When it comes to the most desired job benefits, for many workers, flexibility tops the list. And 22% say remote work, specifically, is the most important benefit in terms of supporting mental health and work well-being, according to Monster’s 2024 Work Watch Report, which surveyed 6,000 U.S. workers and HR professionals.
If you’re looking for a job that’s either fully remote or offers remote work opportunities, “employers tend to desire some specific skills,” says Toni Frana, FlexJobs’ lead career expert. You’ll want to include those on your resume to signal that you have what it takes to succeed.
Here are three skills to include and how to showcase them.
Communication
One critical skill to include on your resume is communication.
“I think that when you don’t see each other and you’re not noting nonverbal cues and you don’t have that office water cooler talk,” says Frana, “really having a good handle and a sense of how to build rapport and how to initiate communication with members of your team” is important. It helps things to run smoothly on the team.
There are various ways to highlight your communication skills.
“Sometimes it’s really easy and it will actually be in the job description,” says Frana, adding that, “they might specifically call out negotiation. They might say, you know, ‘experience using a platform like Slack.'” In these cases, you can include your specific experience with those.
But if nothing is called out in particular, use your best judgment in terms of what the job will need. If you have to lead a team virtually, include successes in doing that. If you have to work with clients remotely, illustrate how you’ve done that.
Organization
Organization is another key skill to highlight if you’re looking for remote work.
If you want to do your job well while working apart from your team, “you certainly have to be organized in your space and to be able to produce the outcome that they’re looking for,” says Frana. You have to keep yourself on task.
When you’re writing your resume, highlight ways you’ve kept up with your team’s goals while working at home. Consider including a line in your resume summary like “seamlessly prioritizes key tasks to meet organizational objectives and KPIs,” says Frana.
When you’re writing your bullets under each job title, you can also start a bullet with “organized” or “organize” and then give “the scope of what you did,” she says.
Flexibility
Finally, flexibility is key in remote work.
“A lot of times, job postings will talk about needing to be able to work in a fast-paced,” ever-changing environment, says Frana. Use cues from the description to see what the employer is looking for.
As with organization, you can include a line in your summary like “quickly adapts and is flexible in fast-paced, changing environments,” she says.
If you want to include this skill in a bullet under a specific job, “you could use the word ‘pivot’ to illustrate flexibility,” says Frana. Consider writing a bullet like, “easily pivoted based on data analysis around key projects that were being executed,” she says.
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