Having a great resume can significantly increase your chances of getting a job. But not everybody knows how important a resume summary is.
This top part of your resume is what hiring managers look at first. If it doesn’t fit the company’s vision at first glance, it can disqualify you from the hiring process altogether.
But don’t worry. Writing an impeccable resume summary doesn’t have to be hard at all! In this article, you’ll learn exactly how to write a resume summary that gets you the job of your dreams.
What Is a Resume Summary?
A resume summary (also called a professional summary or summary statement) is a short introduction at the top of the resume. It shouldn’t be longer than five sentences. A professional summary is supposed to convince recruiters to read the rest of your resume – it’s an elevator pitch of your professional skills.
In some cases, companies use ATS software to screen the candidates’ resumes initially. Then, the software looks for keywords in your resume and compares them to the job posting.
If it can’t find the keywords important to the employer, it disqualifies the resume immediately. That’s why it’s important to focus on keyword density not only in the resume summary but also throughout the resume.
A professional summary should touch upon the candidate’s work history and the most prominent skills. The skills should be backed by certifications and licenses. Any listed achievements should be followed by hard numbers, too. Some of the best summary statements describe qualities related to the duties and responsibilities listed in the job description.
A resume summary can contain many elements. These include:
- The number of years of relevant work experience and responsibilities
- Examples of your most impressive career accomplishments
- Certifications that back your skills and abilities in the industry
Want to know how to write a resume summary? A resume summary is concise and straight to the point. It often omits personal pronouns to make the sentences even more straightforward and simple.
How to Write a Professional Resume Summary
The ideal resume summary combines these three elements and others into a single summary. So whether you’re uploading your resume to your .au domain or .com domain, or farming them out actively, follow these tips and you’ll know how to write a resume summary that will impress potential employers or hiring managers:
1. Highlight Your Expertise
Knowing how to write a resume summary involves putting yourself in the shoes of the hiring manager or potential employer. You want to highlight your expertise in your professional resume summary. But when doing this, you only want to list those achievements that matter for the position you are applying for.
Additionally, utilizing one of the top resume builders can help you efficiently craft a compelling summary that resonates with hiring managers and emphasizes the qualifications most relevant to your target job.
Moreover, you should emphasize the most prominent accomplishments. A resume summary should be as short as possible, so it’s important to choose your words wisely.
For example, if you worked in a call center in college, the skills of using voice over internet protocol you’ve gained wouldn’t be relevant to the position of social media marketer you’re applying for. So, including those skills in the summary would just be a waste of time. That’s not to say you can’t elaborate on those skills in the interview. You can, but only if the interviewer asks you.
Also, if you have various certifications, choose only those you’d need for the job. For instance, if you’re applying for the position of cybersecurity specialist, your certification in cybersecurity is worth mentioning.
Language certificates can also be great credentials if they can help you when performing the job. For instance, if you’re applying for the position of CAD designer for the Japanese market, a certification in the Japanese language can help you communicate with clients easily.
That said, here’s an ideal resume summary that highlights expertise. It’s for an IT project manager position:
With this resume summary, the applicant establishes themselves as an expert in the field and increases their chances of getting hired.
2. Specify Your Skills
Don’t write random things down in a resume summary when listing your skills. Again, the abilities you specify should reflect what is in the job description requirements. Also, you have to make sure you provide proof that you actually possess those skills.
For example, if the employer is looking for a manager, you can specify you have management and people skills. To prove that you have these skills, you can mention that you gained them from your stint as a manager in X company. You can give the hiring manager or potential employer further proof of this stint if they ask you for it (a certification of employment from that previous employer, for example).
An example of a resume statement showcasing skills for an electrical engineer position would look like this:
This resume statement example highlights specific skills such as a proficiency in Altium Designer and in a high-level programming language. These are relevant to the position, so any hiring manager who sees this will want to talk to the applicant.
3. Emphasize How You Can Help Achieve Company Vision
Mentioning the employer by name and referring to their values and history can affect the recruitment result in a positive way. After all, it only shows you did your research of the company.
So reference the employer’s goals and vision in your summary. Explain how you can help them achieve their goals. For this, you can highlight your personal traits that can help you perform the job well.
An example of a professional resume statement in such a case can look like this:
If you show your future employer what your value proposition is and how you can translate it into real benefits for the company, you increase your chances of getting hired.
Also, when writing about your personal traits, don’t just use stray buzzwords. Understand the position you’re applying for. Then determine the skills and the words you need to use so you can package yourself as the ideal candidate.
For example, if someone is looking for a childcare professional, you would use words like “caring” and “responsible.” On the other hand, if the company is hiring a project manager, you would choose qualities such as “charismatic” or “assertive.”
In Closing
Writing a summary statement for your resume is crucial when job hunting. If you applied for numerous jobs and didn’t hear back from the company, revising your professional summary might be a good step before sending out another resume.
You learned three tips to writing the ideal resume summary:
- Highlight your expertise.
- Specify your skills.
- Emphasize how you can hep achieve the company’s vision.
If you follow this formula, you can be sure that none of the resumes you send out will go unnoticed.
Tomasz Niezgoda
Tomasz is the Head Of Marketing at Surfer, a platform that merges content strategy, creation, and optimization into one smooth process. With almost a decade of experience in the industry, he is responsible for incorporating and executing marketing strategies. Currently, he manages a team of 4 wonderful experts.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niezgoda-tomasz/
