The Best Organizational Skills for Your Resume [with Examples]

So, you found an amazing job posting. This may be your dream job.

You want the vacancy, but you’re not sure how to include everything on your resume.

Using a resume builder can help you fine-tune your document, but you need to add a bit more. That’s especially true if you notice the company or business wants their candidates to have something specific.

What do you do if the job posting tells you that they are looking for someone who has strong organizational skills?

There are a few steps to take before you begin to make your resume show off the organizational skills you have to land the job. Here is what you should focus on:

• Understand what organizational skills are
• Know what skills are useful at work
• How to include organizational skills in your resume
• Go over some examples

Once you understand this information, you can begin to make your resume.

It’s also essential to remember when you’re writing your resume, you want to make sure it’s as relevant as possible.

It is crucial to understand what specific organizational skills the hiring manager values for the job. With your resume, you can prove that you can handle the job’s responsibilities and be successful.

Afterward, tailoring your resume to stand out to the employer will become very simple.

Then, when you get past the resume phase, it becomes important to look over organizational skills examples for the interview

However, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves.

First, in the guide below, you can find useful and essential information that will help you create a resume that shows off your organizational skills.

If you feel you don’t have any, don’t worry, you can also learn how to improve on those skills as well.

Keep reading to find out how to wow a hiring manager with your organizational skills.

The Meaning of Organizational Skills

Organizational skills relate to the ability to plan, prioritize and manage tasks and projects. These are essential in a variety of work environments because they help you manage your time, prioritize your tasks and organize your work.

Managing your time wisely, being able to communicate, and managing others are also essential skills needed to be an organized person at home or work.

Your organizational skills are also important for employers because they demonstrate that you’re responsible and dedicated—qualities that will make you a great addition to any team.

As a job applicant, you must prove how well-organized you are when writing your resume—and not just by listing off random accomplishments like “conducted research on Company X” or “helped launch product Y.”

Using a resume template can help you enter your organizational skills in your skill section and past job descriptions nicely.

Think about how each experience relates to how well-organized internally, aligned with Project Management Institute’s (PMI) definition:

Finding an employee that can do these things, and do them well, is the dream of any hiring manager.

An effective employee that can get things done before a deadline and work well with others, who wouldn’t want that?

There are a lot of specific skills that fall under the umbrella of organizational skills, and it’s important to know as many as you can.

Understanding which skills you are already good at and which you are not is essential.

Once you fully understand what those skills are, you can work to improve on them.

Organizational Skills Examples

Organizational skills are the soft skills that allow you to organize your time, tasks, and projects.

These skills can be divided into two categories: internal and external. Internal organizational skills are skills that come from someone’s self. In other words, they have to do with keeping calm and being able to analyze a situation.

Internal organizational skills have more to do with managing subtasks and other people.

Examples of internal organizational skills include:

• Ability to prioritize tasks
• Organization and planning
• Planning and organizing events
  Meeting deadlines

External organizational skills are those that involve other people or resources, such as

For example, if you were tasked with organizing a meeting for your department, an external equipment. organizational skill would be setting up a conference room reservation with the company’s IT department.

Other examples of external organizational skills include:

• Coordination
• Collaboration
• Communication
• Listening

Having a good work-life balance is also critical to your success in both parts of your life. You may not think about it, but this is also an essential organizational skill.

It’s great to be focused on your work, but you need to know when to take a break and enjoy your personal life and downtime.

💡TIP: Staying fit and getting proper rest at home will affect your mood positively at the office.

Organizational Skills in the Workplace

You cannot understate or underestimate how useful organizational skills are at work.

No matter the position or industry, a company needs employees that are well organized and can manage their time efficiently.

To make it to the interview phase of the job application process, you’ll need to ensure the hiring manager is aware that you possess the organizational skills required to do the job correctly.

Tip: Make sure to look over the job description carefully. You can get an idea of exactly what to include when mentioning how you used your organizational skills in the past.

Below, you can find the organizational skills that you will most likely need to include in your resume to impress a job recruiter or employer.

1. Collaboration

Working with other people is a necessity for anyone who wants to advance professionally. Learning how to collaborate effectively will help you develop rapport and increase your impact as part of a team.

2. Delegation

Delegating tasks appropriately allows you to better utilize your time and puts less stress on yourself by letting others handle parts of your workload.

Delegation goes hand in hand with your collaboration skills. You make sure everyone is organized and can get the best results, while also keeping them happy.

3. Time Management

This is one of the most important organizational skills. To finish your tasks on time and ensure they are completed correctly is part of time management.

Anyone that is hiring would love to see a resume that shows an employee has great time management skills and has increased productivity in the past thanks to that type of organizational skill.

4. Communication

An employee that is organized is an employee that is able to communicate. Being able to speak and write clearly will help you and anyone you work with to be productive.

You need to have good active listening skills as well as communication skills to be able to keep on top of your work and in a good rhythm with your coworkers and bosses.

5. Providing Feedback

Providing feedback is one of the best ways to improve your organizational skills because it lets you analyze information, think critically about what’s been said and make adjustments accordingly.

How do you make sure it’s constructive? This is an important question that has to do with organizational skills.

Take that information and give someone else, or even yourself, the assessments needed to improve performance at the office.

6. Management

Management is about much more than just overseeing projects and delegating tasks; it also involves keeping track of how everyone in a company is performing, which means being able to communicate effectively with other members.

If you have management experience such as organizing a group and making sure everyone stays on task and productive, a hiring manager would be thrilled.

7. Prioritizing

One of the best ways you can show that you are what a manager is looking for is by proving you can prioritize your tasks.

When you are someone that can prioritize, you are able to take complex tasks and break them down into smaller tasks. You can see how a task will affect the overall outcome of a project.

You are also able to envision any potential problems down the line and adjust accordingly. As you can tell, being able to prioritize tasks is not just about listing your assignments.

Being able to prioritize can also help you develop your project management skills.

It has a lot to do with your way of thinking, and that’s what makes it an important skill at work.

8. Mental Organizational Skills

Thinking strategically and being able to examine situations, including in a non-logical way. Using a methodical approach, you can problem-solve and ultimately be extremely productive when you are at work.

Some mental organizational skills include:

• Critical thinking
• Research
• Evaluate
• Decision-making
• Thinking creatively

To be able to package all of this in the skill section of your resume may be challenging. So have a look at some resume examples, to get an idea of how to do it.

Below you can find specific advice to help you as well.

How to Include Organizational Skills in Your Resume

Getting your resume and cover letter right is so important. Sometimes we underestimate how the words you include can affect the hiring manager’s decision.

The same goes for choosing the best resume format if you want to stand out.

While making a skill section and listing the words neatly helps, it’s not really telling a hiring manager much about how you were an organized employee in the past.

By giving the hiring manager proof of your skills, you’ll show them exactly what you can bring to their company.

First of all, here is how to include the best resume format to make reading your document easy for the reader:

• Order your achievements and experience from most recent to least recent.
• Type the content in fonts that are easy to read and simple.
• Ensure your resume has enough space between paragraphs.
• Write headings that are simple and straight to the point.

Remember to include a summary at the beginning of your resume as well.

Once you get to the experience and skills sections, you need to know how to show off those organizational skills.

💡TIP: Include only relevant organizational skills on your resume. Look over the job description and list what you feel matches the job the most.

When you list your organizational skills, they can be put in a list that looks something like this:

• Office management
• Planning
• Attention to detail
• Scheduling
• Assigning tasks

Including these skills in the skill section is just half the work. What will really make a hiring manager decide to call you in for an interview is describing your responsibilities at a previous job.

If the job you are applying for really wants someone with organizational skills, you’ll need to figure out how to work them into your previous job descriptions.

Check out the organizational skills examples on a resume below, so you can see what to include in your past job description and what not to include.

❌ Wrong

“Organized monthly employee lunch and learn sessions for the office. This allowed us all to get together without having to take time out from our busy schedules.”

While this example has some elements an employer is looking for, it doesn’t nearly give enough detail.

Have a look at an example that tells a hiring manager you are the perfect fit for their company.

✅ Correct

“Planned a project from start to finish that created a new type of software that detects malware on a laptop. I communicated with my team, breaking down tasks and assigning priority to those tasks. In the end, we finished the product 2 weeks ahead of schedule.”

So what is the difference between the first and second examples?

The second example tells the hiring manager that this person can:

• Prioritize
• Communicate
• Manage time well

You must be a bit careful at times, as you don’t want to make your job descriptions too long. Remember to include as much relevant information as possible while explaining it briefly and directly.

To give yourself some extra help, you can use a resume builder to make the job of writing everything on your resume even easier.

How to Improve on your Organizational Skills

You may feel your organizational skills are already top-notch, however, that doesn’t mean you can’t get even better. Apart from doing well on your job application, you’ll need to do well once you get the job!

What if you feel organizational skills aren’t your strong suit?

If that’s the case, you can still take the following advice and be able to apply organizational skills at work in the future.

If you are looking to improve your organizational skills, here’s what you can do:

• Use a planner: If you have trouble remembering to do things, or keeping on top of your work day, consider using a planner. This will help you organize your tasks and keep track of what needs to be done and when. 
• Use a to-do list: Take advantage of the digital age by using a task manager or checklist app on your phone or computer and writing down all the tasks that need to be completed for each day, week, or month in advance! 
• Use an online calendar service: A calendar is an easy way for everyone involved in planning an event or project to know who’s doing what when it comes time for action. 
• Watch YouTube instructional videos: Find some videos about how others improved their organizational skills over time.
• Take a class on improving your organizational skills: There are many ways out there you can improve your skills, but sometimes it takes more than just reading about it. 
• Find someone and get some pointers: You and ask someone already successful at something like this and ask them what their secret is? They may tell you their success comes from having an organized home office.

All of this information and improving your skills don’t only help you create a resume, it will help you when it comes time to do an interview. Having all of this information in your mind will help answer any questions that may come up regarding organizational skills.

So don’t forget to go over organization skills examples for your interview as well.

To sum up, when you place your organizational skills, management skills, or any other skills you have on your resume, it is essential to do it the right way.

Without placing your skills and experience in a clear way and in a way that grabs the hiring manager’s attention, you’ll likely get an email telling you to “try again another time.”

If you feel you don’t have enough experience, or you can improve, there are plenty of free and useful ways to enhance your organizational skills.

With the correct resume template and format along, you can make the perfect job application with or without experience and get hired in no time!