Are you a career changer? Or are you satisfied with your stable career but interested in updating your resume? Are you a professional who has tried different things but are still looking for the type of job that suits you best? Whatever your career situation, what your resume needs the most is a stellar career summary.
What difference can a career summary make to you? Here are 4 reasons why you need one at you resume:
1.) A career summary communicates more about you and does so more powerfully than a mission statement.
2.) Employers love career summaries and use them to preview their resume. If they like your summary, they are more likely to read your entire resume.
3.) A summary does a superlative job of masking weaknesses in your work history (too much experience, too little, too many different job types, job gaps, ineffective titles, and everything else you can think of)
4.) A career summary tells the employer what you most want them to know, in advance. So it sells you well and prepares you to be asked the kind of interview questions that you really want to be asked.
Okay, a race summary is a good thing. How does it look? An abstract can be a short 2-4 sentence paragraph or a short sentence or sentence that introduces a series of 4-8 bullet points, depending on your preferred communication style. It can be preceded by a job title or a list of specialty areas that you want to highlight. The summary forever It goes to the top of the resume immediately after your name and contact information.
Generally, a good career summary will present a combination of the following types of critical details:
- A brief description of the breadth and scope of your expertise.
- Academic credentials, if relevant
- 3-5 skill sets that set you apart from the competition
- 3-5 personality characteristics that describe the workplace you
- Suggestions about your most important work values.
Okay, that all sounds good, but what does a race recap look like? Here are two different versions of a summary that you can play around with and make your own:
Career and career development manager
Coaching … Training and development … Program design
Experienced, articulate, and visionary professional with over 19 years of experience in all facets of career and career development, in both corporate and social service settings. Possess excellent verbal, written and interpersonal communication skills and an inherent ability to build effective and cohesive teams. Deeply value creativity and lifelong learning.
Experienced, articulate and visionary professional with over 19 years of proven experience in:
- Career development
- Workforce development
- Corporate consulting
- Provision of social services
- Team building
- Program design
- Lifelong learning
- Communications
The key is to start with brainstorming solid content. Choose your descriptive language carefully. Make every word count. Create content first; write a draft second. Then share your draft with others you trust before finalizing it for your resume.
