Resume Makeover Series - The Summary section | Resume Summary

Taking into account requests from our readers around the resume writing process, we started a series of articles titled ‘Resume Makeover Series.’ The objective is to take you through the complete process of writing a resume, with best practices for each stage.

In our last article we advised that you should start your resume with a Power Statement. In this piece we round-off that discussion and talk about the resume Summary Section, which includes your Power Statement plus a few more bullet points about your most relevant skills/characteristics.

We recommend starting your resume with a Summary Statement, which is like your personal advertisement. It should give the reader a concise overview of your experience, skills and achievements. When writing your resume summary statement make sure that you focus on the job you are applying to, its main requirements and your unique selling points. Typically, the Summary Section is about 3-5 bullet points.

After the Power Statement, the Summary Section should contain a few points which highlight the important skills required for the jobs you are applying to. These skills should include a mix of technical skills as well as soft skills. Where possible, try to provide proof in the form of numbers and examples.

Here are some examples of skills/characteristics points, which you can include in the resume summary:

• [I am a] Competent problem-solver who resolved sales and shipping issues by creating internal customer-care system and saved 20 percent shipping; researched and delivered Web conferencing service for sales that saved 30 percent of travel budgets
• [I am a] Visionary innovator who partnered with another programmer to create pioneering language-learning software that earned national attention; served as lead analyst for revolutionary legal document generating and tracking product
• [I am a] Technical guru who provided direct support for successful million-dollar negotiation with major print vendor and completed many successful major conversions from mainframe to mini-computer systems.
  [I am a] Strong communicator who was voted best specification writer - with least number of re-writes - by programmers and their managers.

Sources and references: Sandbox Advisors, Quint Careers; Topics: Resume summary