Interpersonal Skills for a Resume: The Ultimate List & Examples
Turn your natural "people skills" into a hiring advantage
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You’ve got the technical know-how to do the job. But in a modern workplace, that’s only half the battle. You also need strong interpersonal skills—often called "people skills"—to truly stand out.
These traits determine how you connect, collaborate, and resolve conflict with your team. The problem is that it’s tough to list them on a resume without sounding like a generic buzzword machine.
We’re here to fix that. Here's your guide to identifying your best interpersonal skills and proving them to recruiters.
Key takeaways
- Interpersonal skills are professional strategies used to navigate workplace dynamics, distinct from your innate, casual "people skills."
- The most valuable categories to highlight include communication, emotional intelligence (EQ), conflict resolution, and collaboration.
- Tailor your selection to the job description and your seniority—executives need leadership and negotiation, while juniors need active listening and reliability.
- Don't list soft skills in a dedicated column; prove them in your experience section using the STAR method to show tangible results.
- Keep your skills section strictly for hard technical competencies to avoid looking like a generic "buzzword machine.”
What are interpersonal skills?
Interpersonal skills are a core soft skill covering the specific behaviors and tactics you use to communicate and interact with others. They determine how effectively you exchange information, handle conflict, and build relationships in the workplace. Think of them as the "mechanics" of social interaction.
Interpersonal vs. people skills: Is there a difference?
People skills usually refer to your innate personality or "vibe"—like being naturally friendly. Interpersonal skills are the professional, learnable techniques you apply, such as active listening or negotiation.
While often used interchangeably, there’s a difference in context. “People skills” is a colloquial term that sounds more casual. Interpersonal skills are the professional competencies recruiters ask for in job ads and interviews.
In this guide, we'll be treating them as the same, but on your resume, phrasing matters. Always choose "interpersonal skills" in the resume content. It’s the standard professional term hiring managers look for, whereas "people skills" can sound too informal.
Now that we’ve defined the term, let’s look at the specific skills that will help your application get noticed.
Top list of interpersonal skills for a resume
Here are the best interpersonal skills to highlight, categorized by how they help you function in a workplace.
Communication skills
These are the foundation of all office interactions. They ensure messages are sent and received without confusion.
- Verbal communication: The ability to speak clearly, confidently, and concisely to audiences of any size.
- Non-verbal communication: Using body language and eye contact to reinforce your words and build trust.
- Public speaking: Presenting complex ideas to a group in an engaging and understandable way.
- Active listening: Focusing entirely on the speaker to understand their message rather than just waiting for your turn to talk.
Emotional intelligence (EQ) & empathy
EQ helps you read the room and connect with colleagues on a human level.
- Patience: Staying calm and supportive when projects move slowly or colleagues struggle with new tasks.
- Tolerance: Respecting diverse viewpoints and working effectively with people who have different working styles.
- Adaptability: Sensing the emotional atmosphere of a meeting and adjusting your communication style to match it.
Conflict resolution & negotiation
Disagreements happen. Skills like conflict resolution prove you can turn friction into productive solutions.
- Mediation: Stepping in to facilitate a neutral, productive conversation between opposing parties.
- Problem-solving: Identifying the root cause of a social issue and implementing a fix that satisfies everyone.
- Persuasion: Convincing others to see your perspective or adopt a new idea without being aggressive.
Teamwork & collaboration
No one works in a silo. Teamwork skills show you lift others up rather than just focusing on yourself.
- Team building: Fostering a sense of unity and shared purpose among group members.
- Mentoring: Guiding junior staff to improve their skills and confidence through feedback and support.
- Constructive feedback: Delivering critique in a way that helps others grow without causing resentment.
Not every skill on that list belongs on your resume. The "best" interpersonal skills for you depend entirely on where you are in your career path.
Best interpersonal skills examples by career level
Employers expect different social traits from an intern versus a director. Tailor your resume to match the expectations of your seniority level.
For junior and entry-level roles
At this stage, hiring managers want to know you’re teachable, reliable, and easy to work with.
- Active listening: You’ll be receiving a lot of instruction. Show you can absorb information accurately without needing to be told twice.
- Teamwork: You don’t need to lead the team yet, but you must prove you can support it effectively.
- Adaptability: Show you can roll with the punches when priorities change or new tools are introduced.
For management and executive roles
Once you manage people, your focus shifts from "doing the work" to "influencing the people doing the work."
- Leadership: It’s not just about authority. It’s about inspiring your team to share a vision and work toward a common goal.
- Delegation: Trusting your team with ownership of tasks, which empowers them and frees you to focus on high-level strategy.
- Negotiation: You are the advocate for your team. You need to secure budgets, resources, and buy-in from other stakeholders.
- Mentoring: Companies want leaders who build talent. Highlight your ability to coach junior employees and help them grow.
Knowing what the skills are is only step one. Now, you need to place them strategically so they get noticed.
How to put interpersonal skills on your resume
You have the list, but you can’t use them all. You need to choose the right ones and place them where they count.
Recruiters want to know you fit their specific team.
Here’s how to pick the keywords:
Tailor your skills to the job
- Scan the ad: Read the job description and highlight every social skill mentioned, like "collaboration" or "client-facing."
- Identify the gap: Look for the problems they need solving. A high-stress role might need "patience" more than "persuasion."
- Select your matches: Compare their wish list with your actual strengths. Pick the top three to five overlapping skills.
- Prioritize: Place these matching keywords at the top of your list. If they ask for leadership, don’t fill space with "tolerance."
Once you determine your winners, you need to add them strategically. Each resume section puts different weight on a given skill.
How to include interpersonal skills on a resume
Avoid creating a dedicated section simply titled Interpersonal Skills filled with generic words like “nice” or “punctual.” It looks like fluff to a recruiter. Instead, you should prove these traits exist by weaving them into your content.
Use strong adjectives, precise verbs, and context to provide real evidence. Don't just claim you’re "reliable"—describe how you consistently met tight deadlines during a crisis.
The experience section
Work Experience is your powerhouse section because context is king. Listing communication implies you can talk, but describing a negotiation implies you can win business.
- The strategy: Don't state the skill—demonstrate its application. Use strong action verbs that inherently imply social intelligence, like mentored, negotiated, facilitated, bridged, or aligned.
- Best for: Absolutely everyone. This is non-negotiable for senior roles where your ability to manage people matters more than your ability to manage spreadsheets.
- When to use: Use the experience section bullets to validate your most important interpersonal skills. This placement allows you to prove exactly how your social interactions led to tangible business outcomes.
Here’s how this works in practice:
Example of interpersonal skills in the experience section
Wrong: "Used conflict resolution skills to fix team issues."
Right: "Mediated a stalled contract dispute between two vendors, securing a 10% discount and restoring the project timeline."
Why choose the latter? Because you didn't just resolve a conflict—you saved money and time.
The resume summary
The resume summary is another excellent place for your interpersonal skills. You have three to four lines to set the vibe before the recruiter looks at your history.
- The strategy: Use this space to connect your personality to your performance. Don't just claim to be a "leader"—say you’re a "collaborative strategist."
- Best for:Career changers, managers, and client-facing roles (sales, customer service, account management).
- When to use: Use the summary to highlight transferable traits immediately. It sets the narrative tone before the recruiter scans your specific roles.
Look at an example:
Example of interpersonal skills in the resume summary
- Wrong: "Friendly manager who is good with people and likes leading teams."
- Right: "Empathetic Customer Success Manager with 5+ years of experience building trust with high-value accounts, resulting in a 95% retention rate."
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The skills section
Here’s something you might not have expected: Avoid including interpersonal skills in a dedicated skill section.
While job ads often list soft skills as "preferred," they fall flat when simply dropped into a bulleted list. Anyone can type "good communicator" or "empathetic," but that doesn't make it true. Without context, these are just empty buzzwords that waste valuable space.
- The strategy: Keep your skills section strictly for hard skills—software, programming languages, and technical certifications. Redirect your interpersonal skills to sections where you can tell a story. Describe them in your summary, prove them in your experience bullet points, or highlight them in your volunteering section.
- Best for:Technical roles where hard skills (Python, SQL, SEO) are the priority for the ATS scan.
- When to use: Only include an interpersonal skill here if it’s a hard requirement with a tangible framework, like public speaking or Agile methodology. Otherwise, save the people skills for your cover letter and the interview, where your personality can truly shine.
PRO TIP
Struggling to frame these skills without sounding boastful or generic? You don’t have to do it alone.
If you’re staring at a blank page, try Enhancv’s Bullet Point Generator. It automatically suggests impactful, results-driven phrasing tailored to your specific job title. It takes the guesswork out of writing and ensures your interpersonal skills land with authority.
If you’re using AI tools, the output is only as good as the input. As Certified Professional Résumé Writers (CPRW), we understand the nuance between algorithms and human recruiters. We’ve designed these prompts to bridge that gap and generate results that work.
Prompts to help you list interpersonal skills effectively
Use the three prompts below to pinpoint the right interpersonal skills for your resume and take full control of your narrative.
To choose the right skills
"I’m applying for a [job title] role at a company that values [company Value, e.g., innovation/speed]. Based on the following job description [paste job description], which top 3 interpersonal skills should I prioritize on my resume to show I’m a strong culture fit?"
To quantify the unquantifiable
"I want to prove my conflict resolution skills in my experience section. Rewrite the following bullet point to include a quantifiable result (like time saved, retention, or output increase) using the STAR method: '[insert your basic sentence, e.g., ‘Resolved a disagreement between designers’]."
To translate a specific moment
"I have an anecdote where I [describe situation, e.g., stayed late to help a new hire learn the software so they wouldn't quit]. Turn this into a professional resume bullet point highlighting 'mentoring' and 'empathy' that sounds active and authoritative."
Want to skip the manual prompting? Enhancv’s AI Resume Builder instantly notifies you if your content sounds vague and helps you rewrite bullets effortlessly.
4 Common mistakes when listing interpersonal skills
Including interpersonal skills can backfire if done poorly.
Avoid these common missteps to ensure your resume remains professional and impactful.
1. The "laundry list" approach
Don't dump a block of 10+ adjectives into your skills section. A long list of words like "motivated," "friendly," and "dedicated" looks like filler.
- The fix: Limit yourself to three to five high-impact interpersonal skills that are strictly relevant to the job description.
2. Using empty cliches
Recruiters see the phrase "people person" or "hard worker" hundreds of times a day. These terms are subjective and impossible to prove.
- The fix: Replace subjective traits with objective actions. Instead of "hard worker," use "exceeded targets by 20%."
3. Failing the "so what?" test
Listing "leadership" is meaningless if you’ve never led anyone. If a recruiter looks at your skill list and can't find evidence of it in your experience section, they won't believe you.
- The fix: When you list a skill, make sure there’s a bullet point in your work history that proves it.
4. Confusing social vibes with professional skills
Being "funny" or "outgoing" helps you make friends, but it doesn't necessarily help you do the job.
- The fix: Keep it professional. Translate "outgoing" into "client relationship management" or "networking."
Is your resume good enough?
Drop your resume here or choose a file. PDF & DOCX only. Max 2MB file size.
Ultimately, hiring managers aren't just looking for a worker—they're looking for a team member. Demonstrating strong people skills on your resume proves you’ll solve problems, not create them.
Conclusion
Technical skills might get you the interview, but interpersonal skills are what secure the job. Move away from generic lists of "people skills" and instead weave proven examples of leadership, empathy, and communication into your experience section. This way, you demonstrate value beyond the job description.
Ultimately, showing these skills effectively proves to hiring managers that you’re not just a worker, but a collaborative team member who solves problems rather than creating them.
Make one that's truly you.
