Pump Up Your Resume with a Summary of Qualifications

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

This qualification summary found at the top of the resume, can have a few other names. Some of these other names you will see on resumes are Career Profile, Job Summary or Professional Highlights. Resume writers experiment with several variations on that same theme as far as naming this segment. However, despite the different names, there are four key elements to consider as you complete this important section.

The four key considerations for a resume Summary of Qualifications are:

1. Include years of experience and areas of expertise in your field. Remember that it is appropriate to accumulate experiences you have gained from more than one job to add to your summary of qualifications. For example, let's say you work in customer service now and have been with your current job for three years. If you have another 2 years of customer service experience from another job you did several years ago, it is legitimate to total those years for your Summary of Qualifications statement on your resume.

2. Acknowledge any special or recent awards and professional recognition relevant to the position you are seeking. If you don't have acknowledgement by an organization, include an area of outstanding achievement from your last annual performance evaluation.

3. Share industry specific certifications or professional training that qualifies you for the specific position for which you are applying. For example, if you are applying for a supervisor's job and have recently completed a certificate in project management - go ahead and include this.

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