How can you present your leadership skill level concisely, in an interview or in a bullet on your resume? If you have never had a leadership job title, outlining your skills still says a lot about you.

Try this format:

  • 5 years' experience as a Team Lead, leading a team of 3-5 resources consisting of intermediate and senior Software Developers, QA Analysts, and Business Analysts, in a small technology company of 50 employees, in the advertising industry.

You can build a customized bullet for your skills by answering the following questions:

  • How many years (or months) have you been in a leadership role?
  • How many resources were you leading?
  • What were the level and role titles of the people you led?
  • What was the environment you were leading in? i.e. The size and industry of the company.

Use the answers to the above questions to summarize your leadership skills in a sentence or paragraph. By describing your leadership experience in this way, you will not have to "sell" yourself, but rather allow the person interviewing you or reading your resume to "buy".

A lot of people are apologetic about their skills in interviews. For example, if asked if they have leadership skills, they answer: "Not really!" or "I never had a title!" or "Yes, a bit, but it was back in my old country, so it doesn't count!"

Remember, you are competing against people at a similar level of experience as you. Any leadership experience you have raises your value. Think about any activities (work, social, clubs, sports, or academic) which include leading, managing, coordinating, overseeing, or mentoring, or any kind of higher level responsibility

Q: Do you have any leadership skills?

A: Yes, for 6 months I mentored 5 entry-level technical support staff on navigating issues on the office network of 200 workstations.

Especially For Junior or Entry-Level Employees

Dig into your background and recall situations of leadership or responsibility from when you were a student or when you were involved in outside-of-work activities. Answers like the following speak volumes about your people skills. This is all done without bragging because you simply state information about what you actually did. Even

A: During college, I was a weekend sales supervisor for 3 years overseeing a group of 10 sales staff."

A: Yes, My parents ran a business and over a period of 5 years I assisted in taking deliveries, organizing registration for events, leading company tours, and co-ordinating schedules when employees went on holiday or called in sick.

A: At age 17-20 I was a soccer referee, overseeing 2 games a week during the summer, dealing with adult games. This was very challenging becausee I had to deal with players and spectators firmly and fairly while remaining calm.