Personal Summary

When you ant to get the job that you have been dreaming of even before you graduated, you have to avoid selling yourself short and selling yourself too much. You have to impress you potential employer of your outstanding capabilities and skills. You know you have perfected that cover letter, but what about your resume? Hod do you improve your resume in the hopes you getting that job in the bag?

• Resume Summary Examples
• What to Include in a Resume Summary Statement

Before you even think about applying for a job, you need to realize you’ll be one of the interested and qualified candidates fro the position. There will a lot of people to compete with and the competition will be tough. In order to have a higher chance of securing the position, you need to be able to produce a well-written and well-organized resume.

A resume is a a document where you systematically arrange the contents regarding your qualifications, achievements, skills, trainings and seminars, as well as your professional references. This will you employer basis in hiring you; they use this to check whether or not you are qualified and an exact fit for the job and the responsibilities needed for it. A resume can be short or lengthy depending on the quantity of experiences and other sources for qualification that you already have. However, it is important that the contents are kept as factual as thy can be because employers usually fact check what you out in the resume. You may also see summary writing examples and samples.

One of the parts in a resume is a personal summary or personal statement or also sometimes called as personal profile. It provides a brief personal summary about your experiences, skills, qualifications, etc. It helps you sell yourself to your potential employer. It is usually the first thing you see or write in a resume more aptly because it is the most important part in your resume, as well. This is the ‘elevator pitch’ version of your resume. It is meant to be brief and direct to the point.

Personal Summary/Statement Example

CV with Personal Summary/Profile Example

Team Leader Personal Summary Example

Purpose of Personal Summary

A personal summary is just a small part of a resume or CV. It is commonly found on top of the portion of the page and is the second section of document after the letterhead. Its main purposes are as follows:

1. Briefly summarize the candidate’s career goals
2. Highlight the candidate’s skills relevant to the job
3. Pick out key achievements to directly signal potential employer that the candidate can excel in that particular sector.
4. Simply put, it presents personal representation of the candidate in the document.

These general statements although they hold their own purpose are more suitable for senior applicants already on the career ladder. This gives applicants a brief yet specific way of stating their career goals, for instance if the applicant wishes to further his/her expertise in a specific field or if he/she wants to move on a different sector within the same field, he/she can simply state it in his/her personal statement. They can also strategically highlight their relevant skills and qualifications in the personal summary that would further suggest their suitability with the position.

Sample Professional Summary Statements

Writing a Personal Profile Summary

Student Profile Summary

Importance of a Personal Summary

Since the the purpose of a personal summary has been discussed on the above section of this guide, you need to understand its importance. A personal summary as mentioned above, summarizes the candidate’s career goal as well as highlights his/her skills best suited for the job. It specifically tells the employee what you aim to achieve with this employment, it is the only part on the you application documents where it is acceptable to talk about what you want to achieve with the job, but at same time telling the employer what possible contributions you can give to the employer. You may also see how to write a summary.

The importance of a personal statement in a college application, for example, is to give the admission committee that needed push to give you a seat in the class or degree program. It tells and tries to convince the admission committee that you are sincerely passionate about the field or that this degree has been your long-term dream. It aims to tell the committee about the applicant beyond what is written in a bulleted list of achievements and qualifications. You may also like interview summary examples.

Further more, a personal summary is also a great way to tell a potential employer about your aspirations as a potential employee. It can help the candidate set an emphasis on his/her career goals, for example what he/she wants to achieve or focus on. It can also help the candidate highlight the skills that are most relevant to the position, as well as the highlight the achievements to help convince the employer further. You may also check out meeting summary examples.

However, a personal statement is more suitable for job candidate’s or applicants with more experience or senior applicants who have had a number of years in the field. This is because they can simply assert that they want to further their expertise on the field or to move on different sector of the same field.

If a fresh graduate uses a personal summary in his/her resume or CV, it can be bland and off putting. since fresh graduates have little to no experience on the field, a personal summary may be taken as a demanding request from someone who has no impressive qualifications yet. Instead of focusing on a personal summary, a fresh graduate should focus more on fleshing out the other sections of their CV. You might be interested in summary examples.

Skills Focused CV with Personal Statement Example

Sales Representative  Personal Summary Example

How to Write a Personal Summary

As mentioned earlier, although a personal summary is useful it is not a need, per se. It is useful but the impracticality outweighs its necessity especially when you are fresh graduate with no experience or related experience on the field. However, should you decide to still include a personal summary in your resume or CV, here are easy steps you can follow so that you can write an effective personal summary:

1. Establish the ‘who are you’ section

First off, you need to establish you who you are. This section will serve as you brief introduction i your resume or CV. You can state that you are a graduate of specific course from the university yo graduated from; what level of employee you are currently seeking, or state that you have previous relevant experiences with the position, an/or the job position or designation from which you resigned and state that you are currently furthering your expertise or wants to move into another field. You may also see what to include in a resume summary statement.

Here are some examples:

•  “A graduate of Electrical Engineering from University of Whateverstate looking for an entry level position in engineering.”
• “A highly skilled Teacher with eight years of experience looking to resume a position in the academe.” 
• ” An experienced Purchasing Manager looking to progress into Regional Senior Manager position.”

2. Specify what you can offer to the company

In this part of your personal summary, you are trying to sell your relevant skills and strengths along with the necessary evidence to prove their authenticity. If you are writing a CV because you are applying for a specific job, you can use the job specifications to create your summary. For example, if a company is looking for leadership skills and you have experience in being a team leader in your previous job or that you were the chairperson of your organization in college, mention it in your summary. You may also like career summary examples.

If you are making a more general personal summary with a specific job title in mind, be sure to highlight achievements that will make you standout in the field. For example, if you are applying for a position in Graphic Design and you have an extensive experience when you were a design expert for a campaign, you can use that to your advantage especially since there is an actual proof.

It is important to remember not to bomb the summary with buzzwords. Buzzwords are unnecessary adjectives to enhance what is in actual. If you are a marketing expert use on or two adjectives describing your work ethic or experience, and let the evidences speak for themselves. You may also check out how to write a professional summary.

3. Highlight your career goals

The final par of your personal summary is the part where you highlight your career goals. Meaning this is where you can briefly talk about your aspirations for the job or what you want king of working environment you want to work into. More than anything, this tells the potential employer that you are a professional worth the investment. Take a look at these examples:

• “I am looking for a challenging, fast-paced environment within the corporate field to utilize my accounting and analytical skills and develop skill set further.” You might be interested in examples of writing a narrative summary.
• “Looking to re-establish a career in a progressive and motivating organisation which requires creative graphic design expertise, after taking maternity leave to care for a new-born.”
• “I am looking to secure a challenging role in a market-leading advertising company where I can bring fresh strategic vision and value to the business.”

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Personal Summary Format

Dos and Don’ts in Writing a Personal Summary

Although there is o existing rule telling you to write you personal summary, it is helpful to have just some sort of a guide. Therefore, here are some of the dos and don’ts in writing your personal summary:

1. Dos

• Get straight to the point.
• Be brief in providing evidence of your skills and experience.
• Remember that you are marketing yourself.
• The general statement look purposeful. Show that you know what you are talking about without sounding arrogant.
• The job specification should be reflected in your summary.
• Proofread for spelling and grammar.

You may also see job summary examples.

2. Don’ts

• Overuse buzz words and jargon.
• Use either first person or third, not both.
• Be boring highlight your unique qualifications.
• Copy from your cover letter or copy your professional cover letter from your statement.
• Avoid rambling on and on.