How to Add Personal Attributes/Soft Skills in Your Resume/CV: A Complete Guide

Personal attributes – also known as soft skills or interpersonal skills – are the qualities that quietly power your performance, shape your relationships, and ultimately determine how well you succeed in any workplace. While technical skills show what you can do, personal attributes show how you do it. Together, they form a complete picture of your value as a professional.

Yet most candidates either list soft skills with no evidence, bury them in generic statements, or skip them entirely – missing a huge opportunity to stand out.

This guide shows you how to showcase your personal attributes the right way: with storytelling, proof, and clarity. By the end, you’ll know exactly how to weave soft skills into your resume in a way that feels natural, authentic, and compelling to hiring managers.

The Importance of Adding Personal Attributes/Soft Skills to Your Resume/CV

Including soft skills isn’t optional – it’s strategic. Here’s why they matter:

1. Enhanced Employability

Personal attributes turn your resume from a list of tasks into a picture of who you are. Hiring managers want someone who can communicate, collaborate, adapt, and solve problems – not just someone who can tick boxes.

2. Cultural Fit

Today, employers hire for attitude just as much as ability. Soft skills signal whether you’re aligned with the organisation’s values and how easily you’ll work within their team dynamic.

3. Memorability

Recruiters read dozens of resumes daily. The ones that stand out are those that feel human. When soft skills appear naturally through achievements, it creates emotional recall and helps your application stick.

Best Practices for Including Personal Attributes in Your Resume/CV

You can’t simply dump a list of soft skills under a heading. Anyone can claim they’re “a team player” or “a good communicator”. Instead, hiring managers want evidence, stories, and context. Here’s how to anchor your personal attributes in an authentic way.

1. Incorporate Stories (Show, Don’t Tell)

Stories give proof. They allow the hiring manager to “see” your soft skills in action. Instead of stating the attribute, demonstrate how it played out through your achievements.

Example:
“Formulated and developed project plans for two complex, back-to-back initiatives. Ensured both were delivered on time and within budget, resulting in two long-term contract renewals.”

This one statement shows leadership, planning, organisation, and stakeholder management without listing a single buzzword.

2. Use Strong Action Words

Start each bullet point with a verb that reflects your initiative and ownership. Action words instantly tell the hiring manager you were the driver, not a passenger.

Example:
“Improved team communication by introducing structured planning meetings, reducing turnaround times and backlog by 20%.”

This subtly highlights communication, leadership, and problem-solving.

3. Tailor Your Attributes to the Job

Don’t use generic soft skills. Choose the ones that match the role and demonstrate them through tailored examples.

Example (Communication):
“Worked closely with customers to identify and resolve logistical issues. Implemented a system change that lifted satisfaction scores by 80%.”

This speaks to communication, customer service, problem-solving, and initiative.

4. Quantify Wherever Possible

Numbers instantly strengthen the impact of a soft skill because they prove the result, not just the behaviour.

Example (Decision-making & strategy):
“Developed a new inbound lead-generation strategy that generated $600,000 in the first quarter alone, increasing revenue by 23%.”

Now the reader doesn’t have to “trust” that you’re strategic — you’ve shown it.

Top Personal Attributes/Soft Skills to Include

Here are 15 powerful attributes employers actively look for, with examples of how you might demonstrate them:

• Leadership: “Led a cross-functional team of eight, delivering a major system upgrade ahead of schedule.”
• Communication: “Facilitated weekly stakeholder meetings to align priorities and reduce scope creep.”
• Problem-solving: “Identified inefficiencies in the onboarding process, saving 30 hours per month.”
• Teamwork: “Collaborated with interstate teams to streamline workflows across three departments.”
• Adaptability: “Stepped into an acting team leader role during a restructure with only 24 hours’ notice.”
• Time Management: “Managed competing deadlines across five concurrent projects without delays.”
• Attention to Detail: “Reviewed 400+ documents with 99% accuracy during audit season.”
• Integrity: “Handled confidential financial data with zero compliance issues over three years.”
• Critical Thinking: “Analysed service bottlenecks and proposed solutions that cut client wait times by 40%.”
• Initiative: “Introduced a new reporting template that improved clarity and decision-making.”
• Customer Focus: “Consistently achieved satisfaction scores above 95%.”
• Collaboration: “Worked with IT, HR, and Operations to deliver a company-wide training program.”
• Resilience: “Maintained high performance during peak workload periods while supporting new staff.”
• Creativity: “Designed a new workflow solution that cut manual data entry by 60%.”
• Emotional Intelligence: “Supported team members through workplace change, improving morale and retention.”

Final Thoughts

Your personal attributes tell employers who you are before you ever walk into the room. They shape how you collaborate, how you lead, how you handle pressure, and how you deliver results. When woven into your achievements, they become powerful selling points that elevate your resume from ordinary to exceptional.

If you’re unsure how to phrase your soft skills or bring your achievements to life, our expert team of CV writers can help you craft a polished, evidence-driven resume that showcases the strongest version of your professional story.

Click here to book a FREE consultation with one of our career coaches.