“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot” -Michael Altshuler
Time is money, and every employer has a bottom line to watch — which is why they want to hire people with good time management skills. These skills are always in high demand because they’re essential for keeping workflows moving smoothly and efficiently.
In this article, we’ll talk about 7 time management skills you should add to your resume to help you stand out to potential employers.
Jobscan has reviewed over a million resumes. We know exactly what resume skills hiring managers are searching for. And we’ve put all that knowledge into our resume builder, an easy-to-use tool that will help you get more job interviews.
Table of Contents
- What are time management skills?
- 7 important time management skills for your resume
- How to improve your time management skills at work
What are time management skills?
Time management skills help you make the most efficient use of your time. These are usually considered to be soft skills, which are the personal attributes and social skills that we need to interact with other people. Soft skills include things like communication, teamwork, and problem-solving.
According to a LinkedIn study, 89 percent of employers say that when a hire does not work out, it’s often due to a lack of soft skills. This is why more and more recruiters are prioritizing soft skills when hiring.
Soft skills like time management are especially valuable because they are transferable. This means they can be applied to any job, across all industries and positions.
7 important time management skills for your resume
When you’re adding skills to your resume, remember that you should always try to show, not tell. In other words, don’t just list your skills, but try to back them up with real-life time management skills examples showing when you applied them.
Here are the seven time management skills that employers love to see the most.
1. Setting priorities
“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” ―Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Setting priorities is perhaps the most essential time management skill of all. If you don’t know which task has the highest priority, it’s very difficult to make effective use of your time.
When you show potential employers that you know how to prioritize tasks, it tells them that you can think about the big picture and understand what is most important for the company’s success.
Remember, when writing your resume, don’t tell readers that you’re “good at prioritizing.” Instead, show them. You could say, for example:
“As a supervisor, I was responsible for managing a team of customer service representatives. We were constantly bombarded with requests from customers, and it was my job to prioritize those requests to keep our team on track. I learned how to quickly assess what was most important and delegate accordingly.”
Here are 3 ways to showcase your ability to prioritize on your resume:
- As seen in the example above, use action verbs such as manage, prioritize, or assess to paint a clear picture and keep readers engaged.
- Use numbers to show the results you achieved. For example, “By prioritizing the most important customers, I helped my team increase the ROI of outbound sales by 25 percent.”
- Emphasize efficiency – show potential employers that, despite having many responsibilities, you can still meet deadlines and deliver great results.
2. Setting goals
“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” -Yogi Berra
Setting clear goals makes it easier to determine how to best use your time so you can achieve those goals. They also help you stay on track and avoid getting overwhelmed.
If you are a social media manager, for example, you set goals by creating a schedule for posting content. This helps you plan your time so you can focus on the most important tasks.
If you are a project manager, you set goals by choosing a target completion date for a project. Then you can work backwards and create a schedule or plan that will ensure the project finishes on time.
Setting goals makes it easier to track your progress and see how far you’ve come. It also allows you to make adjustments if necessary.
Here are 3 ways to highlight goal setting skills on your resume:
- Be specific – don’t just say your goal was to “grow sales this year.” Instead say you set a goal to “increase sales by 10 percent over each quarter throughout the year.”
- Share an educational goal, such as learning a new tool or completing a course. For example, “My goal was to learn to code, which I did by taking an online coding course.”
- Show how you set goals that are measurable and achievable. Maybe you set a goal to increase web traffic to your company’s website by 20 percent over the course of 6 months – and you successfully reached that goal.
3. Planning
“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.” ― Alan Lakein
Yes, prioritizing and setting goals are important skills. But you also need to be able to put those ideas into motion – this is where planning comes in.
Examples of planning include creating a timeline, developing a strategy, or allocating resources.
Putting this skill on your resume is fairly easy if you were in a leadership or project management position. All you have to do is think about a time when you helped put a new process in place or developed a product.
But even if you didn’t lead such efforts, you can still try to think of times where you had to plan events, meetings, or anything else where you had to take charge and make sure everything ran smoothly.
Planning is a valuable skill in any job, so don’t be afraid to showcase it even if you don’t have the word “manager” in your title.
Here are 3 tips for displaying your planning abilities on your resume:
- Try to use action verbs that emphasize your planning skills, such as coordinated, organized, and scheduled.
- Include any relevant certifications or training in project management.
- Highlight successes you achieved that were the result of good planning on your part.
4. Delegating
“The inability to delegate is one of the biggest problems I see with managers at all levels.” – Eli Broad
Delegating is the process of assigning responsibility for a task or project to another person or group. When delegating, it is vital to ensure that the people you delegate to have the necessary skills and expertise to complete the task.
Delegating is an important time management skill for two reasons:
- It shows you are capable of managing others effectively.
- It allows you to free up your own time so that you can focus on other tasks.
Add delegating to your resume by highlighting the successes you achieved by assigning tasks to others. Also explain how this benefited your company or organization.
Tips for featuring your delegating skills on your resume include:
- Create a more powerful impact by using action verbs like managed, directed, supervised, or assigned.
- Include any experience you have managing a team. This shows that you are able to lead others and get the best out of them.
- Use numbers – instead of saying, “I supervised a team,” say, “I supervised a team of 8 people.”
5. Using technology
“Technology is best when it brings people together.” – Matt Mullenweg
In today’s world, any discussion of time management skills must include using technology. Technology can save time by improving communication, streamlining processes, and freeing up employees for other tasks.
This means that it’s critical to show prospective employers that you are comfortable with using technology to save time and increase productivity.
Your resume should always include your experiences with specific time management software or tools.
Examples of this technology include project management software, marketing automation platforms, data analytics software, e-commerce platforms, mobile apps, CRM software, and more.
Here are 3 ways to feature your tech know-how on your resume:
- Whenever possible, show how you used a tool to achieve a specific result. For example, “I used Smartsheet software to reduce workflow by 10 percent.”
- List certifications, special training, and other credentials.
- If tech knowledge seems like a make-or-break for a potential employer, include a simple list of relevant tools you know how to use.
6. Documenting and training
“An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly is the ultimate competitive advantage.” -Jack Welch
It’s vitally important for businesses to document, or create a written record of, their processes. These documents can then guide current employees or train new ones. Documenting can save a lot of time and frustration down the road.
Examples of documents include manuals, video tutorials, online courses, flowcharts, training webinars, and more.
Here are 3 strategies for showing off your documenting and training skills on your resume:
- Be detailed about any training experience you have. For example, say, “I trained all new machinists on equipment safety and production work.”
- Focus on the measurable results you achieved. An example would be, “As an office manager, I created materials to train new employees on company policies and procedures, which resulted in making the onboarding process 32 percent more efficient.”
- List any certifications, special training, or other classroom credentials you may have.
7. Decision making
“Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.” ― Peter F. Drucker
You might be asking, “How is decision-making a time management skill?” The answer is that quick and efficient decisions save time that would otherwise be wasted on deliberating over options.
On your resume, try to highlight specific decisions you made that resulted in a positive outcome and explain why they were successful.
In addition, good decisions always involve problem solving, or the ability to quickly see what needs fixing. So, as a bonus, feel free to add problem solving skills to your resume as well!
Here are some more tips for making your decision-making skills stand out on your resume:
- Show how you utilized data and analytics to inform your decisions.
- Highlight the impact your decisions had on the company’s bottom line. For example, “As a financial analyst, I decided to switch the company over to QuickBooks, which saved 20 percent on accounting costs.”
- If applicable, mention that you made your decisions in a fast-paced or high-pressure environment. This shows that you work well under pressure.
How to improve your time management skills at work
There are a few key things you can do to improve your time management skills while you’re at your job.
- Set priorities and stick to them.
- Make a to-do list and use it as a guide for your daily activities.
- Delegate tasks when possible.
- Stay organized and keep your workspace clean.
- Avoid procrastination at all costs!
- Practice time management techniques regularly.
Following these tips will not only help you become more efficient and productive in the workplace, but they’ll provide you with important soft skills you can add to your resume.
And to create the best resume you possibly can, use Jobscan’s resume builder.
This tool will dramatically increase the searchability of your resume so that recruiters and hiring managers are more likely to find it – resulting in more job interviews and job opportunities.
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