The topmost part of your resume is the most valuable area on your resume where you position your name and contact information followed by the summary section. Of course, these are the first elements a person sees when opening your resume on a screen, and this is why the summary section is so important.
A fully optimized summary section allows you to set the first impression you want to make. It’s where you get to control the narrative about yourself – where you get to control how you are perceived as a qualified professional.
This section gives the reader a sense of what you bring to the table because it’s a summarization of your core skills and strengths. A fully optimized summary section includes industry-related and/or profession-related key words and phrases that make it easy to find you through a database search on platforms such as Indeed, LinkedIn, Upwork, etc. And even if they don’t use a database to find you, the summary section allows anyone who looks at your resume for the first time to see your qualifications immediately at the top of the resume before they even scroll down to see your work history.
Beyond its critical job in establishing a great first impression and providing an overall summary of your relevant qualifications, this section becomes even more important to your resume’s effectiveness when you’re:
- Changing your career – If you’re making any sort of significant career shift or change, you’ll need to use the summary in a creative way to highlight transferable skills and show relevant success stories that back up your claim that you’re qualified. This is especially crucial when your past job titles don’t easily or readily convey that you truly are a great fit. (Read: The Career Change Resume)
- Targeting a specific role – It is always best to tweak your resume and target it to match a posted job or project that you highly desire. This starts with redirecting focus and emphasizing something specific about your background and qualifications in the summary section to show your ability to fulfill the role or project you’re targeting. (Read: Targeting Your Resume)
If you’d like some insights on what ingredients are needed for a really good summary section, here are a few additional resources you may want to check out:
- In my article, Resumes: How to Strike the Right Balance Between Length & Content, I include a list of what goes into a good summary.
- Austin Belcak, the founder of Cultivated Culture, suggests using what he calls the “Highlight Reel Resume Summary” approach, which looks to be an intriguing and effective format for a streamlined, bulleted summary section.
- In her article, 5 Tips For Writing An Effective Resume Summary Statement, freelance writer Virginia Hogan gives some excellent advice for writing a typical initial summary statement for the very top of the resume.