What Should Go In The Summary Section Of A Resume

Expertise And Skills Resume Section

The expertise and skills content is very different from an experience section that is standard. The section highlights your specific areas of competence. The content should come directly from your resume analysis and keyword research.

The goal is to summarize the most critical areas of expertise that you bring to a position. As one of the most important resume sections, the content is crucial to both machine and human scanners that are looking for keywords of relevance.

Keep it simple, strategic and remember to hit the vital areas of people, process, and technology. As you recall, you defined these areas when you learned how to start a resume.

An example of a typical technical or business analyst role might look like this:

Resume Sections: What You Need And Where You Need Them

Good resume design is all about ensuring that your most important skills, experience, and qualifications are easily understood by a recruiter or hiring manager. These days, that means your resume sections must make it easy for both human readers and the applicant tracking systems they use. In order to do both, your resume sections and headings must follow these best practices.

Read Through The Job Description

When first getting started as a professional, one solid piece of advice to remember is that you should tailor your resume to the job youre applying to. Keep a master copy of your general resume and then make slight changes based on the role you want. When planning your summary, carefully read through the job description. Think about what would make you a good fit for this role.

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Resume Skills Section Guide With Examples

Lets look at some good examples of resume Skills sections

Your goal when writing this resume section is to highlight your most relevant skills for the job, all in one place.

So you want the list to be easy to read. I suggest one or two columns.

And you dont just want to list random skills. And you dont want to list the same skills for every job! You really want to research the job and company and put the skills and keywords THEY mention.

This is called tailoring your resume and will immediately boost the number of interviews you receive. I wrote a guide on the easiest way to do this HERE. .

So you really need to be looking at the specific job description for keywords.

Once youve done that, youre ready to put together your Skills section. Here are some sample Skills sections so you can see what it might look like:

Senior Regional Talent Acquisition Consultant

A result-driven Recruiting Professional who blends strong recruitment experience with a background in Branding and Marketing. Proven record in the ability to understand business needs and building rapport with Talent Acquisition Teams and Hiring Managers. Proven ability to source, select and secure top-notch candidates for multiple concurrent positions

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Warehouse Supervisor Resume Summary Example:

Warehouse Supervisor with Management, Customer Service, & Forklift Experience

• Dependable manager with 15+ years of experience in warehouse management and employee supervision.
• Skilled at managing inventory control, shipping & receiving, customer relations and safety & compliance.
• Certified Power Equipment Trainer, Forklift Operator and Reach Operator skilled at coaching other staff.
• Promoted to positions of increased responsibility given strong people and project management skills.

Why this summary is good:

The applicant was applying for a warehouse supervisor position that required them to have demonstrated management, customer service and forklift experience. As such, the applicant showcased their experience in these areas with a few keywords in the title, followed by additional details in the accompanying bullet points. Their final bullet shows a record of promotions, while reinforcing the applicants customer service and project management skills.

By: Kyle Elliott, MPA/CHES, Career Coach and Consultant

Formatting Your Resume/cv Career Summary

You may have noticed a variety of different formats in the career summary examples above. There isnt one right way to format this section on your resume or CV. However, I recommend either using one or two brief paragraphs, or combining a short sentence or paragraph with bullets.

Avoid writing three or four long paragraphs with no special formatting like bullet points. Thats simply too much text for your summary section and will cause recruiters and hiring managers to skip over it in some cases.

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Three Exceptions For Hobbies And Interests:

1. Your hobbies section is too short

If you have a couple of relevant interests or hobbies, you might want to add some less-relevant information. âListingâ one or two hobbies tends to look visually unbalanced, so add in your zest for cooking or passion for pottery. Continue to shy away from dangerous or controversial pastimes.

2. Your interests align with the company youâre applying to

If the company is affiliated with anything religious or political, showing your similar affiliations might be a good idea. Tread with caution here, though.

3. Your hobbies prove your work culture fit

Some companies value cultural fit very highly. If you find out that this company has an Ultimate Frisbee team and youâre the captain of your hometownâs recreational team, go ahead and list it!

Itâs okay to list out a few interests outside of your work life as it shows some personality and adds a human touch. Remember to make an effort and lead with something thatâs relevant.

How To Write A Professional Summary If Youre Changing Careers

As a career changer, try to show how your past experience relates to the position youre applying for or how it can help your future employer grow.

Are you a software developer who wants to work with a new programming language, lets say Python? You can mention how youve already developed 7 mobile apps using JavaScript and HTML. Even something as small as completing a Python online course on CodeAcademy can work wonders.

But if you still feel like you dont have any relevant job experience, you consider writing a resume objective instead. Instead of past achievements and experiences, it highlights your transferable skills and motivation. Moreover, it explains why you seek to switch to a different industry.

Heres an example of a professional summary for someone changing careers:

• Certified Human Resources Associate aiming to leverage an extensive background in experience in digital marketing to develop a career in human resources.
• Knowledge of multiple HR software programs, such as Bamboo HR and Zenefits.
• Results-oriented and self-driven professional with exceptional communication and leadership skills, and the ability to adapt quickly to change.
• Looking for a human resources-related job within a company that offers flexibility and opportunity to grow both personally and professionally.

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Do I Need A Resume Summary

Not necessarily. If your skills and job history are relatively straightforward and in line with the type of jobs youre applying for, you probably dont need one. Despite the name, a resume summary isnt just a place to rehash the information already in your resume, which should already be a concise summary of your achievements. A resume summary should only be used to add extra information or context, like drawing attention to the fact that youre changing careers or illustrating how seemingly-unrelated experience is relevant to the role youre seeking.

Resume Summary Example For It Managers

Committed IT manager with 8+ years of experience. Seeking to use intensive leadership skills to improve efficiency at Jennings-Groves Medical. At Atalah-KQC Global, led team that developed a corporate auditing system that saved $110,000 annually. Designed an employee intranet for information sharing that saved 140 labor hours per year.

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Create A Master List Of Skills

Go through each category and create a master list of the skills in your toolbox. Dont be afraid to list things that seem obvious, like computer skills or customer service.

Although they might seem like a given in your profession, many hiring managers still want to see these skills listed.

Never include skills that you are no longer familiar with. If you write a skill on your resume, hiring managers will be expecting that you can deliver on that activity.

If you are worried that a hiring manager will over or underestimate your level of proficiency, feel free to write beginner, intermediate, or proficient next to each skill listed.

Work Authorization & Security Clearance Resume Section

This resume content is applicable in more specialized roles and cases.

Include security clearance if you have it. You never know what other positions the hiring manager is working to fill. This could open up an entire portfolio of jobs for you, even in industries such as consulting.

What to put on a resume should be decided by what is going to show your value and potential impact to the business. Modify the order of these resume sections if you need to highlight something sooner.

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How To Write A Resume Summary If You’re Changing Careers

A resume summary is especially useful if youre changing careers, and it helps hiring managers and recruiters understand why youre a good fit. Heres how to write one with a few examples for inspiration.

7 months ago 5 min read

A resume summary is especially useful if youre changing careers, and it helps hiring managers and recruiters understand why youre a good fit. Heres how to write one with a few examples for inspiration.

A resume summary is a short, optional section at the beginning of your resume highlighting something that might not otherwise be obvious. It can be used to direct a recruiters attention to a specific role youre interested in or to highlight specific skills or achievements that dont have a place elsewhere in your resume. Its also commonly used as a space for career changers to explain the context of their application and why theyre a good fit for the role, even if their experience is in a completely different field.

After You Start Getting Interviews Make Sure To Take Advantage

If you follow the advice above, youll have a great professional resume summary to make your qualifications stand out to employers.

But landing the interview is only half the battle So make sure you go into every interview ready to convince employers that they should hire you, too!

If you write a great resume summary example that gets employers excited to interview you, theyre going to ask you questions like, tell me about yourself early in the interview to learn more about your background. So make sure youre prepared with an answer.

I also recommend you review the top 20 interview questions and answers here.

Your resume caught their interest, so naturally, theyre going to follow up with a variety of questions to learn more about your professional background.

The bottom line is: A strong professional resume summary, followed up by other well-written resume sections will get you the interview, but your interview performance is what determines whether you get the job offer!

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Cover Letter Resume Format Template

I cannot emphasize the value of the cover letter enough. So many people either dont do it or do it wrong.

How do you build the perfect content for the perfect cover letter?

You already have it from all the development that you have been doing. It is just about restructuring some of it and adding your personality to it. The latter is important to grab attention and keep the engagement.

Resume Title And Header Section

Letâs start with the first of the resume headers, the header for your entire resume. This header is going to be more robust than the others as it serves as an overall introduction to the resume and provides some basic personal information about you.

The essentials that you absolutely must include in your professional resume header are:

• Name

Sounds obvious, but don’t forget it! Make sure your name stands out. Put it in bold or a larger font than the rest of your resume and place it at the top of the page. This is the single most important item on your resume, so it should take less than a second to find your name on your resume.

• Email address

Chances are, this is how the employer will reach you. Make sure you use a professional email address. The same principle applies here: make sure that your email address can be located in less than a second when glancing at your resume.

• Phone number

The phone is the second most popular means of communication for hiring managers. As with the other two essentials, make sure this contact information is super obvious and easy to locate.

The following are optional but really helpful if you’ve spent time optimizing them:

• Personal website

• LinkedIn

Most hiring managers will check your LinkedIn profile so be sure to include it in your resume. You can check out our post on how to include a

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Vp Business Development/career Change

Drawing the short straw often in my 23 years of existence, Ive built a titanium core consisting of patience, perseverance, curiosity and decision-making. Ive put myself a number of times in the spotlight hosting events, acting in TV series, and attending talk shows so Im not shy and I know how to handle heat. Ive always been keen on cutting-edge tech, innovation, entrepreneurship & intrapreneurship

Tips For The Education Section Of Your Resume

Consider subsections. If you have a lot of information to include in the education section of your resume, consider breaking this section into subsections. The main section might include your schools and degrees, and then you can have other sections such as Awards and Honors, Certifications, and Professional Development. If you held a leadership role in a school-affiliated organization , you can list that below the Awards and Honors line.

Provide specifics . If the sub-college of your university is well known and relevant you can include that before you include your university name. For example, you could say School of Hospitality, XYZ College.

You can leave out your GPA. If you’re a student or recent graduate and your GPA wasnt great, but you have other accolades, just leave the GPA out and put something else, like XYZ Award Recipient. Once you’re out of school for a couple years, you should take your GPA out of your resume altogether.

You can leave out high school . Once you’ve been in college for a year or so , you can leave your high school degree and GPA out of your resume. However, you should mention your high school diploma if it is your highest degree.

Tell the truth. It’s very easy for an employer to confirm whether or not the education information in your resume is true or not. He or she can simply check your transcript. If you’re not happy with your GPA, leave it out, but dont make it up. Be honest.

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Resume Skills Section Example #:

If you take one idea away from these sample skill sections of a resume, it should be that the section is meant to be simple and clutter-free, and should only feature your top relevant skills for the jobs youre pursuing now.

Its not a place to list every single skill youve ever used, and it shouldnt have as much content as other, more important, sections like your resume work experience.

What To Include In A Resume Summary

Include the following details in your resume summary:

• Accolades: If you are an honors student or have other impressive achievements, mention this in your summary. This shows employers that you are ambitious and hard-working.
• Experience: When you have relevant job experience, certainly include it. As a student this may be challenging, but there are plenty of other details to include. Volunteer experience, extracurricular activities, and leadership opportunities are all great things to add.
• Skills: Read through the job posting to see any skills the employer is looking for. Be sure to include any of these skills that you have. You can also think about which other abilities you have would be helpful for this role.

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Quick Tips: Heres What Does Not Belong In Your Resume Summary

• Personal pronouns. This is a formal document, which means no I, my, or we. Save the personal touch for your cover letter, where it belongs.
• Details that are already included in the body of your resume. The resume summary is a place to highlight information that doesnt have a place elsewhere, not to repeat information the recruiter already has access to.
• Buzzwords. Phrases like team player, flexible, and hardworking might sound like what a recruiter wants to hear, but the reality is that theyre vague, overused, and ultimately meaningless. Theres no quicker way to make a recruiters eyes glaze over than by filling your resume with endless fluff. Instead, demonstrate these qualities through well-chosen examples of your experience and achievements.

I’d recommend uploading your resume to Score My Resume. It takes a minute to scan your resume for common errors that cause your resume to get instantly rejected.

Remember: Not everybody needs a resume summary. If youre including it just because you think you need one, consider what purpose its serving.

If youre applying for jobs in line with your industry experience and background and can highlight relevant achievements in the body of your resume, leave it out. On the other hand, if youre looking to change careers and want to draw attention to transferrable skills and achievements that might not otherwise be readily apparent, a concise, well-written summary might be exactly what you need to make the leap.

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