If you're in marketing, you're used to selling products and services. But, do you know how to sell yourself as a valuable employee?
Crafting a clear, standout resume is a great way to convince potential employers of your value as an employee. If you're a marketing professional looking to learn some tips about how to polish up your resume to find a new job, then this article is for you.
In this article, I'll tell you the top three skills you need to highlight on your marketing resume, offer tips for how to make your marketing resume for successful, and answer some frequently asked questions about marketing resumes. I'll also provide two different marketing resume examples that you can view.
Feature image: Resume / Pixabay
How Should a Marketing Resume Be Different Than a General Resume?
The short answer to this question is that a marketing resume isn't drastically different than a resume for any other job. After all, resumes exist for one purpose: to highlight your achievements and experiences so you can secure the job of your dreams. A marketing resume is just like any other resume in that you use it when you're applying for jobs to communicate to employers why they should hire you.
However, as with any other resume, you should tailor your marketing resume to better reflect the skills and experiences marketing hiring managers are looking for in their employees. That means that you may change what you highlight throughout your resume to stand out. In the next two sections, I'll talk more about how you can focus your resume for a marketing career.
The 3 Top Skills to Highlight on Your Marketing Resume
While there are tons of different career possibilities within the field of marketing, all marketing jobs are looking for these three skills from their employees.
#1: Excellent Written Communication
The job of a marketer is to sell a product or service to a given audience. In order to sell something, you need to effectively communicate what you're selling and why it's so valuable. As such, excellent written communication is a necessity for any would-be marketers. Hiring managers are looking to see that you can clearly and effectively express yourself using the written word.
#2: Analytical Thinking
Marketers need to think critically about the products or services they're selling and understand the best way to sell those goods to a diverse audience. Hiring managers will be looking to see that their marketing employees have experience thinking critically when making decisions. Similarly, marketers need to be able to reflect on bad decisions and make effective changes for future success.
#3: Creativity
There are thousands of ways to get products and services in front of customers these days. As a marketer, you need to be able to think creatively so that your product or service will stand out from the crowd. Hiring managers will be looking for demonstrations of creative thinking so they know you can help their company achieve its sales goals. Use your resume to showcase your unique take on a recent project or problem so hiring managers can see that you're able to think outside of the box.
5 Tips for Writing a Killer Marketing Resume
So now that you know what hiring managers are looking for, how do you communicate that on your resume? In this section, I'll offer five tips for making your marketing resume hiring manager-ready.
#1: Quantify Your Accomplishments
Calling out your accomplishments is an important part of any resume. You want the hiring manager reviewing your resume to be wowed by your experience and skills and think, "I have to hire this person!"
In general, as you're recounting prior employment experiences, you want to focus on your achievements more than your day-to-day duties. Think about these questions: Did you lead a special project? Did you convert a certain number of paid customers? Did you lead the use of a new marketing platform?
While you certainly want to make sure that you talk about your responsibilities at previous jobs, you want to focus on your highlights so that the hiring manager reviewing your resume really understands what made you special at your prior workplace.
#2: Focus on Specific Skills
Hiring managers are scanning your resume for evidence that you have the skills and experience necessary to succeed in your new job. How do you know what skills and experiences the hiring managers are looking for? Easy. Check the job description.
Job descriptions will itemize what you need to know to be considered a solid candidate for any given role. For instance, a job description might say: "Experience with Adobe Creative Suite desired." That tells you that the company is looking for someone who is familiar with the Adobe Creative suite of products, and, if you have that experience, you should say so on your resume.
Each job description is different, so make sure you look over them carefully to make sure you're showing off the competencies you have that match with what the company wants.
#3: Highlight Your Social Media Skills
While traditional wisdom dictates that you should hide your social media accounts from your prospective or current employers, marketers may actually want to share their social media platforms with hiring managers, especially if they're looking for a job in social media marketing.
Social media sites, like Instagram, are a great way to sell your personal brand. So sharing your social media accounts with potential employers is a way to show them how you can communicate with an audience and tell a compelling story. Obviously, you want to ensure that any social media accounts you share contain appropriate content for a prospective employer. If you're worried about sharing something too personal, you could create a dedicated social media account for the field in which you're applying.
For instance, if you're applying for a job as a marketer at a fitness company, you could create a dedicated fitness Instagram account to show the employer your knowledge of trends in the industry.
If that sounds like too drastic of a step, don't worry! Marketing employers simply want to know that their employees are able to use social media, as social media platforms are a huge place for marketing campaigns these days. Even if you don't share your social tags, make sure you highlight your proficiency across different social media platforms on your resume.
#4: Proofread
Remember what I said in the prior section? Hiring managers are looking for marketers with impeccable communications skills. If you have a misspelled word or a grammatical error on your resume, you're basically telling the hiring manager that you're not a diligent and effective communicator.
Proofread your resume. Have a friend or co-worker proofread your resume. Make sure your resume is perfect when you send it to a potential employer.
#5: Format, Format, Format
Similarly, you need to format your resume so that it's clear and easy-to-understand. Remember, as a marketer, your job is to tell the story of a product or service so that someone wants to buy it.
The same applies to your resume. You need to tell the story of you in a clear, easy-to-understand, and compelling way, so that hiring managers want to hire you.
Focus on telling about your prior experiences in a clear, concise way. Sometimes, marketing professionals work so hard on making their resume standout by using crazy infographics that it's hard to tell what their actual experience is. Make sure a hiring manager can easily understand your experience through your resume.
Marketing Resume Examples
If you're looking for marketing resume examples to give you an idea of where to start when crafting your own marketing resume, we have both an entry level and experienced marketing resume for you to check out.
Click here to download our sample entry level marketing resume.
Click here to download our sample experienced marketing resume.
Marketing Resume FAQ
Still have questions about your marketing resume? Don't worry! In this section, I'll cover answers to some of the most commonly asked marketing resume questions.
#1: Should I Use an Infographic on My Marketing Resume?
Increasingly, marketers are using infographics to demonstrate their creativity and help their resume stand out from the pack. But should you use an infographic on your resume? That depends on whether the infographic will help sell you as an employee or it will hurt.
If you decide to use an infographic in your resume, you need to make sure that it's neat, easy-to-follow, and clearly communicates your experiences. Infographics can be busy and confusing if they're not well-executed, which could hurt you in the end. If your infographic adds something substantial to your experience, keep it in. If not, I'd say that it's unnecessary and leave it out.
#2: What Marketing Resume Keywords Should I Include?
There are hundreds of different marketing roles out there, each with specific skills that hiring managers are looking for. While it's generally considered a myth that hiring managers send resumes through scanners to find specific marketing resume keywords, they are looking to make sure you have certain skills for a particular position. So, you'll want to update your resume with the specific skills you need for each role.
If you're applying for a number of different marketing roles (perhaps one as a social media marketer and one as an SEO specialist), you'll change the skills you highlight in each resume.
A good rule of thumb for including specific skills is to check out the job description, which will often tell you the types of experiences you need to have. Make sure to include any skills that are mentioned two or more times, as well as any experience with particular software or social media platforms that they require. Don't worry about having the perfect combination of marketing resume keywords - just highlight the skills you have that the hiring managers want.
#3: Should I List My Education or My Prior Work Experience First on My Resume?
Ultimately, it doesn't matter a ton whether you list your education first or your work experience first on your resume. The choice depends mainly on what the most impressive part of your prior experience is.
If you recently graduated from college and haven't had a ton of relevant work experience, listing your college degree and any associated accomplishments first is a good idea. If you've been out of school for some time and wracked up a lot of strong work experience, you'll probably want to dive right into that experience first.
Again, it won't ultimately affect you much—either way, both hiring managers and scanning programs will read through your entire resume.
#4: Should I List My References on My Resume?
Don't waste space on your resume indicating your references' contact information or saying something like "References available upon request." Checking references is an important part of almost every single job application process these days. Hiring managers will assume that you have references to contact, and they'll reach out to you for that information when they need it (often later in the hiring process).
In Summary
Marketing jobs are competitive, but with a stellar resume, you can stand out from the crowd and secure the job of your dreams.
When writing your marketing resume, make sure you highlight the skills and experiences that hiring managers are looking for so they move you along to the interview part of the hiring process.
