Your resume is the best place to present yourself as the most qualified person for the job you’re interested in. Including a “profile” section on your resume is critical to helping you stand out as a candidate that recruiters or hiring managers will want to learn more about, thereby significantly increasing your chances of getting an interview.
What is a profile section in a resume?
Your new profile should briefly summarize the highlights of your career: who you are as a professional, your strengths, and your most important professional achievements. Furthermore, this section should give employers a clear reason why you’re the right candidate for their organization. Here are a few key elements to include in your new profile:
Your professional title- Your profile should accurately depict who you are as a professional. This may include your current title – or it may just include your current industry. Additionally, the profile should always state how much experience you’re bringing to the table. For example:
Senior Sales Manager: Offering 20+ years of comprehensive experience building trusted relationships, delivering measurable results, and ensuring sales teams meet all performance expectations
Relevant skills- Every line of your summary should be packed with meaningful information about your most relevant skills. Although it can increase response rates to target your profile for every job you apply to, this can be an unrealistic expectation and certainly isn’t necessary in today’s fast-paced job market. Instead, you should include the skills that are most transferable to different areas. If you’re not sure what skills are important, we have an article on the topic you may find helpful.
Professional accomplishments– Every employer likes to see a candidate with clear achievements. You should always strive to include achievements in your profile, even if you’re just entering the workforce and don’t have much experience. These achievements can range from generating millions of dollars in new revenue to successfully being named to the Dean’s List. Either way, including accomplishments will make you more desirable.
Other areas to include a “profile” section
Your resume is not the only area where the profile section can help you stand out to hiring managers and recruiters. Your professional social networking profile [https://www.nytimes.com/guides/business/social-media-for-career-and-business] and cover letter can include a more detailed profile section. The profile section on your social media should follow the same format as the profile section in your resume.
Benefits of a “profile” resume section
There is more than one benefit to including the profile section in your resume, and these include:
Summarizes your entire resume– The profile section will summarize the most important information you want your reader to know about you from your resume. If the hiring manager or recruiter does not have time to sort through a list of resumes, your profile section can be useful tool for convincing them to spend more time with your application.
Describes your professional brand– The profile section can add character to your application by using the skills you have listed throughout your resume. Trying to incorporate both descriptive words and a few action verbs [https://www.themuse.com/advice/185-powerful-verbs-that-will-make-your-resume-awesome] that will showcase your personality and help identify the personal and professional brand you want to portray.
Quantifies your experience– The profile section is the best place to emphasize your professional accomplishments [https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/resume-accomplishments-examples] by using descriptions that quantify your value.
How to write about yourself in a resume
Identify yourself as a professional– The first step is to identify who you are as a professional. A lot of people use their current job title, but you can also use descriptive words like “entry-level professional” or “recent honors college graduate” if you do not have any work experience.
Describe expertise you want to highlight– This should include the aspects of your career and/or education that make you the strongest candidate for the position that you are applying for. You should highlight the information that will make you stand out from most of the other candidates. You can highlight your relevant work experience, skills, professional accomplishments, or why you are passionate about the industry or a combination of several things.
Outline your career goals– Your profile section should conclude with a statement about your short- and long-term career goals, and why they are related to the position you are applying for.
Here are a few more tips to remember when writing your profile section:
Be Brief- It’s important to never waste an employer’s time. Your profile should have a clear and concise statement covering your skills and strengths with some specific examples of how you’ve used those skills.
Be honest- Being honest and truthful in your profile section is very important. You need to be able to back up any claims that you make about yourself and be able to provide specific and clear examples. If you do not have any relevant work experience, use the strengths and skills that you have developed though volunteering or your education.
Proofread and read aloud- Reading your profile section of your resume out loud will help you find grammatical errors, phrases that don’t sound quite right or statements that need supporting evidence. Remember, your resume is your first impression on a potential employer. If it’s full of embarrassing typos, it may also be your last impression with that employer.
Keep your profile section updated- As your work experiences changes, the information that is most relevant in your profile section will change as well. Be sure to review this section regularly and change it as needed.
If you’re not confident about writing your own profile section, let a trained professional help with your entire resume. The team at Resume Writing Group has been crafting professional resumes for over 20 years. We know what it takes to generate job offers.
Additional reading:
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