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The Importance of Collaboration on Your Resume

Collaboration is an important skill and attitude across every function and area of a company. In a Robert Half, 80% of CFOs stated that they are collaborating more now than ever before, especially with technology leaders. On the other hand, some companies are suffering from collaboration overload—in the attempt to include everyone, they generate a hailstorm of emails, voice messages, and meetings that bring productivity to a halt.

Therefore, in your resume, you want to show your ability to both collaborate and recognize the limits of collaboration. You do that by stressing:

  • Benefits. What did your collaboration accomplish that was beneficial to the companies where you have worked in the past?
  • Ability to meet a common goal. What was the goal everyone was striving toward, and what did you personally do to accomplish that goal?
  • Results. What metrics or programs did you use to track and measure the results of the collaboration? Did you exceed those metrics?
  • Leadership. What part did you play in starting, organizing, or implementing collaboration? Did you turn around a lack of collaboration or silo mentality that had caused problems?
  • Rewards. Did the collaboration lead to a better working relationship long term? Did other parts of the organization copy it? Did it receive recognition from the company?

When discussing collaboration, keep in mind that strategic partnerships outside your company are just as valuable as those within. For example, suppose you collaborate with vendors, form or belong to an industry association, or build bridges with companies that attract a similar range of customers or operate in your geographic area. In that case, you are also demonstrating your collaboration skills. A recent survey by Booz, Allen & Hamilton revealed that company alliances have grown 25% a year over the past 25 years.

Another type of collaboration, often referred to as “closed collaboration,” occurs when you invite outside experts into your company for a limited contribution to a specific problem. Those experts could have the technology, people management, financial, or other specialized skills lacking in your company or in the project you want to initiate.

If you need help demonstrating your collaboration skills in your resume, contact Robin’s Resumes®, where collaborating with job seekers like you is integral to our business.

Collaboration on Your Resume

According to a survey by Eagle Hill Consulting, employees spend 50 percent more time on collaborative work than they did 20 years ago. But what does “collaboration” mean, and how can your resume highlight your ability to collaborate?

What Collaboration Means

In collaborative working, two or more people in an organization work together to achieve a business goal or benefit. Usually, the people are at a similar level in the organization, though they may be from different departments or even different companies. A team may be collaborative, or it may not—a collaborative team brings together people with different skill sets to work on a common objective.

According to SmartSheet, only 88 percent of people prefer collaboration over competition. When collaboration is lacking, organizations become “siloed”—different parts of the organization refuse to share information with anyone else—and progress is often impossible as a result.

How to Highlight Collaboration on Your Resume

Because the work environment is so much more complex these days, stretching across borders and industries, companies recognize that collaboration is a necessity. Collaboration affects even the smallest businesses: when a local restaurant joins with other local restaurants to create a soup festival, they are collaborating.

To highlight your collaborative talents on your resume:

  • Specify if the teams you are on or lead consist of people with different skills and backgrounds. Remember, a team of individuals just like yourself is not necessarily collaborative; one that contains people with different backgrounds working to a common goal is collaborative.
  • Describe times when you reached across teams, departments, companies, or partners. When you reach outside your team or department to accomplish a goal, you are collaborative.
  • Share what you accomplished through collaboration. Having relationships with those outside your immediate team or area of expertise is great; even better is building those relationships to benefit your company.
  • Explain anything you did to improve collaboration. For example, you attended or set up a leadership course, or you gave people the tools they needed to collaborate better (such as a software program that improved communications).

You may have more collaborative examples and talents than you are aware of because collaboration has become such a common feature in today’s workplace. Let Robin’s Resumes® help you create a resume that shows the value you bring to a collaboration.

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