In today’s dog-eat-dog job market, crafting a compelling resume is essential. At the forefront of this document lies the “resume summary”, which is the section of your resume that determines whether or not your resume gets any play.
Think of it like an elevator pitch, but in writing…
Why Is The Resume Summary This Important
A resume summary says everything important your resume says, but in just a few sentences.
It serves as a snapshot of your career trajectory, highlighting key achievements, skills, and experiences in a succinct manner. This provides hiring managers a quick overview of your qualifications as well as who you are, helping them determine whether or not they want to learn more about you (i.e. continue reading your resume).
Why It Matters In Today’s Job Market
Recruiters and hiring managers are often swamped with countless resumes for each open position. If your resume can’t be easily parsed and understood, it gets deleted in just 2 seconds. Your resume summary makes it much easier for recruiters and hiring managers to start reading your resume.
What is a Resume Summary?
A resume summary is a brief section located at the top of your resume that summarizes your professional background, key qualifications, skills, and important achievements.
Unlike other sections of the resume, such as the objective statement or job descriptions, the resume summary focuses solely on highlighting your most relevant qualifications and experiences for the specific job you are applying to.
It is a teaser… Just like an intro section of an online video, it tells the reader “coming next, you’re giong to see something you really REALLY want, make sure you watch until the end”.
Other names for resume summary include:
- Personal summary
- Experience summary
- Qualifications section
- Career summary
- Competencies summary
- Executive summary
- Professional profile
These various terms may be used interchangeably, but they all refer to the same essential component of a resume: a concise overview of your professional qualifications and achievements.
Resume Summary vs. Objective
We recommend avoiding a resume objective. It’s unnecessary and doesn’t help your application. Your objective is assumed: to get a job. Instead, use a resume summary. It succinctly showcases your skills and experiences tailored to the job you’re applying for, making a compelling case for why you’re the ideal candidate.
(Pro Tip: Objective section is usually included by people with little to no professional experience, which also highlights their lack of experience)
Why Use a Resume Summary
Here’s why incorporating a resume summary into your application strategy can make all the difference:
- Grabbing Attention
- A well written summary can help you stand out. This requires clarity, specificity, and tangible achievements.
- Consider this scenario: a recruiter is scanning through a stack of resumes, and they come across yours. Your resume summary starts with a bold statement like, “Experienced marketing strategist with a proven track record of doubling client engagement.”.
- This immediately intrigues the recruiter – they’re compelled to read on to learn more about how you achieved such impressive results (doubling client engagement).
- Allows You to Say Things That Your Titles Can’t:
- Even if your job titles don’t fully capture the breadth of your skills and experiences, a well-crafted resume summary can bridge that gap.
- For example, if you haven’t held an”accountant” title, you can still convey your accounting expertise, and use the word “accountant” through a cleverly worded summary.
- Creates a Strong First Impression:
- Research shows that recruiters typically focus on your last job title, its duration, and the company when initially scanning your resume.[1]
- By placing a compelling resume summary at the top, you can interrupt this pattern, and get the reader to read something else other than your last title that can help your application further.
- Helps You Tailor Your Application:
- You can keep the bulk of your resume identical when applying to multiple jobs and just switch your summary.
- This allows you to highlight the most relevant qualifications and experiences specific to each role, increasing your chances of catching the recruiter’s eye.
- Highlights Key Qualifications:
- While you may possess numerous skills and qualifications, listing them all can overwhelm recruiters and dilute your message.
- By picking key qualifications into your summary, you ensure they stand out, making it easier for recruiters to identify your strengths.
- Shapes Your Career Narrative:
- Your career narrative is the story of your professional journey, which is a crucial component of your personal brand.
- Humans naturally gravitate towards stories, making a career narrative an effective way to engage recruiters and hiring managers – it gets them to interpret your communications more favorably.
- Resume summaries provide a platform to frame your resume around your career narrative and claim your career positioning. This is crucial, especially when applying for new job titles (titles you’ve never had) or seeking promotions. (See “Launch Your Career” for details)
Key Elements of an Effective Resume Summary
In order to create an effective resume summary you need the following three elements:
- Conciseness: There’s only one “most important thing” about your resume, there cannot be two. You have to pick that most important thing, and expressive concisely. Trim unnecessary details. Remove any extraneous information or generic statements that do not directly contribute to showcasing your qualifications for the role. Be sure to use strong action verbs and specific language to convey your achievements and skills effectively. Avoid vague or overly wordy phrases that dilute your message.
- Relevance: Customize your resume summary for each position you apply to by highlighting the skills and experiences most relevant to the job requirements. Make sure your summary contains the specific needs and priorities of the employer.
- Value Proposition: Your resume summary should convey a clear value proposition that sets you apart. What are your standout achievements? What experiences make you better than other candidates? Be specific, concrete, tangible, and measurable in your examples. Don’t say “I grew the business”, say “increased profits by %347 over 18 months”.
Examples of Strong Resume Summaries
Entry-Level Professional
Recent graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing and internship experience in digital marketing. Skilled in social media management, content creation, and analytics. Passionate about driving brand awareness and engagement in the digital landscape.
Analysis: By highlighting their degree in Marketing and internship, demonstrates foundational knowledge and basic practical application in digital marketing. The specific mention of skills such as social media management, content creation, and analytics reinforces proficiency. Also conveys the enthusiasm, which is crucial for early career professionals.
Mid-Career Professional
Seasoned project manager with over 12 years of experience spearheading cross-functional teams in the IT industry. Led the successful delivery of 20+ complex projects, consistently on time and within budget. Expertise in strategic planning, stakeholder management, and risk mitigation. Recognized for cultivating collaborative environments that result in measurable organizational growth.
Analysis: Demonstrates progression and expertise in project management roles specific to the IT industry. Specific number of years and number of projects add to credibility. Specific mentions of skills such as strategic planning, stakeholder management, and risk mitigation target traits that employers seek in project management professionals. The summary also emphasizes the candidate’s ability to foster collaboration, which is a hot button item for mid-career opportunities in project management.
Executive-Level Professional
Results-driven executive leader with a stellar track record of catalyzing growth and innovation within Fortune 500 corporations. Orchestrated transformative business strategies that propelled revenue growth by 40% and expanded market share by 25%. Renowned for cultivating a culture of excellence and empowerment, resulting in teams consistently surpassing targets and achieving ambitious goals. Adept at spearheading organizational change initiatives to remain at the forefront of industry evolution.
Analysis: Highlights executive-level experience and strategic leadership capabilities. By showcasing their track record of success in Fortune 500 companies, and highlighting specific achievement percentages, gains greater credibility and trust. The summary also emphasizes ability to drive organizational change, positioning them as a leader capable of driving transformative impact within companies (i.e. a sought after trait for many executive roles).
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Generic Phrases
Relying on generic phrases that fail to differentiate you from other candidates is the most common pitfall. Instead of using vague descriptors like “hardworking” or “team player,” opt for specific examples that showcase your unique skills and accomplishments, like “content creation” or “social media management”.
Identifying and Replacing Clichés
Clichés and corporate speak can make your resume seem uninspired and unoriginal. In some extreme cases, it can even make the reader cringe so hard that they will not only trash your resume, but also remember to avoid you in the future!
Take the time to identify clichéd phrases, and rephrase them. One very simple technique is to search for specific phrases on Google and see what comes up. If many others are using it, it’s time to drop it.
Lack of Specificity
Provide specific examples of your accomplishments and quantify your results. Remember: If it’s not specific, everyone else can claim it. Your job is to claim achievements that others can’t.
Lack of Tangible Outcomes
Provide concrete results that illustrate accomplishments. Use metrics, percentages, and specific outcomes to quantify the results of your work and highlight your contributions to previous roles. It doesn’t matter if you took a hundred calls but made zero sales – it’s much more impressive to talk about your results then to talk about your efforts.
Overcrowding
Many people mistakenly think that if they add more to their resume summary, they will become more impressive. This is incorrect.
A cluttered resume does not get read. It overwhelms recruiters and makes it difficult for them to identify your qualifications. Remember: There’s only one most important thing on your resume, and your summary is about highlighting that one most important thing.
How to Tailor Your Resume Summary for Different Industries
Tech Industry
Focus on emphasizing your technical skills and achievements. Highlight specific programming languages, platforms, hardwares, technology domains, disciplines, software tools, and technologies that are relevant to the job you’re applying for. Provide examples of projects you’ve worked on and the impact they’ve had, showcasing your ability to innovate and problem-solve in a tech-driven environment.
Creative Fields
Showcase your innovation and creative thinking abilities. Highlight your portfolio of work, including projects, artwork, designs, initiatives, or campaigns that demonstrate your creativity and artistic vision. Use language that reflects your passion for creativity and your ability to think outside the box to deliver impactful results.
Finance Sector
Talk about money. In the finance sector, your resume summary should highlight your quantitative abilities and results. Showcase your proficiency in financial analysis, modeling, and data interpretation. Provide examples of successful financial projects or initiatives you’ve led, emphasizing the measurable results you’ve achieved. Demonstrate your ability to make sound financial decisions and drive business growth through strategic planning and analysis.
Healthcare Sector
Emphasize values like compassion and empathy in your resume summary. Highlight your dedication to patient care and your ability to provide compassionate support to individuals. Demonstrate your experience working in healthcare settings, giving examples of how you’ve positively impacted patient outcomes through your caring approach.
Academia
Focus on your level of academic achievement and expertise. Highlight your educational background, including degrees, publications, certifications, awards, and other coursework. Include any projects or publications you’ve contributed to. Show your research prowess and intellectual contributions to your field. Use language that reflects your passion for learning and your commitment to advancing knowledge.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
It depends. If your track record of titles speaks for itself and effectively communicates your qualifications and achievements, then a resume summary may not be necessary. If you want to provide additional context or highlight specific qualifications that may not be immediately evident from your titles, write one.
No, never. Your resume summary should focus on professional qualifications, skills, and achievements relevant to the job you’re applying for. Avoid including any personal information such as hobbies, interests, or personal attributes. Some information such as race, nationality, religion, sex, gender, gender expression or marriage status may actually cause your resume to be inadmissible because of non-discrimination laws. (This is not legal advice. Check with a lawyer. In general, employers don’t want to get into a situation where them hiring you can be construed as a discriminatory decision)
Stick to anywhere between 40 to 80 words. A resume summary should be concise and to the point, typically consisting of 3-5 sentences or bullet points. Only focus on elements that are most relevant to the job you’re applying for. Avoid including unnecessary details or ANY filler content.
Yes, using bullet points can be helpful and effective in writing a resume summary. However, use bullet points sparingly and only for highlighting the most important information in your resume summary. Also, don’t mix them match. Either make it a paragraph, or make it a couple of bullet points. Don’t try to make it both.
Conclusion
Your resume summary is important, because your resume is important.
Whether you’re an entry-level professional or an executive leader, the principles remain the same: be concise, relevant, and impactful.
Keep in mind, what you do is only half the battle. The other half is how you communicate what you do. Learning how to showcase your experience, skills and accomplishments in a way that cuts through the noise and catches attention, can be the difference between a six-figure and a seven-figure career.
In our line of work, every word matters. And when it comes to your resume summary, every word matters 10 times more than all the other words combined.