Friday, July 18, 2008

A Summary of Qualifications Can Enhance Your Resume

The main purpose of your resume as a job seeker should be to market your skills, experience and education to potential employers. Showcase your brand, so to speak. One way to quickly engage a hiring manager and maximize the success of your resume in the first 20-30 seconds, is through a powerful Summary of Qualifications.

Here are four key elements that should be included in a good Summary of Qualifications:

- Include years of experience and areas of expertise in your field. Remember that it is possible to accumulate experience you have gained from more than one job. eg. Let's say you work in customer service now and have been with your current job for three years, but have customer service experience from another job you did several years ago. Total those years for your Summary of Qualifications statement.

- Acknowledge any special or recent awards and professional recognition relevant to the position you are seeking. If you haven't been acknowledged by an organization, include an area of outstanding achievement from your last annual performance evaluation.

- Share industry specific certifications or professional training. eg If you are going after a supervisor's job and have taken a certificate in project management.

- Identify soft skills which are difficult to quantify, but give you a clear advantage eg. good public speaking, team building and multi-tasking skills.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post, and very helpful tips on resume-writing.

Question: what's your take on having using BOTH a skills summary AND job history on a resume? Another recruiter told me a resume should have one or the other, but not both as this makes it too long. (She also strongly preferred a one-page resume, NOT two or longer.)

Anonymous said...

Good question. I think either, neither or both are all viable options. You certainly do not want to repeat information.

Many writers do prefer the one page and understandably so; since most recruiters do a 20-30 second "power scan" and keep going.

I think the goal should be to include the most relevant data that supports the job seeker's candidacy for the specific position.

I think if more than one page is justified using these criteria, then so be it.

tennyja26 said...

Good day. I would like to know if it is alright to include mt high school qualification as part of my resume as i know have a degree and a professional post graduate degree

tennyja26 said...

Good day should I include my high school qualification on my resume since I now have a degree and a professsional post graduate degree? Thanks for your response.

BullsEyeCareers said...

TennyJ,

Hopefully you have so much more to offer than high school. Rule of thumb is once you are beyond your sophomore year in college, the high school experience is not that important.

tennyja26 said...

Thanks alot marcia for that advice.

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