How can you show emotional intelligence on your resume?

In a past product management role, under tight deadlines, emotions ran high during a crucial team meeting. I used EI to defuse tensions, encouraging calm dialogue, active listening, and empathy. We reached a consensus, showcasing my EI on my resume, differentiating me as a candidate, and opening doors to new opportunities. This highlights the importance of EI in product management, fostering effective collaboration in a fast-paced environment.

How you communicate and how you respond is something you do daily. This is how your team will get to really know you. In moments when a team member is underperforming in a way that is not like themselves, the way you respond can either create or break trust. By using EI, you can walk into a conversation with an open perspective. Instead of only focusing on your own emotions about the situation, you are able to respond with the true intention of understanding the what and the why of what is really going on with your employee. EI is allowing yourself to take a step back and look at the big picture. And genuinely giving yourself the chance to be an active listener. Demonstrating EI shows a leader that builds trust.

It's not easy to quantify the impact, but actions that demonstrate EI don't have to be huge, either. I believe in inclusion and diversity, openness and leading with empathy. So I simply write in my resume or talk about it during the interview. As part of the employee resource group initiatives in the current organization, I am contributing to the ideas around gender equality, sustainable living, and green actions. That helps me to grow as a responsible professional, inspire others to participate and in return, provides me visibility at workplace.

Emphasizing emotional intelligence on your resume is crucial for various workplaces. While it's not easy to directly state emotional intelligence, you can subtly convey it through various means, like skillful indication, online presence and meaningful discussions. In a leadership role, I faced a dilemma—underperforming team members. The common advice was termination, but I chose a different path. Rather than letting them go I fostered open communication, delved into the root causes, and set clear improvement expectations and a timeline and in a year they excelled .In brief, emotional intelligence isn't just a buzzword; it's a catalyst for fostering team growth, collaboration, and triumph.

In my opinion, you can highlight your EI skills on your resume without being perceived as ‘emotional’. 1. Be specific. Instead of saying "good at communication", say something like, "I resolved a conflict between two team members by listening to both sides of the story and using my empathy to help them find a solution that worked for everyone." 2. Action verbs make your resume more powerful and engaging. For example, instead of saying “I'm a good listener," say "I listened attentively to customers' concerns and then used my problem-solving skills to find solutions that met their needs." 3. Use Keywords relevant to the job. For customer service, you may use keywords like "communication," "problem-solving," and "empathy."

Simply mention small acts of kindness: 1. Prefer to lend a?compassionate ear?to your teammate having a bad day, 2. How you take others' ideas into account when leading a project 3. How you use?optimism?as a core value in all of your work.? 4. If you can easily juggle various deadlines, write about it. 5. You are good at managing conflicts without getting stressed, mention it in your resume.

Let’s be honest: showcasing our EI skills on a resume is close to impossible. To showcase, we need to storytell. And we can’t do much of that on a traditional CV. That’s why building a personal brand on other platforms makes a drastic difference. Be that a personal website with a blog or utilizing LinkedIn, showing who we are through telling stories differentiates is dramatically from people who rely on their CVs to do the job.

In the workplace of this age, we can't expect to tackle complex problems or contribute to transformative projects without collaboration. Collaboration is indeed a key skill to highlight on a CV. However, more importantly, it has to be supported by examples — what was done to solve what, including the results. The challenge lies in conveying all of this concisely in your career document. In my opinion, the CV is not the place for showing emotions (as a matter of fact, we don’t use the word “I” in the CV), but rather in the cover letter. Think of the CV as a factual representation of your professional credentials, and the cover letter as a personal letter and elevator pitch to the hiring manager to showcase your potential. Hope this helps!

My go-to is showing 'how you work.' Most people forget to do this and simply focus on their achievements. Did you help resolve conflicts? Did you bring teams together and create smooth working environments? Did you improve team morale? Reduce stress? Enhance client satisfaction? Reduce customer complaints? Get recognized/awarded for building cohesive teams? Indicate that in your resume. Demonstrating cultural sensitive also gives a glimpse into how you do this. Showing EI in your resume can be tricky, but by using storytelling, you can try to address it. Where you have metrics to match e.g. when you reduce customer complaints and it's tracked, indicate those numbers. Also, choose your wording carefully to communicate effectively.