If you're someone who's trying to apply for a leadership position right off the bat, you need to exemplify critical qualities found in a leader.||If you're someone who's trying to apply for a leadership position right off the bat, you need to exemplify critical qualities found in a leader.||If you're someone who's trying to apply for a leadership position right off the bat, you need to exemplify critical qualities found in a leader.
These leadership qualities can include everything from resolving conflict and business management to communicate with other people in a professional manner.
Because a team leader needs to exemplify these skills mentioned above, showcasing them to a crowd or during an interview should come quickly for you.
However, what do you do about presenting your abilities and team leader skills when it comes to writing them down on paper? This might be a different kind of challenge for you.
We will guide you through each section of writing a strong resume for team leader with the help of our team leader resume samples, examples, and tips.
What do Employers Look for in a Team Leader Resume
You can be a great team leader who exemplifies all the leadership skills necessary to lead a group of people. You might be able to move crowds and inspire confidence in the lister with big speeches.
However, when you're in the job searching process, you'll have to put all your past working experiences, accomplishments, skills, and other qualifications down on paper.
You're writing to gain the hiring manager's attention and get the chance to impress them even further during an interview. A solid resume is the first big step in securing a role as the team leader.
Many factors come into play when we talk about making an effective team leader resume.
A good application will be separated into multiple sections. Each section needs to show the hiring management why you're the best pick for leading a team, managing a project, overseeing a crew at a construction, etc.
Each section needs to highlight why you're a good team leader.
What's the Perfect Format for a Team Leader Resume?
Before we get into writing and fleshing out your team leader resume sections, you need to understand the fundamentals. A resume won't be strong without a good enough layout and structure.
Indeed, for your team leader's resume to truly shine, it needs to be formatted logically and understandably. The format of a resume dictates the flow and structure of the application, number of pages, and font and font size.
We recommend using reverse-chronological formatting when writing your team leader resume sections. This simply means that the information you provide in your work history or education sections will begin from oldest to newest.
Here's a pro tip, try to fit all of your team leader information onto one page. The human resources rarely read through entire resumes, and having multiple pages can prove to hinder your job search success.
Additionally, we recommend choosing similar fonts and formatting throughout. You can adjust the font for areas such as boldening position names in your work history and section titles.
Start with Choosing the Correct Template for Your Resume
On top of giving your resume an effective format, you have to focus on making the application easy to read as well. You can do this by giving the resume an easy-to-follow structure.
A good resume template , will set your team leader's resume apart from the competition and catch the hiring manager's eye. A well-structured resume template will ensure that the layout of all the sections is logical and appropriately placed.
You need to write the various sections of your resume with a template in mind.
Below is a list of all the sections you will include in your team leader resume to make it as effective and strong as possible; We will take you through every stage, step-by-step. Aim to keep the sections in the below order.
Contact Information
Resume Objective or Professional Summary
Skills
Work Experience
Education
How to Write an Education Section of the Team Leader Resume
Now that you understand the importance of properly formatting your application and using a strong resume template, it is time to discuss the first team leader resume section that we'll be covering in this article - the education section.
Your education section will ideally grab the recruiter's attention in your application.
The hiring manager should be able to get a good grasp for what level of skills and education you are bringing to the table.
Education can demonstrate your value and worth. Especially if you don't have a lot of experience.
Always Include Education Information in Your Resume
Keep this section short and to the point. List important educational achievements using bullet points. Show your bachelor's degree and GPA score (only if it's 3.7 or higher).
Usually, an effective operations team leader resume sample will have the education section written below the work experience part of the application.
Include this in your education section:
Name of school and location
Years attended school
Bachelor’s degree or higher
Relevant coursework
Relevant extracurricular activities or clubs attended
Choose between Objective or Summary for Your Team Leader Resume
It is true that nowadays, most hiring managers don't even bother with reading through every resume that they receive daily. This was always the case with recruiters.
Due to the high number of resumes hiring companies receive, the HR department staff will skim through the resume very briefly.
A good way to beat the odds, in this case, and gain the recruiter's attention is by including a resume objective or a professional summary section in your resume.
The section usually goes on top of your resume, right below your contact information. A summary or objective allows you to present yourself to the recruiter without talking about all of your experiences.
Imagine that this section is a sales pitch that you're making to the hiring managers.
What's the difference between a summary and an objective, you may ask? The differences are:
Professional Summary
A summary is the always the best format for more experienced team leaders that have worked and managed groups in the past. Show you are a great fit for the company by showing how your past accomplishment and skills you've gained, perfectly align with the company.
Resume Objective
A resume objective is better suited for new team managers that might not have as much experience. Talk about your career objective and mention your education and skills to introduce yourself and your potential and ambitions to the recruiter. You could also include any relevant accomplishments too.
Make sure to match relevant skills and accomplishments with the job postings' description.
How to Write a Perfect Resume Summary or Resume Objective
Make sure that your resume objective covers your communication skills, eligibility for the team leader position, as well as your career objective, and remember to keep it brief.
Below we'll show you examples of an effective and ineffective resume objective:
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Objective
Goal-oriented and result-driven Business Administration Graduate with a successful record of managing people as a Team Leader for 3 thesis class groups. My ambition is to become the Team Leader for Johnson Retailers Incorporated. I am confident that my skills, mindset, and dedication will help your company surpass its profitability record of $200M recorded in 2018.
This Objective is concise and covers all the bases, the introduction, career objective, and skills.
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Objective
Business Administration Graduate who led 3 thesis class groups. Want to become the Team Leader. I have a strong mindset and dedication, which can be beneficial for your company.
This resume objective is weak. It is too vague and doesn't paint a good enough picture of the person's skills, experiences, and objectives.
A professional summary needs to be concise and to the point. Be sure to list your top skills and accomplishments to build the value of your team leader's resume.
Below we'll show you examples of an effective and ineffective professional summary:
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Summary
Results-oriented team leader with expertise in outstanding balances, invoicing, document control, and financial reporting. Effective at managing different departments and new hires to accomplish business goals. Detail-oriented and efficient, able to encourage staff and form strong relationships, with strengths in candidate training, as well as project and time management.
This summary is strong. It is brief yet describes the person's skills and accomplishments perfectly. Everything is clear.
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Summary
Team leader with knowledge of financial reporting. Experienced in managing a diverse team of people, skilled in both project and time management.
This summary is weak for several reasons. We can’t understand exactly what it says: it's too vague, and there are no specifics. This resume wouldn’t progress to the interview stage.
Tips to Make Your Work Experience Stand Out
Now that we're done with the objective and summary, you can move on to another important section: your work experience.
Many great team leaders will have a wide array of knowledge and expertise from their work experience. Still, they can't get ahead because they can't put these previous work histories into a resume format.
Indeed, successfully writing the experience section is half the battle of writing an effective team leader resume.
Make sure to list all the important and successful job descriptions in this section. Using bullet points is a great way of summarising and drawing attention to this.
Additionally, remember that hiring managers tend to use scanning programs to filter through resumes they receive. These Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) are designed to choose cover letters with the highest amount of keywords.
It is crucial to create a balance of action verbs, keywords, and industry terms related to the business you're applying to and regular words. Please don't overload your work experience section with jargon; it still has to be readable.
It is also essential that you look at the job posting to write or edit your work experience section to better suit the job.
Work Experience Examples
A good job description should list all of your relevant job responsibilities, experiences and accomplishments clearly and understandably. Don’t make the resume based on service levels, try to showcase your ability as a team leader too.
Here's an example of an effective job description:
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Experience
Operations Team Leader
Global Telecommunications
02/2017 - 12/2019
Rochester, New Hampshire
Prepares team performance evaluation report with assistance from performance analyst for submission to senior management during team meetings.
Calibrated predictive dialler program to reduce dead calls by 80% and increase productivity of human resources by 400%.
Analyzed individual team member personal data to pinpoint weaknesses, then schedule one-on-one training sessions to address possible factors and improve performance.
Utilized the telecommuter program increasing productivity by 40% and reduced cost by 25%.
Established benchmarks for sales, customer satisfaction, and management of new team members.
This operations team leader resume has all the bases covered; it mentions key skills and key metrics in the description, creating a strong, professional work experience section.
Below, on the other hand, we can see an ineffective job description:
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Experience
Operations Team Leader
Rapid Telecommunications
02/2018 - 12/2019
Derry, New Hampshire
Prepared team performance evaluation reports based on personal data and suggested training programs.
Utilized telecommuter program to increase team efficiency.
Reprogrammed predictive dialer program to increase productivity.
Dealt with third-party affiliates and ensured customer satisfaction for internal and external customers.
As you can see, there isn't much to go on in this operations team leader resume. In contrast to the first example, this job description is too brief and doesn't involve any key metrics or key skills that the team leader utilized.
We don’t see how the team leader operations were conducted, or how he/she interacted with team members. This is a weak operations team leader resume.
List Team Performance Skills to help you Manage Team Members
After writing the work experience, you should let the hiring managers know about your other specific leadership skills to benefit the hiring company. You can do this with the skills section.
This section should generally consist of 6 - 12 hard skills. Including soft skills won't raise interest as they are more generic and hard to test. Include skills that require more training.
Here's a list of top skills for a team leader:
Customer Service
Effective Communication
Sales Floor
Emergency
Sales Goals
Safety Procedures
Company Policies
Service Level Agreements
Process Improvements
Creating Reports
Providing Training
Business Management
Decision Making
Coaching
Resource allocation
Managing Development
Performance Reviews
Problem Solving
We recommend looking at the job posting to match your resume skills section with what the hiring company is looking for.
Don't Forget About the Contact Information
At the start of your resume, increase the font size of your name, followed by contact info in smaller fount. This is the first part of your resume.
After adding your name, phone number and email, there's some more elements to consider to ensure your resume is the best it can be.
There are little things you can do that could have an impact on your application. Make sure you include a proper, professional email address. Make sure it is primarily your name and not a nickname, joke or too casual. It could create the impression you are casual and not as professional as other candidates. You could consider adding your LinkedIn profile too if you have one.
Team Leader Resume Key Takeaways and Additional Tips
Below are some takeaways for creating your best resume :
Tailor your resume for the job description advertised in the team leader position.
Your professional summary or objective should always make you sound as impressive as possible. Describe your abilities, career highlights, development and related skills succinctly.
Ideally write work experiences in a reverse chronological order so your most recent experience is first.
Link all your experiences and skills to the job appropriately.
FAQs for Team Leading
What is a resume?
Your resume is a document where you write about your skills, work history, professional development and qualifications. You use a resume to send it later out and apply for jobs at different hiring management in companies.
What are the relevant responsibilities of a team leader?
Team Leaders are responsible for motivating team members and assessing their performance and progress. Some of their daily operations duties include, safety practices, and deadlines with designated teams.
What makes a good team leader?
Good team leader examples should successfully manage and motivate their team, have strong communication skills as well as the ability to fulfill their additional duties. Having a bachelor’s degree can also help.
Team leader responsibilities will vary based on the job, but it is an operations team leader's responsibility to account for the entire team's performance, do the decision making, coaching for team members and sometimes deal with third party affiliates.
Should I include references on an operations team leader resume?
While it isn't necessary, adding references to your work history will increase the chances of your job search success. Interested hiring management may contact these references to get more information about your skills.
References can also add more legitimacy to your operations team leader job descriptions and resume.
How to attach a cover letter to a resume for an operations team leader?
In one or two paragraphs, connect your past accomplishments with the requirements listed in the job description. Focus on your most relevant experience, qualifications, and skills. When possible, quantify your accomplishments with facts and data. Avoid repeating the bullet points from your resume.
For more examples of how to attach a cover letter to a team leader resume, click here .
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