How To Improve Your Active Listening Skills [With examples]

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Active listening is an essential skill for effective communication in any setting. It’s the ability to hear what someone is saying and respond appropriately. 

Communication skills are an incredibly essential skill for employees and managers in just about any type of workplace. Many hiring managers look for employees who have active listening skills. 

That’s why when you create a resume, it’s always a plus if you can prove you have active listening skills. However, if you feel your active listening skills aren’t good enough, there are a number of ways to improve them.

Keep reading to get tips on how to be an active listener and effectively present these skills on your resume.

Then, with our AI resume builder, you receive instant suggestions tailored to the job description to show hiring managers and recruiters you can communicate clearly with your coworkers.

What Is Active Listening?

Characteristics of active listening involve listening carefully and processing what someone is saying.

You can physically demonstrate you are following along by doing some actions, such as:

• Nodding your head
• Asking questions
• Making comments

Remember, active listening is not only hearing what someone says but also understanding what they mean by it. It requires that you be engaged with the person speaking to you and includes more than just taking in information.

It also requires thoughtful analysis on your part so that you fully comprehend what the other person is trying to convey.

Why Are Active Listening Skills Important?

Communication helps build stronger relationships with coworkers and clients by demonstrating effective communication skills.

According to a study featured in Annual Reviews, Avraham N. Kluger and Guy Itzchakov have concluded that:

• 

  “..managers and employees who cultivate listening will reap first the benefits of high-quality connections and togetherness.”

This speaks to the specific reasons recruiters and managers look for applicants with good active listening skills, as they lead to benefits in the workplace, such as:

• Improves communication: Encourages clearer understanding and reduces confusion.
• Builds trust: Shows respect and strengthens relationships with coworkers.
• Improves problem-solving: Helps collaboration by fully understanding issues before offering solutions.
• Maximizes productivity: Makes sure everyone feels heard and creates a more cooperative environment.
• Supports engagement: Shows empathy and value for others’ contributions, increasing morale and retention.

How To Improve Active Listening Skills?

There are plenty of active listening examples that you should try to include on your resume whenever you are searching for an open position. 

If you aren’t very strong in that department, it’s important to improve these skills and show how you’ve done so on your resume by listing relevant:

• Online courses
• Certifications
• Experience
• Volunteer work

There are two types of active listening that you can improve on: 

• Verbal
• Non-verbal

There are several things you can work on to get better as both a verbal listener and a non-verbal active listener.

Verbal communication skills

Active verbal communication is essential to the workplace. You might be wondering how to be a verbal active listener. Here are some things you can do to demonstrate you are a good active listener:

• Ask open-ended questions
• Give short positive answers
• Talk about similar experiences
• Go over past information

These are some examples of verbal active listening that you can practice at home and the workplace.

Here is how you can list your verbal communication improvement in your resume education:

Certified Public Speaker (CPS) – Toastmasters International | 2024

• Completed 10+ speech projects, earning an Excellence in Communication award.

Effective Business Communication Course – Coursera | 2023

• Achieved a 95% course completion score, applying learned skills to workplace interactions.

Non-verbal communication skills

While non-verbal communication is harder to demonstrate on a resume, empathy and listening skills are sought after by many employers.

Some things you can work on to improve your non-verbal communication, include:

• Smiling 
• Maintaining eye contact
• Using mirroring techniques
• Be aware of personal space
• Speaking with the appropriate tone

Nonverbal communication is key for any employee or manager to create success in a unit at the workplace.

Apart from listing certain nonverbal communication skills in your skill section, you can mention how you’ve improved them in other parts of your resume, like your summary statement, for example:

Results-driven manager with 4 years of experience leading high-performing teams. Strengthened nonverbal communication skills, including empathy, active listening, and body language awareness, to foster a more inclusive and motivated workplace. Successfully improved team morale by 25%, reduced conflicts through enhanced interpersonal understanding, and created a more collaborative work environment.

Poor listening habits to avoid

To become a better active listener, you should also focus on habits to avoid as much as the habits you need to practice. 

Below you can find some poor habits to avoid as you look to improve. 

• Not paying attention: It’s easy to get distracted, especially at work. If your mind is elsewhere, you’re not going to be able to listen effectively.
• Interrupting: The other person feels like their ideas aren’t being heard, and you won’t learn anything new by interrupting them.
• Not paying attention: Try not to let your mind wander when someone else is talking.
• Not asking questions: When clarification is needed or asked for, you should do just that. Make sure to ask if you don’t understand something.
• Being closed-minded: Try not to be so set in your ways that you refuse to listen to what others have to say, even if their opinions differ from yours. Everyone has different experiences, opinions, and points of view. 
• Not summarizing: It’s important to summarize what you’ve heard at the end of each conversation to avoid any confusion about important details.

How To Include Active Listening Skills on Your Resume

When creating your resume, it’s essential to know what to include as proof that you have been a good active listener in past work or educational experiences.

This is especially true if you have found a job posting made by a hiring manager that specifically wants an active listener on their team.

There are plenty of resume examples to give you an idea of how to create your document in the best way possible.

Plenty of specific skill words exist regarding active listening, and you should definitely look to include them on your resume.

Different active listening skill words

Including active listening skills on your resume is a great way to show that you’re able to work well with others.

Here are some words that can be used on your resume that can grab a job recruiter’s attention:

• Interpersonal Skills
• Communication Skills
• Collaborative Skills
• People Skills
• Empathy
• Sympathy
• Tolerance
• Observation
• Understanding
• Attention to detail

By adding these words, you demonstrate to a hiring manager that you are an active listener. It shows that you are a good collaborator as well as empathetic.

It is critical to write these skills correctly in the experience section of your resume. That means adding all the relevant and useful details and data.

Otherwise, you run the risk of your job application being rejected before you even interview.

Have a look at the two examples below:

Ultimately, this doesn’t give enough details about your previous position or how your active listening skills helped you.

The statement is vague and simply mentions “communicating with customers” without demonstrating how active listening was used to understand customer needs or address concerns.

This example gives quantifiable data as well as speaks to your abilities. Adding these details could be the difference between a call for an interview or a rejection notice. 

With our AI resume builder, you can get instant suggestions to help you clearly demonstrate your active listening skills and show that you are an empathetic leader or coworker. 

It will also list the most relevant active listening skills to the job description so it can pass any applicant tracking system.

By coupling that with the right resume template, you’ll have a job-winning resume in minutes.  

By working on your communication skills, you’ll become a valuable asset to the company you work for in the future.

Becoming a better active listener is not always easy. However, it will help your resume look much better, especially with the correct resume format.

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