5 Ways to Make a POWERFUL Resume Summary
This article talks about how important a Summary is in a resume. It is positioned on top of your resume, just below the heading section, and enables the recruiter to know about your unique skills and experiences at a single glance.
Resume summary or introduction is a brief description of your competencies in two to three sentences. It is positioned on top of your resume, just below the heading section, and enables the recruiter to know about your unique skills and experiences at a single glance. Resumes possessing an effective summary stand high probability of being selected among others. But how to write an impactful resume summary? Let's find out.
1. Include Relevant achievements and skills:
Resumes are often lengthy and require great deal of time to go through completely. A resume summary saves the time in going through the lengthy resume as it depicts your key achievements and skills suiting your prospective job in a short paragraph.
Example: if you're applying for the role of Branch Manager and carry some prior experience in that field, this experience should be listed first, no matter the duration.
2. Proper use of keywords:
A good summary is the one which has relevant keywords in it. For various keywords associated to a job role, look into the job description and requirements sections of a job posting. A smart usage of keywords further facilities easy passing of the resume through ATS (applicant Tracking System).
Example: The role of a math’s teacher requires a diploma in mathematics. If you possess this qualification, carefully mention, ‘attained diploma in mathematics’ in your summary.
3. State your achievements:
The achievements mentioned in the Resume summary should not be vague, but precise. It is even better if you quantify your achievements.
Example: If you're applying for the post of a sales manager, and have attained difficult sales target in the past, then you can present ‘Led a huge sales team and carried great sales’ as ‘Led a sales team of 25 mates and was responsible for sell 5000+ products’.
4. Begin your summary with a title/ adjective:
Use of a suitable adjective defining yourself at the beginning of the summary, is a generally accepted practice. Though there are no particular rules to beginning a summary, use of cliché words should be avoided as it makes the resume unnecessarily verbose cutting on the space which could be better utilized.
Example: “Organized General Manager”, “Motivated Teacher” would enable the recruiter to have a positive base for your judgment.
5. Customize your summary:
As a resume summary is the first thing in your resume that the recruiter sets an eye on therefore it should be revamped as per your experience and target role be it for Career Changers, Recent College Grads, or Experienced Professionals with diverse backgrounds.
Example: Fresh graduates can mention there internships but executive professional should not mention any qualifications or achievements dating back to their academic years.
Resume Summary should, thus, be kept clear and concise in a limit of 100- 150 words. It should be stimulating enough for the recruiter to pass it on for further rounds of selection. Web based resume building tools like Resumod avoid the need to look into all these details yourself as it provide ready to use templates for each section of the resume.
