A professional summary can also be referred to as a “Summary of Qualifications” or
“Summary of Skills”.
The Professional Summary could be of great help, when you have a good amount of experience
or when you are planning to switch jobs.
Your goal here should be to highlight and briefly summarize the skills and qualifications
that are applicable for the job that you are applying to.
Basically, there are 3 types of formats that you can choose from, to write your Professional
Summary.
You can choose between: Bulleted list format, Column format.
There is also another format called the Paragraph format, but I do not recommend using it.
I will cover the reasons to avoid the Paragraph format later in the video.
Bulleted List –
This is a great way to speak a line or two about the core skills that you possess.
Try to summarize the skill and make sure that it is not more than 2 lines by writing a quick,
concise summary of your skill.
Make sure you avoid going beyond 2 lines or else it would start looking more like a paragraph,
which is undesirable.
Remember: Avoid the Paragraph format.
Let us take a look at few examples of Bulleted List:
If you are a Photoshop designer, then you could say:
• Hands-on Photoshop expert focused on designing appealing and attractive front-end User Interface.
• Expert on using advanced design techniques.
If you are an online Marketer, then you could say:
• Hands-on online marketer focused on generating leads and sales.
• Current knowledge of online marketing and various cost-effective advertising mediums.
Column Format –
This is a great way to showcase your skillset in just 2-3 words and not exceeding a single
line.
This usually consists of your skillsets spread across in 2 columns.
Let’s look at some examples:
If you are a Designer, then you could list your skills as:
• Graphics Designer • Illustration Expert
• UI Designer • UX Expert
Paragraph format –
Although this format of resume exists, I do NOT recommend using it.
The Paragraph format is difficult to read because of congestion of lot of information
in a concentrated place, thus making it hard to read & easily understand the message you
are trying to convey.
So, make sure you AVOID using this format in your resume.
Great, now you know the type of formats available and how you can use them for writing a Summary
of Qualifications.
But do you know what skills to list for a specific job requirement?
How do you figure out the best ones for listing?
Well, that’s easy!
Read through the job description and its requirements and list out the skills that intersect with
your experience.
Also make sure you list out connected skills, even if it is not mentioned in the Job Description.
For example, if you are applying for the job of an online marketer, you can list your core
skill as:
• Online Marketing Expert
In addition to this, if you have related skills such as advertising, then along with the core
skill, you can also add the related skill such as:
• Advertising specialist
So, in case of this job requirement, assuming that you possess both marketing and advertising
skills, at the bare minimum, you can list your core skills as:
• Online Marketing Expert • Advertising specialist
Let’s look at another example to make things clearer.
If you are applying for the role of a Project Manager and have a PMP certification, then
you can list your skills as: • Project Management Expert
• Certified Project Management Professional (PMP)
As you read through and understand more about the job requirement, you can list all the
intersecting and related skills for that job in the formats that we have just seen.
Now go ahead and start creating the list of Professional Summary!
That’s all for now, see you in the next video.
If this video was helpful, please show your support by leaving a like, comment and share
the video on social media.
Subscribe to the channel and tap the bell icon to receive all future updates.
Thanks for watching.