Writing a Resume Summary

For more 10 years, we’ve been living in the age of the personal brand. We’re in an era when every individual has the capacity and potential to market and promote oneself just like a product. And while most of us will never be household names, we may face that possibility within our neighborhood, our company, or our industry.

Think Like a Brand

Sometimes it’s hard for people to think of themselves as product. But a finely crafted resume summary is akin to the tagline of a major household brand that has broadly understood name recognition. When people think of leading companies like Nike, they envision its tagline, “Just Do It,” with all the gusto, bravado, and energy that implies. When people hear Mac, they think of sleek design, innovation, and first-in-class technology products. The premise is the same with a well-produced resume summary – it acts as a calling card, a marketing brief, and an executive summary, swiftly encapsulating the defining features that you offer, just like a new model being rolled out on the showroom floor of a car convention.

Unique Value Points  

A resume summary is a standard part of the document, but your value proposition can be anything but stock. You want to stand out, and even in a pile of resumes or a database full of job applications, it is possible to do so. We call these your unique selling points (USPs). Think of what makes you different, unique, and competitive against your opposition in the job market. Novel technical skills, like knowing how to code or being proficient in a program, system, or platform, could make all the difference. So could speaking more than one language, having international experience, publishing articles, speaking at conferences, or inventing a new product.

Core Skills

If you’ve heard of keyword optimization, then you’re already familiar with how using certain terms affects the search matches you receive. Similarly, in a resume summary, you want to include the core skills that both the employer desires and that you actually possess. Core skills may be called competencies, areas of expertise, or key abilities. In any event, they offer a digestible snapshot of what you know and what you do best.

Proof in Personality

The resume summary can allude to elements of your personality, values, and ethics that may not otherwise stand out in your resume. As most of the space in a resume is monopolized by position-specific job duties and achievements, the introductory summary offers a less myopic view of who you are and what you do. Here, it’s okay to describe yourself as you are – passionate, ambitious, creative, intuitive? Enjoy working with people, fixing complex problems, and changing lives? Feel free to name it and claim it, as long as the qualities are relevant and valuable for the role and organization in mind.

Short But Sweet

The typical resume summary shouldn’t consume an exorbitant amount of real estate on your resume, where all space comes at a premium. Try to maintain an introductory summary of up to four or five lines long, max. Make sure you pepper this statement with a combination of key words and descriptors that not only distinguish and define you, but also correspond with what the employer seeks.  

Building a resume can be a substantial undertaking – one that takes time, strategic understanding, and skillful writing. Fortunately, The Wilbanks Consulting Group specializes in helping job seekers from all walks of life create these must-have, effective career materials. Reach out to us today to find out more.

- Career Consultant, Keisha Danielle Edwards