Your collaboration skills are indispensable. In your career. And on your resume.
And they're not just about working well with others in a professional space. These skills encompass your ability to unite different perspectives and drive successful outcomes with your team and across organizations.
In the professional world that values people who can get the job done—together—these collaboration skills are the link between individual talent and collective success.
Your collaboration skills resume details aren't just an added advantage—they're a crucial indicator of your potential to thrive and contribute meaningfully in almost any work environment.
By strategically prioritizing and showcasing these skills on your resume, you position yourself as an invaluable asset and set yourself apart as top talent who can navigate complex human dynamics and propel growth.
3 key takeaways
- What collaboration skills are
- Examples of collaboration skills
- How to use the Teal AI Resume Builder to add collaboration skills to your resume
Understanding collaboration skills
Collaboration skills are your abilities and traits that allow you to work productively and harmoniously with others toward a shared goal.
Often thought of as resume soft skills (or transferable skills), they enable people from diverse backgrounds and with varying ideas, knowledge, and working styles to come together and achieve a collective, successful outcome. But while collaboration itself might be considered a soft skill, there are also hard skills like technical tools and software that can be used to increase effectiveness and efficiency.
Pro Tip: Want to understand your work style? The free Teal Work Styles Assessment to get insights into your strengths and weaknesses—including collaboration.
The importance of collaboration skills across industries
Important collaboration skills across different industries—from SaaS and finance to nonprofit and healthcare—aren't just about working well with others; they're about harnessing collective strength, wisdom, and expertise to achieve the best outcomes.
As industries continue to evolve and the world becomes more interconnected, the ability to collaborate effectively will remain a cornerstone of success.
Across industries, collaborative skills:
Drive innovation: When people with different backgrounds, skills, and experiences come together, they have innovative ideas that often generate unique and new solutions.
Improve efficiency and productivity: Collaborative teams can divide tasks based on expertise—ensuring the most qualified person tackles each task, leading to faster completion.
Enhance decision-making: Decisions made after considering multiple viewpoints lead to more comprehensive and robust decisions, reducing oversight.
Build stronger relationships: Over time, collaboration boosts understanding and trust, producing stronger, more cohesive teams.
Increase customer and stakeholder satisfaction: More comprehensive solutions translate to products, services, or strategies that are well received by customers and stakeholders.
Examples of collaboration skills in different industries
To get an idea of what collaboration skills look like in action (and how they can be incorporated into a resume), let’s take a look at some examples.
Brainstorming sessions in SaaS
Product managers, developers, designers, and customer success representatives might conduct quarterly meetings for brainstorming sessions.
In these meetings, the cross-functional teams collaborate to identify additional user pain points and brainstorm solutions. While the developer provides technical expertise using tools like Jira for project management, the designer thinks about the UX, the product manager focuses on alignment with the company's overall strategy, and the customer success rep offers user feedback using a shared Zendesk dashboard. Together, they use their communication skills, teamwork skills, and active listening to craft a well-rounded product update or feature.
On a resume, the collaboration skills these stakeholders could incorporate (alongside impact) are:
- Cross-functional collaboration
- User-centric problem solving
- Technical-design alignment
- Strategic alignment
- User feedback integration:
- Team-Based Ideation
- Jira
- Zendesk
Cross-department strategy in finance
The investment, retail, and risk management departments might team up to develop a new financial product, employing data analytics to extract valuable insights from each department's data. By leveraging advanced financial modeling techniques and Excel, the institution can create a product that's both appealing to customers and financially sound, ensuring alignment with the institution's financial goals and objectives.
On a resume, the collaboration skills the investment, retail, and risk management contributors might incorporate (alongside impact) are:
- Data analytics
- Financial modeling
- Excel
- Teamwork
- Communication
- Information sharing
- Problem-solving
- Cross-functional coordination
Community outreach at a nonprofit
A nonprofit focusing on community health might convene local schools, healthcare professionals, and community leaders. Using asynchronous communication via Loom, they can efficiently share insights and data, analyze community health trends, and employ Tableau data visualization to create visually informative reports. By doing so, they ensure their programs address the community's actual needs and can be effectively implemented with plenty of local support.
On a resume, the collaboration skills that could be incorporated (alongside impact) are:
- Data visualization
- Tableau
- Asynchronous communication
- Loom
- Teamwork
- Communication
- Information sharing
- Data analysis
- Community engagement
Examples of collaborative skills in different roles
Different roles and job functions use different skills. Let’s take a look at some collaborative skills examples used across roles to get an idea of what that looks like.
Team leader
Team leaders can demonstrate good collaboration through emotional intelligence, encouraging open communication, mediating conflicts, and ensuring every member's voice is heard and that they feel seen and understood. To accomplish this, they might set regular team meetings using Zoom, incorporate team-building activities, and establish clear channels for feedback using a tool like Slack or SurveyMoney.
Project manager
Project managers can incorporate good collaboration skills by coordinating with different departments so that each team meets project requirements on time. They might use collaborative tools like Trello, Asana, or Jira to track progress and maintain open lines of communication and a clear overview of each team's contribution.
Check out the skill sections on these project manager resumes.
Sales manager
Sales Managers collaborate by liaising with the product development and customer service teams to understand the product better and address customer concerns, utilizing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software like Salesforce for efficient communication and data tracking. They can demonstrate these relevant skills by presenting client feedback to the relevant departments to drive product or service improvements, leveraging Business Intelligence (BI) tools like Oracle for data-driven insights.
Here are 14 sales manager resumes to help you highlight collaboration properly
Researcher
In a corporate or academic setting, a researcher might demonstrate collaboration by co-authoring papers using collaborative writing and editing tools like Google Suite, sharing findings with colleagues for feedback through data visualization software such as Tableau, or pooling resources and expertise to tackle larger research questions using intuitive project management tools like Airtable.
Customer success manager
Customer success managers can collaborate by working closely with product and sales teams, utilizing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software like Hubspot for efficient issue tracking and resolution, and implementing Data Analytics tools like Power BI to generate insights for product improvement. They might have regular check-ins with these departments to stay updated, employing tools like Slack and Calendly to facilitate coordination and communication.
Take a look at how these customer success manager resumes showcase collaboration.
How to highlight collaboration skills on a resume
Now that you understand what collaboration skills are and what they look like across various roles and industries, it's time to learn how to put collaboration skills on a resume.
You can highlight specific skills throughout different parts of your resume as long as they're relevant to the job you're applying for.
Remember, your resume should showcase the top 10% of your skills and experience that are 100% relevant to the role you're applying to to grab the attention of the hiring manager or recruiter. And to do this, you always want to showcase your skills alongside impact for maximum effectiveness. Without showing results, any skills are just words without much meaning or concrete proof you actually have them.
Professional summary
In a professional summary, you showcase your career in aggregate—highlighting your top achievements and accomplishments. In this section, you can incorporate collaboration skills to highlight your experience in team-oriented environments, illustrate your capacity to contribute to projects, or emphasize your knack for fostering good working relationships.
You can use the Teal AI Resume Builder to generate multiple professional summaries that focus on collaborative skills found in each unique job description—tailoring your content to be relevant to each and any role you apply to during your job search.
Work experience achievements
Your work history achievements focus on your impact in each relevant position you've held for the last 10-15 years. Weaving collaborative skills into some of these accomplishments can highlight your ability to contribute effectively to overall team goals and showcase how you excel in cooperative work environments.
Use the AI within the Teal Resume Builder to generate impactful achievements with the click of a button. Then, edit them to showcase your collaboration skills alongside the impact.
Projects
If you have specific projects that incorporate collaboration and teamwork—whether in a professional space, as a student if you're a recent graduate, or through volunteer opportunities or leadership positions—this is a fantastic opportunity to showcase how you used those skills. Consider the outcome, the people involved, and how you got to that point, and structure these projects similarly to your work experience.
Learn more about the right way to showcase projects on your resume.
A dedicated "Skills" section
If you opt for a dedicated "Skills" section, it's important to focus on the tools you used (as hard skills) to facilitate effective collaboration alongside other technical skills and tools rather than soft skills. For example, list communication tools like Slack or Zoom, project management tools like Jira or Asana, and CRM tools like Salesforce or Hubspot.
Cross-functional collaboration
Cross-functional collaboration refers to teams or individuals from diverse functional areas of an organization working together to achieve common objectives. This can include members from marketing, sales, finance, product development, and other departments collaborating on a single project or task.
Cross-functional collaboration is part of essential interpersonal skills for a resume that contributes to how well an organization functions. It leads to good communication, better understanding, faster completion of projects, and comprehensive and innovative solutions that help the organization achieve its business objectives. Team members who excel at cross-functional collaboration are necessary for these outcomes (and overall business objectives) to thrive.
How to highlight cross-functional collaboration on a resume
Rather than just listing "cross-functional collaboration," there are some strategic ways to incorporate these interpersonal skills into your resume.
- Use action verbs: Start with action verbs like "collaborated," "partnered," or "coordinated" to show your proactive involvement.
- Specify departments: Mention the departments or teams you collaborated with. For instance, "Worked cross-functionally with the sales and marketing teams to develop a new product launch strategy."
- Highlight achievements: Emphasize the results of your collaboration. "Led a cross-functional team alongside marketing and outbound sales that achieved a 20% increase in quarterly revenue."
- Mention tools and platforms: Highlight any tools or platforms you used to facilitate collaboration, such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Trello.
Collaboration resume examples
Outside of a listed “Skills” section, phrasing specific collaborative skills that align with the role you’re applying to can be challenging if you don’t quite know how to say “works well with others” on a resume.
Below are a few collaboration resume examples of the best and most strategic ways to highlight these important transferable skills in a way that resonates with hiring managers.
Collaboration skills examples in a professional summary
With 7 years of experience as an Administrative Assistant, I excel in bridging communications between Sales, Marketing, and Finance teams, resulting in a 25% increase in cross-departmental project completion efficiency. Using Microsoft Teams and SharePoint, I've coordinated over 100 virtual meetings in the past year—ensuring seamless interactions among these departments. My keen attention to detail and expertise in data management led to a 15% reduction in clerical errors, providing accurate reporting and documentation across all projects.
EdTech Front-end Engineer with 2 years of experience, I've consistently collaborated with UX/UI designers, product managers, and educators to foster user-centric design, leading to a 30% improvement in user experience scores. Skilled in React and Vue.js, I've successfully integrated over 50 interactive educational modules within web platforms. Through data analysis, problem-solving, and performance optimization, I continuously ensured websites loaded 20% faster to enhance the online learning experience.
Collaboration skills examples as work experience achievements
Data analyst
"Integrated data sources by 40% through liaising with IT and business intelligence teams, leading to a 15% increase in data-driven decision-making"
Content writer
"Boosted organic traffic by 25% by coordinating with SEO and design teams to produce 20 monthly articles, resulting in a 10% uptick in conversion rates"
Senior marketing manager
"Elevated cross-channel engagement by 20% by bridging communication between sales and advertising departments, ensuring consistent brand presentation"
Collaboration skills examples in projects
Senior group project: Development of a peer-to-peer study platform
Designed platform's back-end to handle 5,000 simultaneous users, achieving a 99.5% uptime through optimized coding practices and rigorous stress-testing
Collaborated with graphic design and UX peers, integrating a user-centric interface that garnered positive feedback from 90% of student testers.
Conducted user feedback sessions with student tutors, refining platform features, leading to a 20% boost in user retention rates
Volunteer PTO secretary organization of annual carnival
Coordinated with 30 parent volunteers, delegating tasks effectively using SignupGenius and ensuring event setup was finalized 3 hours before the scheduled start.
Oversaw documentation of event proceedings and budget using Excel, maintaining transparent communication that contributed to a record-setting fundraising amount of $8700
Fostered partnerships with 10 local businesses, securing over $10,000 in funds and contributions that enriched the event offerings and overall experience.
Showcase collaboration skills seamlessly with Teal
In today's interconnected professional space, collaboration skills are pivotal. These skills go beyond just working well with others; they focus on harnessing collective strengths, fostering innovation, enhancing efficiency, and, ultimately, driving success.
Knowing collaboration skills is only half the battle. Understanding how to showcase them on your resume strategically aligns your skills with the ones hiring professionals are looking for.
Fortunately, integrating these vital skills is seamless with Teal. The Teal AI Resume Builder makes it effortless to tailor your skills for each job application so you can incorporate them in every section. With a deep understanding of collaboration, you're not just prepared for the future of work—you're leading the way.
Let the Teal AI Resume Builder help you create a resume that resonates with your collaborative strengths. Sign up for free today.
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