A professional summary is a great way to condense your career profile into an easy to read message to the employer. This page provides professional summary templates as well as instructions on filling out your own resume.
[the_ad id=’148014′]Professional Summary Resume Templates Menu:
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What Is A Professional Summary?
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How To Write A Professional Resume Summary
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Various Professional Summary Examples & Samples
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Professional Summary Resume Templates
What Is A Professional Summary Resume?
A resume summary allows you to communicate how you’re the perfect fit for the job right at the outset of your resume.
Since our resumes generally are not read for more than a few seconds, we want to convey as much information as we can in the least amount of time.
A professional summary helps us connect with the employer quickly and entices them to continue reading.
Your summary will also help you organize the most valuable skills and qualifications that you have.
How to Write a Professional Summary For Your Resume
Your professional resume summary will probably be different for each job you apply for. That is because different employers can value different skills and qualifications.
Our job in writing a professional summary is to match our best attributes with the company’s most desired qualifications.
Your summary should directly address the most pressing needs of the employer. But remember that you are only highlighting these qualifications – the rest of your resume will be the evidence you use to back up your initial claims in the resume summary.
In short, here is the TL’DR of how to write a resume summary:
Amount of Experience + 2 to 3 Valued Skills From Employer Job Listing
It doesn’t have to be in that order but it is usually easier to write it out that way. Your summary therefore should very directly tell the employer how much experience you have and if you have the necessary skills to do the job.
If you don’t have any experience, you can visit this page to look at resume templates specifically designed for job-seekers without work experience.
Example Resume Summary From A Sample Job Posting
To get an idea of how to create your own professional summary, let’s work on one together using this example job posting:
As a call center representative, your problem solving and people skills will be critical in working with our team to handle an average of 2,000 calls per day! The customer service department supports customers with:
- Scheduling pickups and delivery appointments
- Ordering supplies
- Providing rate estimates
- Tracking packages and more
We encourage our customer support team members to take the time to listen to and understand customer needs and provide solutions to ensure satisfaction and successful package and freight deliveries.
Bilingual-Spanish speaking candidates are encouraged to apply. No previous call center experience required and training will be provided. Transportation industry experience is a plus.
Required Experience:
- Customer Service: 1 year
Summarize The Qualifications
Let’s create a list that will help us summarize the qualifications this employer is looking for.
First – what is the bare minimum they are looking for? This one’s pretty easy since they list it explicitly: 1 year of customer service experience. With some job listings you may have to dig a little deeper to make sure you don’t miss anything.
Next, we can look for qualifications in how they describe the daily tasks. Things like problem solving and people skills, along with being a good listener. I feel that these qualifications are best detailed later in your resume, under the experience & job section. It is hard to fully describe why you are a good listener in the space of a resume summary, so try and leave them for later on in your resume.
Next, let’s look for any other qualifications that are “bonus” or would help us to stand out. We can see that bilingual (Spanish) candidates are encouraged to apply, making it a bonus skill along with experience in the transportation industry being a plus.
And although they say it’s not mandatory, having call center experience on your resume would be a huge boost to any candidate for this job.
So here’s what our list would look like after a quick look:
- 1 Year of Customer Service Experience
- Problem Solving
- People Skills
- Good Listener
- Bilingual Spanish
- Transportation Industry Experience
- Call Center Experience
Summary Includes Most Desired Skills
So for the sake of this example let’s say we meet the minimum requirement and actually have a little over 2 years of experience in customer service with one of the years being in a call center environment. So in our beginning line we want to let them know right away that we meet the minimum requirement AND and have a bonus requirement. Your first line could look something like this:
2+ Years of customer service experience with 1 year in a call center environment
Simple and straight to the point. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be. The tough part most of the time will be figuring out how to close your summary, not how to begin.
Now let’s say we don’t have any other bonus skills. To finish, we can combine the listening skill with another point from the job listing: ordering supplies. Even if it wasn’t “supplies”, if your customer service job required you to process orders then this can be a good like-for-like comparison. Let’s try to merge these two ideas into a closing line:
2+ Years of customer service experience with 1 year in a call center environment, intently listening to customers and processing orders in a timely and helpful manner.
Within one sentence at the beginning of your resume we have already touched on four very important skills for the job – directly taken from the job listing.
Let The Job Listing Be Your Guide
No matter what job you are applying for, the job listing should be the first place you look to develop a strong and job-related professional summary.
Also understand what type of company you are applying for and who may have written the job listing. Is it a big company with lots of HR staff to write fancy job listings? Or was the want ad posted by the owner who took an extra moment to make sure he put everything he wanted in a candidate? When writing a professional summary it can be helpful to imagine an actual person you are writing and “talking” to.
The job listing is this person talking to you. How much you listen is up to you, and who you think you’re talking to.
Professional Summary Examples & Samples
Check out the example professional statements below to gain some more understanding of what your professional summary can look like.
Cashier Example Summary
Retail cashier with over two years of experience in cash handling, front of store duties, and XYZ point-of-sale systems.
Sales Position Example Summary
Retail sales representative with 3+ years of experience in a commission-based sales environment. Associate Degree holder,with an additional 2 years of experience in over-the-phone customer service.
Retail Jobs Example Summary
Retail team member with a year of experience bringing a helpful attitude to customers, learning new ABC scanning systems, and an exemplary record of attendance.
Customer Service Example Summary
Customer service professional with 2 years of experience in a call-center environment, with extensive knowledge of Microsoft Word & Excel.
Retail Sales Combo Example Summary
Retail sales representative with 3+ years of experience in a commission-based sales environment. Associate Degree holder,with an additional 2 years of experience in over-the-phone customer service.
General Retail Team Lead Example Summary
Retail team lead with a year of experience bringing a helpful attitude to customers, learning new ABC scanning systems, and an exemplary record of attendance.
Professional Summary Resume Templates
The resume samples below all include space to write your own professional summary. Take the information you’ve learned from this page and download one of our free resume templates to start work on your own resume.
Many Skills Professional Summary Resume
File name: Many Skills Professional Summary Resume.docx
File size: 6.2 KB
Total downloads: 653
This resume template provides a professional summary with lots of space for additional skills and abilities.
Three columns of skills provide a great opportunity for those in medical, technical, and other professions where a lot of specific abilities are valued.
The skills section is followed by the employment history and education.
Career Summary Statement Resume
File name: career-summary-statement-resume-template.docx
File size: 7.8 KB
Total downloads: 3
A career summary statement boils down your experience into one title and one sentence to tell the story of your work history.
Bolded Professional Summary Resume
File Name: Bolded Professional Summary Resume.docx
File Size: 6.7 KB
Total Downloads: 296
This resume template uses a bolded professional summary to call attention to your strongest qualifications.
This can be a great resume to use when you have multiple attributes that meet the employer’s requirements and want to make sure they don’t miss them!
This professional summary works best in one or two quick sentences.
Functional Professional Summary Resume
File name: Functional Professional Summary Resume Template.docx
File size: 18.2 KB
Total downloads: 98
A functional resume groups your work experience into key categories to showcase your strengths.
It’s also very useful if you have a bad work history that you need to hide.
Industry Specific Professional Summary Resume
File name: Specific Industry Professional Summary Resume.docx
File size: 18.1 KB
Total downloads: 100
This resume highlights your background of experience in one specific industry.
Remember to include two separate summaries. One with your job title and one that talks about your level of experience.
Long Professional Summary Resume
File Name: Long Professional Summary Resume.docx
File Size: 20.1 KB
Total Downloads: 146
This resume template provides lots of extra space to write out a longer professional summary.
For some industries and employers, you’ll want more space to elaborate on your professional summary.
This is also a good template if you have a lot of relevant work experience you need to summarize.
Profile Summary Sample Resume
File name: profile-summary-sample-resume-template.docx
File size: 7.8 KB
Total downloads: 1
A profile summary is one of the quickest ways to show off your experience to an employer.
Professional Summary Resume Video Tutorial
Professional Summary Resume F.A.Q.
This secton coming soon.