How to Write a Professional Summary

As a job seeker, it’s important to update your resume and tailor it to the specific job you’re applying for. While your resume and cover letter give hiring managers an idea of your work experience, a professional summary gives them a quick idea of why you’re the best fit for the position you’re applying for. When you update your application documents, reviewing professional summary examples can help you create a more concise and effective summary for hiring managers.

Read on to learn more about professional summaries and consider the list of professional summary examples. Use the professional summary examples to guide the writing of your own professional summary.

A professional summary provides hiring managers with a brief synopsis of your relevant work experience, professional accomplishments, and skills. While it’s not necessary to include on your resume, it can give hiring managers a reason to keep reading your resume and your other application documents. Whereas career objectives focus on the company’s needs, professional summaries aim to provide hiring managers with a greater understanding of your relevant work history.

How to write your professional summary

When you write a professional summary, remember that it serves as an introduction to the rest of your resume. Because of this, it’s important that it’s both clear and concise. Follow these steps to write a professional summary for your resume:

1. Start by listing a few of your strongest character traits.
2. Provide a brief introduction of your professional working experience. You can also choose to mention your current position and company.
3. Explain how you would make a positive contribution to the company you’re applying for and how you’d help it achieve its goals.
4. Proofread your professional summary for grammar and spelling.

When possible, use numbers to quantify your accomplishments. You should also consider all of your relevant experiences such as volunteer work, freelance work, or hobbies that can help attest to your expertise regarding the job you’re applying for. Make sure to focus on your strongest skills and assets and limit your summary to three to five sentences overall.

Good examples of professional summaries

Once you know what a professional summary is and what it entails, review good examples to help you write your own. Here are some examples of professional summaries to consider:

• Detail-oriented individual with over five years of experience in the journalism industry. Highly organized and dependable individual with a bachelor’s degree in mass communication. Eager to join the Texas News Press in providing quality news content for the general public.
• Self-motivated individual with sales and customer service expertise. Proven experience meeting sales quotas, meeting company goals, and working collaboratively with other sales professionals. Helped increase sales revenue by 30%. Looking forward to helping Seashell Sales accomplish a similar feat.
• Hard-working receptionist with over five years working in the public sector. Experienced handling sensitive issues while providing quality support to BCD Corp. with proven communication and organizational skills. Helped implement new system that cut company costs by 20%.
• Dedicated customer service professional with over five years of experience helping customers with concerns or questions regarding a variety of products and services. Received 95% positive ratings at Blue Shoes Inc.
• Motivated student working toward a bachelor’s degree in journalism at UCLA with a 4.2 GPA. Eager to join NBC Corp. as a junior writer to help create quality content to improve the company’s online presence. In a previous internship, wrote 4,000 words per day and helped improve online engagement by 20%.
• Well-organized administrative assistant with eight years of experience. Coordinated travel plans and schedules for four company executives while keeping up with other clerical office work. Eager to support ABC Inc. with administrative and communication duties. In a previous role with Bluebird Inc., implemented four initiatives that slashed company costs by $5,000 per year.
• Dependable office manager with over 10 years of experience. Managed office staff of 10 employees at a retail-oriented business. In last position, grew contracts by 20% each year and helped save over $20,000 per year in office supplies.
• Dedicated elementary school teacher with over three years of experience creating engaging lesson plans for students of all backgrounds and upbringings. Eager to join Jones Elementary and provide students with greater understanding of general subjects. Previous experience creating 50+ lesson plans and helping all students maintain 75% average test scores.
• Hard-working analyst with strong background in mathematics and management. As a business writer for AZY Inc., received over 4,000 views on webinar that focused on the company’s values and future goals.
• Driven marketing executive with over six years of experience in the media industry. Passionate about creating new marketing strategies for Dot Com Media. In previous position, increased revenue by 25% and reduced yearly costs by 30%.
• Cheerful customer service representative with over three years of experience in a professional and goal-oriented setting. Keen to support Villa Blue’s customers with proven customer service and negotiation skills. Helped reduce first response time by 10% in first three months of previous employment.
• Dedicated software engineer seeking to use knowledge of C++ and Java programming languages to help Dellaview Inc. achieve company goals and improve website usability. Developed over 15 web applications and debugged over 20 in previous role with Allied Union. Contributed clean code for over 50 companies.
• Certified medical assistant with over six years of experience in a healthcare setting. Eager to help General Hospital patients and staff. Received 90% positive reviews in previous role at Unity Home Health. Helped save over $10,000 per year.

What to avoid in a professional summary

While there are certain things you need to include in your professional summary such as your relevant skills and how you’d make a good fit for the company you’re applying for, there are also several things to avoid. Avoid the following items when you write your professional summary:

• Spelling and grammar errors.
• Irrelevant experience and skills.
• Run-on sentences.
• No action verbs.
• Lack of specifics.
• Personal pronouns.
• Negative tone.