How To Demonstrate Organizational Skills: Definition and Examples for Your Resume

If you’ve ever arranged a large birthday party or a friend trip to Las Vegas, you’ve likely got some organizational chops. If not, this post will help you recognize yours, find ways to develop them, and teach you how to highlight these capabilities in job applications.

What Are Organizational Skills?

Definition of organizational skills

To organize: to put in order, to coordinate, to structure. These skills help you prioritize and complete your work on time. The more efficient you are in completing your work, the more productive you will be, and your employer will have better profits earned, time saved, and increased customer loyalty. Structuring your work can reduce stress and workload, making a more pleasant workday. Some examples of organizational skills for a resume are prioritization, delegation, coordination, and time management.

The importance of organizational skills in various roles

Regardless of your role, organizational skills are crucial because every job has deadlines, stress, and work to complete. If you lack them, you and your team’s work, and your employer’s productivity and reputation will suffer. For example, planning is crucial to project management; collaborating with others to deliver an outcome by the deadline requires thinking ahead and structuring the project timeline. Health care administrators must also plan for the timely delivery of resources so that their unit can provide seamless patient care. 

Organizational skills vs. time management skills for job applications

Time management is consciously planning and controlling time spent on specific tasks. It is one of many abilities involved in your overall organizational skill set. When you manage time, you allocate chunks of time to work on multiple priorities, your own or your team’s, so that you can finish them in the time available.

Key Organizational Skills To Include on Your Resume

Planning and prioritizing

Mapping out and ordering your and others’ work to achieve goals efficiently.

Multitasking skills for job seekers

The ability to manage multiple tasks and responsibilities simultaneously.

Time management

Efficiently allocating time to various tasks for maximum productivity.

Detail-oriented skills for your resume

Focusing on the small details, contributing to accuracy and quality.

Project management

Coordinating projects from start to finish, ensuring timely completion and quality.

Documentation and record-keeping

Maintaining accurate records and documentation for easy retrieval and compliance.

Goal setting and achievement

Providing a sense of direction, motivation, and focus to accomplish outcomes. 

How To Identify Your Organizational Skills

Self-assessment

Review the list above and reflect on how you can demonstrate these organizational skills. For each one, write down examples of times you’ve needed to use each one. The ones that were most enjoyable to use are likely the ones in which you are strongest. Take note of those for which you have few examples or that were least enjoyable; those may be areas for improvement. 

Get feedback from peers and supervisors

Your manager likely has extensive experience overseeing employees’ work. S/he can be an invaluable resource for evaluating your organizational abilities. If you have a good relationship with your supervisor, ask for feedback and thoughts on enhancing them. The same goes for asking colleagues whose perspectives you trust. Honor the conversation by making the feedback constructive: follow up on their suggestions. 

Review past experiences

Think of past projects and work experiences that required coordination of people, resources, meetings, and goal setting, and you’ll have evidence of past successes using your organizational capabilities.

How To List Organizational Skills on Your Resume

Create a dedicated skills section

Build a section for skills that you want to highlight. You can subdivide and subhead the section by type of skills, such as organizational, software, or sales.

Incorporate skills into the work experience section

Don’t stop at listing skills. Show how you used them within your experience section. Use action verbs to describe how you addressed challenges and your positive impact. 

For example, to demonstrate coordination skills, you might say, “Plan and execute up to 25 customer appreciation events annually, receiving consistently positive reviews.”

Use action verbs to showcase organizational skills

Utilize strong action verbs to describe your organizational abilities. They will show what you do or have done more effectively than passive phrases, such as “responsible for,” “worked on,” “handled.” 

Examples of action verbs to use: coordinated, managed, planned and implemented, streamlined, and delegated.

Examples of Organizational Skills for Different Roles

Tips for Highlighting Organizational Skills Effectively

Align skills with job requirements

Tailor your resume to demonstrate related organizational skills for each job you apply for. Read each position posting carefully, then include your associated skills on the resume. You’ll have to do some work for each job application but will end up with a more convincing resume. 

Quantify organizational achievements

Use metrics and data to demonstrate the impact of your organizational skills.

Use examples to illustrate skills

Provide specific examples to back up your claims of having organizational skills. While describing your work history, weave in illustrations of when you used those abilities on the job. You will increase your credibility. 

Common Mistakes When Listing Organizational Skills on a Resume

Being too vague

Be specific in describing your abilities. For instance, instead of saying “good at coordinating others,” mention “balance and delegate multiple team priorities, maintaining optimum productivity and on-time delivery.”

Overloading the resume with too many skills

Be selective about the skills you list on the resume. Read the job posting(s) you are interested in carefully, note the organizational skills the employer requested, and place only your relevant skills on the resume. Make it easy to find what they seek in an appropriate, concise list. 

Failing to keep skills updated

To enhance your marketability, stay current with the organizational tools and practices that the market demands. Read relevant job postings regularly, even if you aren’t seeking a new position. Then, seek employer or online training to boost your knowledge of popular tools. Track new skills in a spreadsheet to add to your resume as needed. Research and advocate for your team’s adoption of new tools. 

Final Tips for Showcasing Organizational Skills on Your Resume

Proofread for clarity and accuracy

Ensure all organizational skills are presented clearly and error-free. Use your word processing software’s grammar, spell check, and text-to-voice tools.

Seek feedback

Ask peers, mentors, or career advisors for perspective on your organizational skills. Their comments should give you a reality check about your strongest skills.

Andrew Stoner

Executive Resume Writer and Career Coach

Andrew Stoner is an executive career coach and resume writer with 17 years of experience as a hiring manager and operations leader at two Fortune 500 Financial Services companies, and as the career services director at two major university business schools.