20+ Effective Communication Skills (Good for a Resume)

11. Brand Communications 

Brand communication is the art and practice of creating your brand’s image in your audience’s minds. The job is both technical and creative. And doing this job also means competing with other brands in the market. Hence, adopting styles that set your brand apart is essential. For example, blending traditional and contemporary media can be your niched strategy.

The better you are at Brand Communications, the richer will be your PR Portfolio. The simple goal here is to keep your brand messaging as unambiguous and straightforward as you possibly can.

12. Strong Command Over Written Language 

It might or might not surprise you. But when we stumbled upon this statistic, it took us away with surprise. Did you know that 73% of employers want employees with strong writing skills?

Mastering writing is something that many people dedicate whole their whole life to. So probably the best we can do is, helping you with our selected list of writing qualities. Apart from your own dedicated effort, keeping these points in mind should work as good writing techniques.

How To Mention Writing Skills In Your Communication Skills Resume-Section? 

Are you adding writing skills to your communication skills resume-section specifically as a writing job? If yes, then make a separate heading for your writing skills. Next, mention the sub-skills related to your applied post underneath.

For example, if you are applying for the post of a magazine writer, under your ‘Writing skills’ section, add related abilities such as pitching, interviewing, transcribing, story-telling and feature-writing.

Or are you applying for a job that’s not directly writing-skill-dependent? In that case, you might want to keep it slightly generic. For example, mention your experience in research and academic writing under the general skills section.

Finally, if you can attach a credible certification to your writing skill, that could do wonders. In case you’re wondering where to look for one, check out this course ‘ATHE Level 3 Diploma in English and Communications for Business’. The detailed take on the subject matter in this course will take your writing skills to the next level. And this highly acclaimed certification will give your Communication skills resume column that exceptional uplift.

13. Email Writing

Email writing is possibly the trickster of this list. As in, we often tend to undermine the impact that a good Email can actually have. Moreover, much work can truly go into writing a good piece of email. And that is also something that we often underestimate.

Writing a successful Email is an art in itself. And that remains true despite how minimal the volume is. And honestly, the volume isn’t too menial either. This study testifies that the average business person will send 43 emails each day. As a matter of fact, large corporations hire dedicated email marketing executives today. To elaborate, their full-time job is to ensure effective marketing using E-mails. To do so, they design E-mails and automate the process using high-level expertise.

So, in brief, what are some basic qualities of a good email?

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14. Report Writing 

Imagine these two scenarios:

1. You are at a meeting with a potential investor. And you are trying to convince him of your company portfolio. This will finally determine whether he agrees to give you funds. But you are doing so only with the help of vague anecdotes. Moreover, there is no statistics or visual to support your claims.

2. You have met with a challenge at your work that is not new. But it’s a hard problem to crack. However, someone did solve this problem before once. But that person doesn’t work at your office anymore. And no one else is being able to hack it. Only if it were documented somewhere!- is the only thing that you can think of.

Do these scenarios sound appealing to you? Hopefully not. But there is a definitive answer to both these situations. And that is Report writing. So, if you can showcase convincing report writing skills, it will be a direct asset for your employer.

Reports work as the portfolios of companies. They are also key to hacking future problem-solving. Reports also throw light on previous success, mistakes, and future predictions. So, the better you get at report writing, the more your employer will depend on you in a way.

Therefore, do mention your report writing credentials in your Communication Skills Resume-section.

15. Proposal Writing

Do you know what the first step of creating professional relationships often will be? If you guessed Proposal Writing, then you are right. After all, writing proposals is often how you reach out to potential donors and important stakeholders.

Project proposals are documents where you try to suggest implementing a project. So outlining projects, their purposes, projected future returns, methods, etc., comprise these documents.

So, proposal writing skills in your communication skills resume-section can distinguish you. However, just mentioning so is not enough. What will eventually help is a portfolio of the documents that you have created before. They will give your communication skills resume-section a much stronger boost.

16. Public Relations Management 

The best accomplishments always depend on excellent collaboration. And the tool to hack great collaboration and networking is a top-notch PR skill set.

A PR Executive needs to be highly strategic and creative in communication. Depending on her interventions, an organisation gets its exposure to the media. She also helps reach out to partner organisations, audiences and clients.

Hence, work at it and highlight your PR skills in your resume if relevant. Because doing so could give your communication skills resume-section the necessary gravity. A good PR executive is expected to be great at interpersonal skills, maintaining media image, building brand image, etc.

The Communication Skills That Are Important Beyond Resumes:

So far, we have discussed directly about your Communication skills resume section. As in, you can mention the aforementioned skills some way or other in your resume directly.

But there are some communication skills, which we don’t usually mention in our resumes. However, these skills can act as the binding glue in your professional life. Ultimately, they are the ones that lead to forming valuable professional relationships. Basically, possessing these qualities will make your work acquaintances value you and recommend you. And eventually, these networks and recommendations will enrich your CV.

Some such communication skills that are important beyond your communication skills resume-section, are as follows:

17. Active Listening

Many prominent personalities have put this in different ways. That is, the most critical aspect of Effective Communication is listening actively. And Active Listening refers to the practice of staying engaged and present while the other person talks. In other words, that means not interrupting, paying attention, and applying empathy.

Active Listening is certainly a lot harder than it sounds. But it is the mortar that binds human connections together. So investing in this skill is just a non-negotiable practice for anyone.

18. Objectivity 

The opposite of being objective is being subjective. And being subjective means being someone who intervenes solely based on his personal opinions. But, being subjective at the workplace can make you come across as someone too opinionated. In other words, this might make your peers think that you make judgments based on your biases rather than good judgment.

So, adopting an objective personality is key to gaining workplace trust. Here are a few things that you can do to practise this:

1. Be aware of your own biases and prejudices. Next, filter them out actively in your workplace thoughts.

2. Exercise emotional detachment whenever applicable.

3. Think of the bigger picture and the greater good. That way, you can practise letting go of your personal thoughts and interests.

19. Being Courteous

Being courteous has never been out of style. And it never will be, period. So swearing to be a lifelong learner of this skill is essential.

Pro Tip: Sometimes, the worst politeness mistakes that we make are while indulging in humour. So be extra careful to be politically correct while trying to be funny. Being seen as an impolite person is a much higher price to pay than being seen as a reserved person.

20. Trustworthiness and Honesty 

The importance of being honest and trustworthy doesn’t need much saying. But that’s not the only point here.

To explain, sometimes being too open can expose vulnerabilities. On the other hand, being too closed off can make people seem less trustworthy. So besides being fundamentally honest, finding the right balance between these two is an important communication skill.

21. Confidence 

So, one last but pivotal communication skill to mention is Confidence. Adding this tool to your Communications arsenal can be the deciding factor for many things.

For example, when you are confident, people will have enhanced trust in you. And when they trust you more, they listen to you more. Moreover, a confident executive will do a better job at representing her employer and company. So, all in all, mastering this can simply unlock many doors for you.

Mastering confidence can be a tricky business. But a small yet highly effective mantra that has helped many people is ‘Fake it till you make it’. In other words, it’s the process of practising what confident people already do. For doing this, whether you are confident or not doesn’t matter much. But over time, these habits and actions ultimately reverse engineer themselves to contribute to your core confidence.

Some, such habits of confident people to mimic are as follows:

Parting Note

There is a great thing about working on your communication skills. And that is, they don’t apply just to your work life. Getting good at it also improves your relationships. So investing in these will do more than just filling out the communication skills resume-section.

And for your resume, you can go through resume writing techniques to learn more. In the end, we all are works in progress always. So keep up the zeal for work, and never stop learning!