What does your career summary say about you? Is it boring or does it really grab the reader's attention and make them want to read on? Or did you decide you couldn't be bothered including one and you just cut to the chase and went straight into your work experience? If so then you may well be missing out on your next great job.

Why have one?

A career summary at the beginning of your resume allows you to showcase your experience in a few lines. It provides the reader with a broad picture of you, your key strengths and attributes and encourages them to either read further or register a mismatch with the job or environment. What's more some resume readers won't even bother reading a resume if it doesn't have a summary. If the summary contains key words (and it should) related to the type of job you are seeking, then you'll have taken the hard work away from the reader and put yourself in the running to be selected for interview. Employers and recruiters spend on average between 30 seconds and 2 minutes reading or scanning a resume so it's really important to be succinct and make an impact at the beginning of the resume. There's no denying it's hard to write about yourself but if you follow these simple guidelines you'll be well on your way to showcasing your skills.

Guidelines:

• Summarise your skills and qualifications as they relate to your target job.
• Avoid clichés or vague phrases, such as hard worker, loyal etc as they tend to weaken the impact of your message.
• Focus on key words, hard skills, business results and personal traits.
• Include some of the highly sought after soft skills - generally you will find these among the key words in the job ad.
• Start and end the summary with high impact phrases or sentences.
• Keep the summary length to between 50 and 100 words.
• It's easier to write the summary after you have written the rest of your resume.
• Check your summary against the job ads applying for - does it contain the same key words?
• Tailor your summary for each role you apply for.
• Have someone else proof read it.

Examples:

To help you further below are some samples of career summaries.

Senior Marketing Executive:

"An accomplished and resulted orientated Senior Marketing Executive with extensive experience in CRM, business development, and product and services management within blue chip organisations in highly competitive markets. Highly developed leadership skills coupled with a strong customer insight approach, consistently delivering profitable solutions. Adept at managing large budgets and presenting at board and senior executive level.

Highly developed interpersonal and communication skills with an excellent ability to motivate and lead teams in line with the strategic vision and corporate goals."

HR Professional:

"Human Resource professional with over 10 years experience in a range of human resources roles within the manufacturing industry. Strong track record in the strategic and operational management of people and provision of value added solutions to achieve business objectives.

Experience incorporates the delivery of operational services, performance management, recruitment, employee relations, team and project management.

Excellent business acumen capable of driving performance improvements across the business. Analytical, logical with the alibility to identify problems, develop and implement practical solutions to meet business needs."

Administration Officer:

"Well organised and efficient Administration Officer with almost ten years experience including filing, preparation of reports for board, handling customer enquiries and organising senior management diaries. Experience also includes invoicing, month end reconciliations and managing petty cash accounts.

Excellent communication and interpersonal skills with the ability to work as either part of a team or independently. Enjoys working under pressure and to deadline as well as learning new skills."