you want to improve the skills employers are most interested in, here’s what you need to know about developing effective communication skills.

Why Should I Care About Good Communication Skills?

Good communication skills will help you in just about every job you will ever have. Great communication skills allow you to pay close attention to what someone else is saying, see things from another person’s point of view, and maintain an open mind in every conversation. Poor communication skills can negatively impact your relationships both at work and at home. Recruiters will always value strong communication skills, and these social skills can help improve your personal life as well.

What Are the Most Important Communication Skills?

“Communication skills” is a giant umbrella term that includes a variety of different forms of communication. Here are a few of the communication skills you might want to incorporate into your resume and cover letter.

Nonverbal communication

Nonverbal communication skills include all elements of communication that involve not directly speaking to someone. This may include body language, eye contact, facial expressions and hand gestures. Nonverbal cues are an important part of how individuals can tell someone is listening to them and cares about the conversation in question. Mastering these nonverbal signals can help tremendously in face-to-face discussions.

Written communication

Another type of communication that can require specific interpersonal skills is written communication. Do you know how to write a great email? How good are you at writing a presentation or a report? Much workplace communication is done over emails, memos and similar methods of communication, and that means a lot of it takes place in the written medium. Mastering this skill can make you a better team player.

Public speaking and presentation skills

Many people who regularly have to present to higher-ups or other individuals in the office need to know how to create presentations that individuals want to listen to. If you’re someone who needs to create PowerPoint presentations or other slideshows, learning how to properly add information to a PowerPoint slide and present it in a compelling way is a crucial part of succeeding.

Constructive criticism

Managers need to know how to adapt their communication style when giving constructive criticism. Even if you’re not a manager but you hope to eventually have seniority as a general employee, you might need to give constructive criticism to your fellow employees. Striking that difficult balance between helpfulness and condescension is not always easy, and you need to actively work on these skills.

Active listening

Lastly, being a good listener can help you in a variety of situations. Active listening skills include everything that you do to tell the other person in a conversation that you’re listening to them. This may include acknowledging what you’re being told, with phrases like “Okay” and “Right,” or it may include using emotional intelligence skills and knowing when to add something to the conversation. Either way, this can illustrate the importance of communication skills, even as the listening party in a conversation.

Tips for Highlighting Communication Skills on Your Resume

Rather than just stating that you “have “excellent communication skills,” use examples to show how you’ve used these skills in the past. Have you used open-mindedness to help you understand where someone is coming from? Did you become great at presentation skills when you had to make presentations for higher-ups every week? You can use the ResumeNerd resume builder to get more advice in crafting your resume overall.

FAQ: Communication Skills

How do I improve my communication skills?

Improving your communication skills is as simple as putting the work in. You won’t get better at communication if you never try to get better. Look for courses, books, podcasts and even social media posts or classes that can help you improve at communication. Additionally, it’s best to pick a specific niche that you want to improve in. Rather than just saying that you want to get better at “conversation skills,” you can say you want to get better at active listening or how to give constructive criticism more effectively.

What are some signs to look for that point to ineffective communication?

If your communication skills aren’t up to par, you’ll likely notice because, as you would expect, you’ll have a harder time communicating with people. You might notice that other people in your personal and work life don’t listen to you as much, don’t communicate with you as frequently, and tend to go to other people rather than to you. If you start noticing these things, you might want to invest in your communication skills.

What types of communication skills are most important for my industry?

Each industry has different communication skills that they value. It’s important that you know how to communicate in the way that makes the most sense for your industry. Use our resume examples and writing tips for your specific industry to prioritize the skills a hiring manager in your field will be most likely to follow up on.

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About The Author

Cindi Cervone Carlson

Cindi Cervone Carlson is a Senior Vice President for Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. Cindi is responsible for developing, delivering, and implementing a dynamic, world-class organization dedicated to delivering outplacement consulting, training, support, and executive coaching. Cindi started her career at Challenger as a client who had lost her job. Over the past nine years, she has risen from an entry-level, part-time professional to Senior Vice President.