Summary of Qualifications: Examples & Writing Guide

What is a summary of qualifications?

A summary of qualifications is a type of resume introduction that focuses on your key career-related achievements. Placed at the top of your resume below your resume header, it should include four to six bullet points that highlight your most impressive accomplishments, skills, and experiences.

This type of resume introduction is known by several other names, such as:

1. Qualifications summary
2. Resume qualifications
3. Statement of qualifications
4. Skills summary

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Who should use a summary of qualifications?

You should include a summary of qualifications if you’re writing a resume as an experienced professional in your industry. That’s because a summary of qualifications places your most relevant and impressive experiences, skills, and achievements at the top of your resume where hiring managers will immediately see them.

You can also include a summary of qualifications on your resume if you:

1. Possess high-level certifications related to your target job
2. Are able to demonstrate industry-specific skills 

A summary of qualifications is less appropriate if you have no (or little) work experience, or if you’re transferring into a new industry. The only exception is if you’ve developed a wide range of skills and gained experience from other activities such as college studies, internships, volunteer work or extracurricular activities.

For instance, if you served in student government, you could write an effective summary of qualifications detailing your successes and the leadership skills you gained, as well as listing your academic achievements. Highlighting the right skills for your resume can make a difference in showing the employer that you’re a good fit for the role.

Summary of qualifications examples

Here’s an example summary of qualifications for an executive assistant of a major publicly listed company:

And here’s a text version you can copy and paste:

Here are some additional qualification summary examples for popular industries:

How to write a qualifications summary

Whether you’re writing your summary of qualifications out manually or using a resume summary generator, there’s certain information you should always highlight.

Your bullet points should be relevant to the job you’re applying for, meaning your summary of qualifications should be different for every application you send out.

Carefully read the job description to see what the hiring manager expects from candidates and then use your qualifications summary to show them that your qualifications align with what they’re looking for.

Here’s an example of a visually appealing qualifications summary:

Here are some examples of details to highlight:

• Years of experience
• Key hard and soft skills
• Successful projects
• Awards and recognitions
• Leadership positions

Make sure that each bullet point in your qualifications summary showcases new, relevant, measurable achievements from different parts of your career.

Take a look at these two examples:

In the first example, the candidate demonstrates their leadership skills and ability to improve sales numbers as well as their experience managing projects and organizing events. To add extra credibility to these achievements, they back up their claims with hard numbers.

The second example isn’t as strong, because the candidate makes general, unquantified statements. Additionally, the second and fourth bullet point essentially say the same thing.

Another thing you should pay attention to is how your summary of qualifications looks on the resume template you choose. Each bullet point should fit on one line to make your resume clean and easy to read.

Resume examples for different industries

Not sure what your resume should look like? The best way to learn is by taking inspiration from resume examples written by other candidates in your industry.

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