How to Write a Professional Summary
You’re rewriting your resume. You know that you need a professional summary at the top, but you don’t know how to get started. Follow this simple formula to generate a keyword-heavy professional summary for every position.
A professional summary is a brief overview of your work history. It’s just a tiny snippet of who you are and what you’ve done.
Imagine someone is reading your resume. The hiring manager says “Who do you have there?” Then the person says “Oh, it’s an applicant with 8 years of experience, mostly in boutique hotel properties.” That’s your summary: short, easy to understand, and easy to share.
We’ll start by looking at the formula I created for writing professional summaries. Then, we’ll dig deeper into how to find the right wording for your summary, especially if you have a limited work history or other factors that complicate your job search. Here’s the format:
[Adjective] [adjective] [noun] with [general experience] and [specialized (or secondary general) experience].
- Hard-working, reliable manufacturing manager with 10+ years of factory experience focusing on quality control for medical device manufacturing.
- Creative, innovative social media marketer with a proven track record of creating successful, accessible campaigns for international audiences.
- Friendly, efficient administrative assistant with extensive experience in general office duties and specialized scheduling for C-suite executives.
The Adjectives
The adjectives are the easiest part of the formula. First, think about yourself and how you would describe yourself. You are likely creative or hard-working or efficient or determined. Next, take a look at the job posting. Does it say they are seeking a strategic, analytical business manager? Congratulations; you are now “Efficient, analytical.”
You don’t want to lift the entire phrase “strategic, analytical business manager.” But taking a word or two for your own will give your resume an ATS boost without looking like you blatantly copied the description.
The Noun
The noun is your job title. If you’ve had a job before, and you are looking for a similar job, use the position name. Bartender or machinist or copywriter or retail associate. Double-check your job title against the one used in the job description. Maybe the employer says “office coordinator” instead of “office manager.” You are now an office coordinator, too.
If you have a lot of experience in one field, but bounced around to different positions, you can use a general industry title like “marketing expert” or “digital accessibility trailblazer.”
If you’re still a student, you can say that! “Thoughtful, devoted graduate student.” “Expected May 2020 graduate.”
Play around with the Noun section of the format so it makes sense for who you are and what you’re trying to do. Representing yourself accurately is more important than sticking exactly to the formula.
General Experience
This is where you put the bulk of your experience. “15+ years in B2B sales.” “10+ years in radio marketing.” “2+ years’ experience barbacking.”
For college students or recent graduates, that’s your degree program. So “Thoughtful, devoted graduate student in archaeology” or “Expected May 2020 graduate with a degree in computer science.”
Again, double-check the job posting to see if you can tweak your experience to better match the wording of the job description. Maybe “10+ years in radio marketing” becomes “10+ years in NYC-based radio marketing.” Don’t lie. Rather, use the job description to help shape your truth.
Specialized or Secondary General Experience
Sometimes, the specialized experience is really obvious. If you’re a dental hygienist who works with children, then you are a “Friendly, attentive dental hygienist with 5+ years’ office experience devoted to pediatric dental care.”
If no specialized experience comes to your mind, use these phrases to jump-start your ideas:
- with a focus on (or focusing on)
- with specialized experience in
- with a strong/proven track record in
- concentrated on
- devoted to
Alternatively, try describing the environment where you worked:
- in high-volume retail stores with X customers per day
- with budgets of $1m or more
- internal support (or customer-facing or B2B) positions
- commercial (or residential or boutique/high-end) properties
Maybe you don’t have specialized experience, but instead have equal experience in two similar or related fields. Then, you might be a “Dependable, organized warehouse manager with 7 years of experience in warehouse floor supervision and 3 years in administrative office support.” The rest of your resume will flesh out your work history and back up the claims made in your professional summary. The resume is for the details; the summary is for the big-picture idea.
If you are looking to change industries, this is where you introduce that information. “Dynamic, motivated ad executive with 25+ years’ experience in broadcast media shifting gears to creative film production.” This way, you still highlight your years of professional experience while acknowledging you don’t have much background in your new industry.
Conclusion
The formula provides an easy way for you to create a new professional summary for each job application. But it doesn’t anticipate all of your needs.
Maybe your 35 years of job experience means your summary is two sentences. Maybe you worked in three industries equally, so your summary needs a few more words to express that. That’s totally okay! Now that you understand the reasoning behind the formula, you can tweak it so it accurately describes you.
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