The main purpose of your resume as a job seeker should be to market your skills, experience and education to potential employers. Showcase your brand, so to speak. One way to quickly engage a hiring manager and maximize the success of your resume in the first 20-30 seconds, is through a powerful Summary of Qualifications.

Here are four key elements that should be included in a good Summary of Qualifications:

- Include years of experience and areas of expertise in your field. Remember that it is possible to accumulate experience you have gained from more than one job. eg. Let’s say you work in customer service now and have been with your current job for three years, but have customer service experience from another job you did several years ago. Total those years for your Summary of Qualifications statement.

- Acknowledge any special or recent awards and professional recognition relevant to the position you are seeking. If you haven’t been acknowledged by an organization, include an area of outstanding achievement from your last annual performance evaluation.

- Share industry specific certifications or professional training. eg If you are going after a supervisor’s job and have taken a certificate in project management.

- Identify soft skills which are difficult to quantify, but give you a clear advantage eg. good public speaking, team building and multi-tasking skills.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 at 8:59 pm and is filed under Resume Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.