What is Active Listening: Skills & Examples for Your CV

Active listening skills are methods of actively engaging with the person you’re conversing with through observing body language and other non-verbal cues, feeding back, and eliciting necessary information. It allows the speaker to feel respected and understood—and the listener to understand.

Even if you were actively listening in school, it’s almost certain nobody’s ever taught you to describe methods of active listening on your CV. But this guide will do just that, so listen up!

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What additional skills should you include on your CV? Take a look at these guides:

• Critical Thinking Skills for Your CV
• Customer-Service Skills for a CV
• Decision Making Skills to Put On a CV
• Effective Presentation Skills It's Worth to Have
• Hard Skills Definition & Examples You Can Use
• How to Write a CV That Emphasizes Skills
• IT Skills for Any Proficiency Level (+ Examples)
• Leadership Skills & Why They Really Matter
• Technical Skills for a CV & How to Develop Them
• What Are Transferable Skills & How to Describe Them

Active listening skills on a CV example

Methods of active listening

So how do we capture these ethereal transferable skills and describe methods of active listening on your CV? Aren’t they just basic communication skills? No, it’s much more than that. Here is the active listening method:

There is only one way to create effective two-way communication. Nobody likes only being told, without being listened to. Engaging with the conversation, extracting the core of the issue and all the relevant information; these are soft skills beneficial to both parties.

1. Focus on active listening

Looking away or fidgeting are tell-tale signs you can not wait until you are done listening. Observe your speaker, including their body language, and try to drown out distracting thoughts and the environment.

2. Show you’re attentive

Most people can tell when you’re not paying attention or just waiting for your turn to speak away. Smile, keep open and forward-facing body language, and don’t forget to throw in a nod here, and some verbal affirmation there.

3. Stay calm

Don’t talk over somebody, don’t squeeze your rebuttal in before they are done. Interrupting never leads to anything positive, and means you are missing out on fully understanding what they had to say.

4. Feed back

Paraphrase your speaker’s points to get confirmation and to let them know you’re really hearing out what they said. Using phrases such as ‘So it sounds like (…)’ and ‘So what you’re saying is (…)’ can really help.

5. Ask open-ended questions

By asking a question that requires some elaboration from the speaker, you will be gaining more insight on their perspective, and will get closer to the truth. Yes/no questions are often leading and can introduce unhelpful binarity. 

6. Probe

Once you have heard a nugget that seems like it’s pointing in the right direction, follow up. Probe for the details you need, even if it’s as simple as ‘Tell me more about that’.

7. Clarify

If you missed or misunderstood something, don’t let the conversation run on for the fear of looking silly. You will look silly later when you don’t know. Asking for clarification shows you’re listening and really trying to gain understanding.

8. Respond appropriately

Be calm, respectful—but honest and assertive in your response. Don’t speak to somebody in a way you wouldn’t enjoy yourself. You gain nothing by putting someone on the back foot or showing them how much more important or smart you are. (If you do, you are not.) 

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How to describe methods of active listening on your CV

How to write a CV? While your CV structure may differ slightly from industry to industry, the same components must be there, and they are: 

1. Start with your CV profile

The CV profile, also known as a CV summary, absolutely must be included in your CV. The quick 4–6 line header is a round-up of all your best sides, and the opportunity for the recruiter to become interesting and keep on reading.

Active listening skills in the CV summary

2. Describe active listening methods in your job description

This is where it all happens: the work experience section. Here is where you can really describe methods of active listening and how you apply them in the workplace. These CV tips should help:

• Scan the job posting for the exact skills and aspects that the employer requires—focus on those. 
• Start each bullet point with a powerful action word to maintain a consistent pattern.
• Describe each situation, from problem to solution, quantifying with numbers where possible.
• No less than 5 bullet points for your latest position.
• No more than 3 bullet points for older positions.

Job description with active listening skills

3. Add an education section

Writing your CV education section is as simple as listing your highest level of education and moving on—if you have a few years of experience under your belt. If it’s a student CV, you must get a bit more out of this section, and should try to add relevant modules or extracurricular activities.

Active listening skills in the education section

4. Add your skills section

The CV skills section could be tricky if you have already devoted some space to describing your methods of active listening in the work experience section. Active listening skills aren’t really standalone skills to list, you may end up looking a little silly writing down ‘Paying attention’ as one of your strengths.

When focusing on active listening skills, we recommend you elaborate your methods in the work experience section, and instead list about 5 hard CV skills that you know will come useful in this job position.

Active listening skills in the skills section

5. Include additional sections

To make your CV perfect, make sure the bottom of it isn’t a jumble of random things and facts under an ‘Additional Info’ heading. 

Structure other sections separately for Languages, Certificates and Awards to make sure your CV is clear. Add a hobbies and interests section if you have some things that you think are relevant in showing your active listening skills.

Active listening skills in the extra sections

What else to remember about when putting active listening skills on your CV?

If you’d like to improve your active listening skills, here’s an active listening learning resource the NHS has prepared to train their employees—and you can imagine how important listening is in healthcare!

Don’t forget to write a cover letter. Describing these skills can be hard in a couple lines, and there you will have 250–400 words to work your magic. Of course, you will have even more space to flaunt it in the interview! Don’t forget to nod and ‘uh-huh’! We hope they will too.

You don’t have to be a CV writing expert. In the LiveCareer CV builder you’ll find ready-made content for every industry and position, which you can then add with a single click.

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If you’re still in need of more examples of active listening skills, or you just need some advice on how to include active listening skills in your CV, then let us know in the comments section. We’re here to help.

How we review the content at LiveCareer

Our editorial team has reviewed this article for compliance with Livecareer’s editorial guidelines. It’s to ensure that our expert advice and recommendations are consistent across all our career guides and align with current CV and cover letter writing standards and trends. We’re trusted by over 10 million job seekers, supporting them on their way to finding their dream job. Each article is preceded by research and scrutiny to ensure our content responds to current market trends and demand.