Office Manager Resume Skills: Definition And Examples

Updated 20 March 2023

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Office managers usually oversee workplace functionality, including maintaining a suitable environment for employees by supervising departmental administrative assistants, taking office inventory and liaising between departments. Including the right skills on your resume can help you demonstrate that you are a suitable candidate for this role. Knowing which office manager skills to include can help you prepare an effective resume, increasing your chances of impressing an employer and securing the position. In this article, we define office manager resume skills, provide examples, describe how you can improve them and use them in the workplace and share tips for highlighting them.

What Are Office Manager Resume Skills?

Office manager resume skills are a combination of soft and hard skills that you can include in your resume to increase your chances of reaching the shortlist. If you are considering a career as an office manager, you can expect to oversee a company's daily operations, typically requiring a broad skill set. Learning and improving specific skills can increase your productivity and efficiency in this role.

10 Important Office Manager Resume Skills

Here are ten important skills you can include on your resume when applying for a position as an office manager:

Communication skills

An office manager usually communicates regularly with suppliers, customers or department heads. Exceptional communication skills can help convey messages, such as sharing order details with suppliers, providing business guidelines to employees and instructing a team regarding a project's procedures, objectives and deadlines. This role also requires proficiency in using multiple communication channels to send and receive messages. To effectively perform the duties of an office manager, it is essential to display active listening, verbal and written communication, nonverbal communication and clear speaking skills.

Conflict resolution

Conflict resolution encourages a collaborative work environment, enabling a team to overcome conflicts and achieve organisational goals. Finding innovative solutions to workplace challenges can also increase workplace morale. Employers generally look for candidates with the ability to resolve workplace conflicts while considering the perspectives and beliefs of both sides. Including this skill in your resume can distinguish you from other candidates.

Attention to detail

Paying attention to detail can help you focus and stay organised while completing multiple tasks. Employers value this skill and often look for it in a candidate. Attention to detail can help you consistently produce high-quality work.

Administrative skills

If you are an office manager, your primary responsibilities are often administrative. You may be responsible for answering phones, sending emails, filing documents, preparing reports and maintaining an organised office. Your role may also require you to facilitate communication between customers and team members via phone, email or fax. Regardless of the work environment, you can benefit from developing your administrative skills.

Leadership

Leadership skills are essential for leading and managing teams and office employees. You can inspire and motivate employees with effective leadership skills and increase productivity. It also helps maintain company morale, reduce employee turnover and cultivate a strong team. Leadership skills can assist you with effective collaboration, delegation and guidance within a team setting.

Budgeting

Budgeting involves analysing business finances to create a budget according to the expenses and revenue. Your duties may involve ordering office supplies to maintain an effective work environment. Creating and adhering to a budget can demonstrate to a potential employer that you are responsible enough to manage money and spend it appropriately.

Data entry

Data entry is a hard skill that involves entering and updating data in an online system or database. You can include this strong technical skill in your resume when applying for an office manager position. It can demonstrate your knowledge of data entry tools like spreadsheets while highlighting your organisational skills.

Decision-making

Your role as an office manager may require you to make decisions about workplace challenges or procedures. Making well-informed decisions involves gathering all the relevant information, evaluating the consequences and predicting the outcomes. Strong decision-making skills can show employers you possess good managerial traits conducive to practical problem-solving.

Multitasking

Your responsibilities may require you to execute multiple tasks simultaneously, such as instructing a team on a specific project, planning a budget, analysing documents and responding to emails. The ability to multitask can help you with adequate time management, organisation and task prioritisation. This skill can demonstrate to potential employers that you can easily manage a demanding workload.

Collaboration

Being team-oriented is essential when you supervise employees and the entire workplace. Strong collaborative skills can demonstrate to a potential employer that you consider the contributions of others to achieve a collective goal. Interpersonal skills and active listening can help you better understand your team and express your opinions. It also enables you to integrate into the company culture and build healthy relationships with your colleagues.

How To Improve Your Office Manager Skills

Here are some steps you can follow to improve your office manager skills:

1. Create weekly goals

Creating weekly goals in your personal life can help you improve your organisational and time-management skills. Striving to attain these goals can show you how well you react to a deadline-driven schedule. Setting goals can help you improve your work ethic and provide you with ways to deliver high-quality work on time.

2. Practise your skills

Improving your soft skills typically requires regular practice. Look for opportunities to use your skills. For instance, to improve your problem-solving abilities, you can accept challenging tasks and analyse your ability to manage disagreements. To enhance your time-management skills, you can begin by recording your work responsibilities in a planner and tracking how much time you spend on each task.

3. Ask for feedback

An honest review of your skills can assist you in determining your exact progress. You can request an evaluation of your workplace performance from a colleague or employee. Colleagues can often offer constructive feedback and suggestions on how to improve your skills since they usually work closely with you in the office environment.

Office Manager Skills In The Workplace

Here are some tips for applying your skills in the workplace:

Communicate effectively: Communicating effectively with your colleagues, suppliers and upper management can help you maintain healthy workplace relationships. It is important to schedule monthly meetings with department heads, respond promptly to emails and maintain good business relationships with suppliers.
Utilise workplace tools: You can leverage workplace tools and software to increase your efficiency as an office manager. You can create separate calendars for meetings, deadlines or office supply deliveries, send electronic memos to employees via email and track your expenses in a spreadsheet.
Implement budgeting strategies: You can use your approach to your personal finances as a guide for creating a company's weekly or monthly budget. It is important to consider your current inventory when creating a budget to increase its efficacy and ensure optimal expenditure.

How To Highlight Your Office Management Abilities

Here is where you can highlight your skills as an office manager during the job application process:

In your resume

You can customise your professional resume for an office manager position by carefully reviewing the job description. This allows you to identify skills, keywords and phrases that the employer uses to describe the ideal candidate. You can include all the skills most applicable to you and any other relevant skills.

In the cover letter

Your cover letter can highlight your candidacy for the position and create a positive impression on the hiring manager. Since a cover letter allows you to emphasise your specific knowledge, training and skills, you can include details about how you previously used your office management skills to achieve positive outcomes. Although you can also highlight educational opportunities that helped you develop your skills, it is important to keep your descriptions concise.

In the job interview

During an interview, you can mention your proficiency in the skills you think are relevant to the position. You can emphasise your abilities that correspond to those in the job description and mention soft skills, such as active listening, confidence and communication. Listening carefully to the questions and responding confidently with relevant answers is important. You may also discuss instances where you used your skills to address challenges in the workplace.