Why Resume Summary is Important

We all know why we shouldn’t write objectives in our resume, objectives are utterly redundant. We know why you are applying for the position, to get it right?

Now let’s look at why your summary could say more about your application and why it is more important than an objective.

Resume summary should have the following outline:

1. It should say clearly to your prospective employer that you’re qualified for the available position. It should have the keywords that your employer is looking for specially for big companies where they could use a filtering program to rank relevant applications.

2. It should say what you can do for the company if you’re hired, not just any promises.

3. It should get your hiring manager’s attention in short period of time and tell everything about you.

Summary Details

1. You should never use the “I” statement, this also applies to any part of your resume. When you say “I’m a qualified Manager” it doesn’t prove anything and you could sound you’re just saying it. When you describe yourself it has to be subtle and with support. Let’s look at this description “Multiple award winning market analysis with more than 10 years of specialization in Analysing Product Market, Public Relation, Media and Online Marketing.

Notice how I managed to say 3 specific keywords from the employer and at the same time telling them that I’m willing to stretch my job description to exceed my employer’s expectation thus the award I got from them and keeping my description concise and powerful. It is very important to fit your qualifications to your employer’s need, you have to be sure that these keywords are in your summary since it’s the first phrase that the hiring managers would skim. And the best part, you have more sentences to get your hiring manager’s attention.

2. Your employer should have a clear picture what you can do for them. You just can’t say “I want the position posted as an Executive Assistant with XYZ Corp.” Rather, you should concentrate on what you can do for them, and your qualification should be relevant to your employer’s need. If you have myriad of industry say from Marketing, Healthcare, and IT, you don’t have to say all of these unless it adds up to the position you’re applying - for example, you’re trying to land a position with a Marketing company as an online IT specialist. So normally you should know your industry and build it up from there. Don’t bother wasting your space and energy trying to say everything you did.

3. Your resume summary should get your hiring manager’s attention in 3 – 5 sentences. Now how to write a resume summary that can do this without taking away your quality. A good start is to use your action word once only, just like any part of your resume. You have to use the company’s keywords. And use figures when you could, this says a lot about your working ethics and achievement.