Marketing Manager
Resume Example

As a marketing manager, you’re more aware than most that good advertising is needed to sell a product.

The same is true for your resume. A good resume is basically just good advertising. The product? You!

Read on to discover our four top resume writing tips passed on to us by active marketing managers, so you can create your own optimal marketing manager resume.

1. A First-Class Resume Needs a First-Class Introduction

No matter how much experience you have to show off in your work experience section or how many skills you pack into your key skills section, the introduction is the first part of your resume that hiring managers will see.

Thus, it’s vital to make every word in your introduction work for you.

There are four primary types of resume introductions employed by job seekers these days:

1. The resume summary
2. The resume objective
3. The summary of qualifications
4. The resume profile

All four are fantastic for seizing the hiring manager’s attention — they just differ in how they achieve it.

Our marketing manager candidate went with a professional profile. This is a solid choice for her because professional profiles are suited for those with experience and achievements in their field — which our candidate has in abundance.

A professional profile typically contains four points: (i) years of experience, (ii) speciality, (iii) skills, and (iv) achievement.

Let’s check out our candidate’s professional profile:

She immediately outlines her considerable experience, specifying how long (6 years) and in what areas (home appliances and cosmetics) she’s worked. These facts are up front — the perfect place to grab the hiring manager’s attention.

In the next bullet, she details her speciality — management — and provides examples of tasks she’s succeeded at in the past, including training new hires and improving sales targets.

She then showcases one of her special skills. In this case, our candidate excels at product launches.

Everyone has a particular talent — that’s one lesson from kindergarten that still holds true.

So, think about what yours is — and remember, it needs to be relevant to the job you’re seeking!

Finally, our candidate unveils her greatest work achievement: directing the launch of 12 new product lines for a total annual revenue of $1.3 billion.

When you’re thinking about your own achievement to put here, keep it relevant to the position.

2. Optimize Your Skills Section

Your skills section is a valuable addition to your resume, and thus often receives a prime piece of resume real estate on the resumes of many applicants.

To reiterate, it usually holds a key position on your resume—somewhere where it’ll easily be seen — and lists the crucial skills you have (ones your employer wants).

Importantly, it’s made up of just a few words or short phrases, which means you should put a lot of thought into it. Of all your skills and talents, what makes the cut?

Consider what the employer is looking for first of all. If the job description makes it clear what you need to be able to do to handle the job, then tailor your skills list accordingly.

Second, balance your hard and soft skills.

Hard skills are typically linked to things you’ve learned and or picked up (e.g., First Aid skills, Google Analytics know-how, or whether you have a pilot’s license).

By contrast, soft skills relate to your personality (e.g., whether you’re highly motivated, good at resisting distractions, or keep calm when others are panicking).

Because marketing involves knowing how to use specific tools, especially ones such as Google Analytics, you might want a hard-skills-heavy resume. This is the approach our marketing manager candidate takes:

Four of his six skills are directly linked to specific pieces of software, all of which are generally used by marketing managers on a daily basis.

Note too that the candidate has scored himself on his experience with each type of software. This is valuable information for hiring managers because it lets them know whether their new hire can hit the ground running.

Meanwhile, the candidate also showcases the fact that she’s fluent in two languages — a fantastic plus in today’s globalized world.

The only other skill on this resume is a soft skill:

Team leadership is essential for someone in a management position, so it’s vital to list this.

3. Write a Work Experience Section Bursting with Action Verbs

To give your work experience section some extra zing, introduce action verbs into it:

Action verbs are full of energy and replace bland, lifeless verbs.

4. Quantify Your Successes

As a marketing manager, you’ll be aware that to get people to buy a product or service, you have to make people trust in it.

The same principle applies to writing a top-tier resume. And the best way to make the hiring manager trust our resume is to provide plenty of statistics and figures that support what you’re saying about yourself.

No matter whether you’ve launched products, created effective marketing material, or managed a grade-A team of marketing maestros, you’ll need to demonstrate some hard data that shows you’ve been a success.

Let’s see how our marketing manager candidate does this:

Example 1: Launched new products

Echoing her introduction section, this point hashes out the candidate’s major achievement. To flesh out her claim, she specifies the overall annual revenue.

At $1.3 billion, this is a substantial achievement and gives the hiring manager an idea of whether the candidate is desirable.

Example 2: Managed corporate marketing functions

The ability to handle a budget is crucial for anyone in a management position.

Just saying that you can manage a budget is not enough. Size matters — a manager at a small firm might not have what it takes to control a big one.

That’s why our candidate specifies what kind of budget she managed: $2 million is not to be sniffed at and indicates to hiring managers that she can handle plenty of responsibility.

Example 3: Grew firm’s web presence and global brand awareness

Web presence and global brand awareness are critical concerns for companies, and the ability of a marketing manager applicant to grow them is among the main factors in whether they’ll be hired.

To prove that she has what it takes to promote growth, our candidate shows that web presence and brand awareness grew by over a third during her tenure.

Adding this type of hard data will go a long way in landing you the job of your dreams — so be sure to try it out!

Hopefully, these four tips have already given you some ideas on how to update your resume for success.

Besides these tips, we have a wide variety of other resources for you to explore. Why not check out our free downloadable resume templates that you can easily tailor to your exact specifications?

Or if you’re in a hurry, we also have our new and improved resume builder software operating 24/7 for your convenience.