# Example of Human Skills: What They Look Like at Work Canonical URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/types-of-skills/example-of-human-skills/ Markdown URL: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/types-of-skills/example-of-human-skills.md Entity type: Article Last updated: 2026-07-07 Language: en Primary audience: professionals improving communication at work Owner: Headway Skills Contact: https://headwayskills.com/contact/ ## Short answer Human skills are how you work with people and manage yourself. See 12 concrete examples, the four groups they fall into, and how to show them on a CV. ## Key facts - Title: Example of Human Skills: What They Look Like at Work - Category: Types of Skills - Primary skill: Communication - Related skills: Teamwork, Building Self-Awareness - Primary keyword: example of human skills - Source page: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/types-of-skills/example-of-human-skills/ ## What this page covers - Human skills are how you work with people and manage yourself. See 12 concrete examples, the four groups they fall into, and how to show them on a CV. - Practical guidance for example of human skills - How this topic connects to Communication ## Detailed explanation An example of human skills is listening to a colleague's whole point before you answer, or delivering your part of a group project on the day you promised. Human skills are the nontechnical skills that shape how you work with other people and how you manage yourself at work, as opposed to the technical skills tied to one particular job. The term turns up in job ads, course descriptions and career conversations as though its meaning were obvious, and it rarely is. What makes it usable is the behavior behind the label: something you can notice in yourself, practice on purpose, and describe to an employer in a sentence. Seen that way, the examples sort into four groups, and most people have material in more than one of them already. ## What human skills are, and how they differ from technical skills "Human skills" is one of several names for the same set. Job ads and career advice also call them soft skills, people skills or employability skills, and the meaning barely shifts between them: the abilities that decide how you communicate, cooperate and handle yourself, as distinct from [hard skills](/knowledge/what-are-soft-skills/hard-soft-skills-definition/), the factual and technical competencies you learn in school or in job training. The distinction is older than most people expect. In Robert L. Katz's three-skill model, set out in "Skills of an Effective Administrator" in the Harvard Business Review in 1955, effective work rests on technical skill (working with methods and things), human skill (working with people and building cooperation) and conceptual skill (seeing how the organization fits together as a whole). Katz's point was that human skill is needed at every level of an organization, not only by managers, which is why it matters from your first student job onward. Human skills also travel. A lab technique or a piece of accounting software belongs to a particular kind of role; the way you handle a disagreement or plan a crowded week [goes with you into every job](/knowledge/types-of-skills/transferable-skills/) you will ever have. That is good news if your work history is short: what you built in a part-time job, an internship or a group assignment counts as real evidence for a first full-time role. ## Four groups every example of human skills belongs to Human skills become much easier to recognize once you see that they cover four distinct areas: how you deal with others, how you deal with yourself, how you conduct yourself day to day, and how you build relationships and influence over time. Each group below comes with the specific behaviors that make it concrete. ### Interpersonal skills These are the skills colleagues experience directly, in every conversation, email and meeting, which makes them the most visible group. Communication is the obvious example, but it only becomes useful when you break it into actions: stating your main point first, listening fully before you respond, giving and receiving feedback, disagreeing without making it personal, and apologizing cleanly when you get something wrong. Teamwork belongs here too: sharing what you know, doing what you committed to, and [backing a team decision](/knowledge/teamwork/disagree-and-commit/) even after arguing against it. So does working with your manager, which looks like regular one-on-ones, bringing a proposed solution along with a problem, and agreeing early on what a good result looks like. Some of these behaviors are harder to build in school than others. Talking about your own work out loud is one of them, because most coursework happens on paper. One of the young people we interviewed about starting work described the gap this way: > As a student you're used to doing everything in writing. There were whole words I knew but had never said out loud — I would pronounce things wrong. Practicing talking about your discipline out loud, what you bring, how you'd approach things — I wish I had started that with fellow students. Her suggestion is a practical one. Explaining your project to a classmate rehearses exactly the skill that an interview or a team meeting will ask of you. ### Self-management skills This group covers how you handle yourself. It is less visible than the first, yet it decides whether your interpersonal skills hold up under pressure: someone who cannot keep frustration in check will struggle to disagree constructively, however good their intentions. Examples include managing your time and priorities, and saying no when your plate is full; acting despite nerves, whether that means speaking up in a meeting or starting a task you have been avoiding; bouncing back after criticism or a mistake instead of replaying it for days; knowing your own strengths and blind spots; making sound judgment calls within the authority you have; and steering your career toward work that fits your strengths and values rather than someone else's plan for you. ### Professional conduct Everyday conduct is a group of human skills in its own right: being on time, treating everyone with the same respect regardless of their role, expressing appreciation, handling confidential information carefully, and staying clear of gossip, arrogance and constant complaining. Much of it consists of [unwritten rules](/knowledge/professional-behaviors/office-etiquette/). Nobody hands you the list on your first day, so newcomers often learn it by trial and error. Learning it deliberately spares you most of the errors. ### Proactive relationship skills The last group grows in importance as a career develops. Networking means building and keeping professional relationships before you need them, mostly by being useful: passing on information, connecting people who should know each other, following up after a first meeting. Influence means moving other people's opinions and decisions without any formal authority, and it rests on credibility: delivering consistently, taking initiative, and preparing your case from the other person's point of view rather than simply pushing your own. ## Turning an example of human skills into evidence you can use A skill name on its own tells an employer almost nothing. "Team player" and "strong communicator" are claims, and anyone can write them. What convinces is a behavior someone can picture and ask you about: you noticed two people in your project group were researching the same sources, suggested splitting the reading, and the group finished its literature review a week early. One pattern works for every group above: the situation, what you did, and what came of it. Start with the places where you have spent the most time, such as coursework, a part-time job, a sports team or volunteering. A shift where you calmed down an annoyed customer is a communication example. A semester in which you balanced a thesis deadline against twenty hours of paid work a week is a time management example. Neither needs a job title to count. One more shift makes this easier: treat these skills as behaviors, not traits. They are learnable, built through practice, small stretches beyond what feels comfortable, and feedback from people who have watched you work. A skill you cannot yet back with an example is one you have not built yet, and building it does not require becoming someone else. If you are unsure which of the four groups already gives you strong material, it is worth taking a few minutes to [map your current skill strengths](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/), so you know which examples to lead with. ## The skills that make good examples easier to find Look back at what made this hard: putting a behavior into words, showing it alongside other people, and knowing which of your own habits are worth naming at all. Each of those leans on a particular skill. **Communication** is the example almost everyone reaches for first, which is why the convincing version has to be specific: a habit you can point to, such as putting your main point in the first line of an email or hearing a colleague out before you reply. It is also the skill you use to describe every other human skill, in an interview or a cover letter, and it grows through practice rather than charisma. **Teamwork** is where most early-career evidence already lives: group assignments, shifts, clubs and committees. What makes it believable is a behavior inside the group, such as following through on what you promised, sharing knowledge instead of guarding it, arguing about the issue rather than the person, and then committing to what the group decided. Those are the details an interviewer will probe. **Building Self-Awareness** is what tells you which examples are genuinely yours. Knowing your natural strengths, the areas where your results are good and the work feels right, separates the skills you can claim from the ones you merely recognize. Asking someone you have worked with what they would rely on you for gives you specifics you would not spot on your own. The free Job Skills Test gives you an outside reference point on all three, so you can [find the gaps worth practicing](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/) next. It also covers **the other nine skills from the four groups above**, and every one of them can be learned. ## Starting from what you already do Parts of this may already sound like your last few months. If you have ever been the one who summed up what a group had actually agreed at the end of a messy meeting, you already practice communication and teamwork; it only needs a sentence to become an example you can use. The skills you have not built yet develop the same way, through practice and in your own style, without needing a different personality. And because work leans harder on these skills as more of it runs through other people, knowing which one deserves your attention first is worth more than a general sense that they matter. ## See which human skills are already your strengths The remaining step is to set your own examples against the four groups and see where they cluster. The Job Skills Test is a **free** self-assessment of your work skills: in 7 minutes it rates you across twelve of them, from communication and teamwork to time management and influence, and shows which ones you can already back up and which would add most to your next application. **[Get my skills profile](https://assessment.headwayskills.com/)** *Free, takes 7 minutes, results shown instantly.* ## Who this is for - Professionals building practical workplace skills - Readers looking for specific, usable work advice - Managers, educators, and coaches supporting career readiness ## Common questions ### What is this guide about? Human skills are how you work with people and manage yourself. See 12 concrete examples, the four groups they fall into, and how to show them on a CV. ### Which Headway skill does this connect to? This guide connects primarily to Communication. It also relates to Teamwork, Building Self-Awareness. ### What is the recommended next step? Use the free Work Skills Test to reflect on which work skill to improve next. ## Related pages - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/types-of-skills.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/communication.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/teamwork.md - https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/self-awareness.md - https://headwayskills.com/work-skills-test.md ## Citation guidance Use the canonical page when citing this content: https://headwayskills.com/knowledge/types-of-skills/example-of-human-skills/ Preferred summary: "Human skills are how you work with people and manage yourself. See 12 concrete examples, the four groups they fall into, and how to show them on a CV." ## Change log - 2026-07-07: Content collection version published.