Building a Team Leader Resume Like A Pro

What does it mean to be a team leader? The main career objective for team leaders is guiding team members and monitoring progress towards a shared goal. A few teams lead duties and responsibilities include: 

• Coaching team members to achieve goals
• Identifying and developing strengths of the team
• Strategizing team objectives
• Resolving conflicts within the team.

However, being a team leader is not to be confused with being a supervisor. Although both team leaders and supervisors are responsible for leading a team, team leaders are often specialized with specific field knowledge, while supervisors do not necessarily have in-depth knowledge in the field. 

Owing to the differences between a supervisor and a team leader, it is therefore imperative to understand how to build a team leader resume. In our previous article, we have highlighted the importance of a resume in a job application.

In this article, we will walk you through how to build a resume for a team leader position, as well as to provide a sample resume for a team leader position at the end of the article. 

Additionally, we will provide relevant team lead resume points, such as writing up a team leader’s job description for resume, team lead roles and responsibilities in the resume, and resume format for a team leader.

In general, a resume presents key facts of a person's professional experience, including educational background and skills. When building a resume for a team leader, highlighting the relevant team leading experience can help the application stand out. 

On the other hand, a CV is a longer document with a detailed history of a person's career path..

There are several resume formats to be adopted when writing a team leader resume, including chronological format, functional format, and hybrid/combination format (for details, read types of resume formats). 

In the case of building a team leader resume, make sure to highlight your soft skills, as these soft skills often make an excellent team leader.

It is normal not to have any clues on how to write the perfect team leader resume. Fortunately, Cake offers many built-in resume templates to use as a reference, from entry-level to experienced ones, a variety to choose from. 

The most important factor of having a good team leader resume is to tailor an applicant’s professional experience to his/her current career goals. It is easier to stand out to the recruiters when the focus of a team leader resume is placed on highly relevant experience. 

Writing an appealing cover letter next to a team leader resume will often surprise the recruiters, it helps shape the story of why your team handling experience in the resume makes the application a compelling fit for the role. 

No recruiters like to read a resume with grammatical errors. Making sure the resume has coherent content and accurate descriptions will make the team leader resume a pleasant read.

As mentioned previously, the main goals of being a team leader are to resolve conflicts within the team, guide the team members toward a shared goal, and make strategic choices to achieve the goals.

However, the question remains how to put these team-leading skills on the resume.

Worry not! Cake is here to help guide the writing process of the team leader resume.

1. Resume Profile 

The first section of building a team leader resume is to provide essential information about the applicant.

2. Team Leader Resume Headline

Writing a team leader resume headline is like getting customers’ attention for a new flavored cake in seconds. It should be concise and short, yet it does not lose the gratifying focus of the team leading experience. It can also be imagined as writing a profile summary for the team leader, while it should be kept in one brief line.

3. Team Leader Profile Summary

Writing a professional summary for team leaders can be as tempting as showing off a new flavored cake. A resume summary highlights relevant skills and experience that are geared toward the specific position, in this instance, a team leader position. 

4. Career Objective for a Team Leader Resume 

A resume objective is an outline of the career, it should be 2-3 lines long and should be placed on top of the resume to maximize its visibility. It is not a requirement to write an objective, but it would help candidates get more attention from the recruiters. 

5. Skills for a Team Leader Resume 

The skills section is the highlights of a team leader resume. In this section, relevant skills for the position will show the hiring manager whether the job is a good fit for the candidate. This section should be relatively easy to complete, and if the skillsets fit the job description, it can be listed easily as bullet points. 

6. Team Leader Experience in a Resume 

Next to skills, another important aspect of the team leader resume is a candidate’s experience from the past. Previous experience not only shows whether the candidate qualifies for the role but also entails a personal story to the prospective employer. To keep the resume one page or two pages long, it is important to only put the “relevant” experience in the team leader resume.

7. Educational Background 

Providing an educational background on a team leader resume helps recruiters see whether the candidate obtained relevant degrees to the position, but it is not always the most influential factor of the hiring process. 

Since a team leader can come from any educational background, a bonus would be to highlight team leader experience within the university setting in the resume. 

8. Additional Information to Include in a Team Leader Resume 

Additional information can create an impact on recruiters' selection process. Being an outstanding team leader indicates being an excellent problem solver, and this can be showcased in volunteer work. For example, leading the climate change crises for the community, and/or leading a local school committee for organizational changes.

Moreover, having a few referees to testify team handling skills in the resume is always a good bonus. It is recommended to have at least 3 but no more than 5 referees. 

Here are some useful tips in writing an excellent team leader resume:

👍 Tip 1. Customize the team leader resume.

Put relevant professional team leader experience for the specific role.

👍 Tip 2. Quantify team-leading experience.

Including numbers and statistics in your achievements, for example, “coordinated 7 team members in multiple business processes”.

👍 Tip 3. Use an ATS-friendly team leader resume format.

If it is difficult to decide on which templates or formats to use, please go ahead and check Cake’s templates for writing a good team leader resume.

👍 Tip 4. Write with action verbs.

Using action verbs such as “directed”, “proposed”, and “coached” sounds like putting a cherry on top when writing a team leader resume.

👍 Tip 5. Emphasize on soft skills.

Many team leaders often possess important soft skills such as teamwork, leadership, empathy, interpersonal communication, and strong personal motivation.

Therefore, listing how these soft skills for team leading impact the work can help highlight the uniqueness of the candidate.

Writing a cover letter helps demonstrate to the recruiters why the candidate would be a good fit for the role. It often highlights the candidate’s former experience, motivation, and personality traits.

Important information to include in a cover letter for team leader positions:

• Contact details:
  such as full name, email address and contact number should be placed on top of the team leader cover letter.
• Introduction:
  usually addressed to the hiring manager, a simple greeting such as “Dear ... “ or “To whom it may concern…” would suffice.
• Motivation:
  Addresses the question to “why do you want to become the team leader of this specific role?”. It usually entails the intrinsic and extrinsic reasons why a candidate can make a good team leader.
• Qualification:
  similar to what has been listed in the team leader experience of resume, describe important skills and experience suitable for the position.
  
  It can be addressed by emphasizing the top few accomplishments that make the candidate unique.
• Closing statement:
  Sets an appreciative tone to thank the hiring manager for reading the cover letter.