How To Write A Profile Summary (With Examples)

Updated 30 September 2022

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When you are submitting a CV for a job, it is essential to write a profile summary at the top. It is a brief description of your CV listing your unique skills and experience. It is a recent popular addition for a compelling presentation of your CV in a nutshell. In this article, we would discuss the contents of a CV profile summary, how to write it effectively and make it attractive, along with a few example profile summaries.

What Is A Profile Summary?

A profile summary is a brief description of your qualifications, experience and accomplishments relevant to the job you are applying for. It is different from a career objective, which is a statement of your intent to let employers know about your employment goals. Since hiring managers require to go through hundreds or thousands of applications, they sort all CVs by job keywords and eliminate those where these keywords are not present.

Sometimes hiring managers may overlook some relevant qualifications or specific achievements of the candidate. Therefore, employers adopt application tracking software to filter CVs according to keywords and tags. To ensure that your CV is selected in this process, you can mention such keywords and tags in the profile summary. For example, if the job requires C++ programming language, you can start the profile summary by stating, "Skilled C++ programmer with 10+ years of experience ..."

Contents Of A CV Profile Summary

The contents of the CV profile summary include your skills, additional expertise, qualifications and accomplishments to match the requirements in the job title. A CV profile summary is required to be short but comprehensive. A typical profile summary has the following components:

Qualifications: If the employer has asked for specific qualifications, mention those with your grades or medals won. Add supplementary courses and workshops for more effectiveness.
Experience: Most employers ask for a certain period of experience in the industry. So, you can specify your experience with a number and adding a plus sign after it.
Your unique quality: Start by writing about why you are the most eligible candidate for the job. Pinpoint your unique quality or skill that the company has placed in the job title.
Your industry-specific skill: If you have studied the company's job advertisement carefully, you can align your specific technical talent and other soft skills with the job requirements. Highlight your primary qualification and skills in bold letters.
Area of expertise: If you are an expert in a category of the company's job description, make sure to mention it and highlight it in bold.
Accomplishments: State at least one relevant achievement in the summary to let the employer know your success story and the value you bring to the company.

Related: How to Write a Resume Headline

Tips For Writing A Profile Summary

Here are a few tips for writing an effective profile summary:

Read the job description carefully

Make sure you do not miss any critical details. Check your strong points and weaknesses to compare against skills listed in job requirements.

Place your profile summary at the top

Type the profile summary just below the contact information after a line separator so that the hiring manager would see it first.

Write all your skills that are relevant to the job description

Use the keywords from the job description in your CV profile summary so that the hiring manager can correlate your CV with their talent search.

Mention your achievements

Use actual statistics to prove your achievements like numbers, percentage and amount in rupees. For example, "I cut the cost of overtime by 25% by reallocating critical tasks according to the team members' skill levels and experience."

Customise your profile summary

Customise your profile summary to match the requirements of the job description. A tailored CV makes it easy for the hiring manager to decide whether you are eligible for an interview.

Explain about breaks in your employment

Give a specific explanation about your job experience in which there is a career shift or gaps between jobs.

Compare your work with others

Checking different CVs would help you discover a more precise format. Show your CV to an experienced person, your classmate, a professor or a career guide. Their inputs can help you reformat and structure your CV for a particular job.

Proofread your work

Proofread your CV summary and correct all spelling mistakes and formatting errors. You can also ask someone else to proofread it. Sometimes, a fresh perspective can assist you in finding errors that may have slipped from your notice.

What Are The Benefits Of A Profile Summary?

Here are the key benefits of a profile summary:

A CV profile summary gives an idea of your CV in a nutshell. It showcases your unique qualities to the employer right at the start.
The profile summary keeps the hiring manager engaged and interested in reading the rest of your CV.
It aligns with application tracking software by including the keywords in the job description, thereby increasing your application's chances of getting shortlisted for an interview.
Sometimes, the employer may select you for another opening at their company if your profile summary is convincing.

Examples Of Profile Summaries

Here are some examples of profile summaries for various jobs from which you would get an idea of how to write one for your CV:

Accountant

1st class M.Com, ICWA (Institute of Chartered Accountants Association) certified accountant with seven years of experience. Proficient in Tally, ERP 9, Excel and QuickBooks. Expert in taxation matters with a proven record of excellence in financial accounts and audits for a company with over 300 employees.

Teacher

B.Sc (Hons.) and B.Ed (Bachelor of Education) in Maths and Science with more than 10 years of teaching experience in reputed schools. Expert in teaching CBSE [Central Board of Secondary Education], ICSE [Indian Council of Secondary Education] and NCERT [National Council of Educational Research and Training] curricula. Proficient in English and Hindi with multiple certificates of merit.

Marketing manager

Dynamic and self-motivated, result-oriented marketing manager with more than seven years of total experience. Proven record of increasing sales by up to 50% through marketing initiatives. An active team member with excellent communication and people skills. Expert in nurturing innovative ideas and deriving success from diverse teams. Two-time winner of state-level excellence awards.

Customer relation manager

First-class MBA (Master in Business Administration) in sales with excellent communication skills and fluency in English, Hindi and Tamil languages. Improved customer care feedback scores for the region by 32%. Led the area customer service team successfully to win the customer service excellence award.

Data scientist

MCA (Master in Computer Application) with distinction and seven years of experience as a data scientist. Proficiency in HTML, CSS, Python, C++, C# and JAVA. Beginner in MATLAB. Experienced in manipulating visual hierarchy and automation in prediction algorithms for customer trends.

Business analyst

MBA (university topper and gold medallist) with seven years of experience in budgeting, forecasting and financial modelling. Promoted from quality assurance manager to a business analyst within two years. Used forecasting model with variance analysis to recommend changes in the production plan and sale of three products to reduce overheads by 43%. Achieved the certificate of merit for outstanding performance.

Nurse

10 years of experience in City Hospital with a certificate in nursing and midwife training. Disciplined, organised, confident and meticulous with the ability to multitask in coordination with other nursing staff. Experienced in assisting surgeons in the pre-and post-operative care of patients, clinical care, resolving patient issues and dealing with anxious families. Promoted to the position of matron for successfully handling staff shortage with rotating and evening shifts.

HR manager

MBA in HR with distinction. 16 years of overall experience. Expert in implementing result-oriented policies for managing human capital, improving inter-departmental staff relations and in-house training programs. Removed quantification of employee performance by replacing the bell-curve system with reinforcement evaluation to reduce employee turnover by 37%.

Digital marketing manager

Expert digital marketing professional with 13 years' experience. Skilled in establishing and expanding the online presence of businesses, developing and executing online marketing campaigns through bulk emails or messaging apps and increasing social media outreach by hiring vloggers and influencers. Improved customer acquisition and sales by 47% by reevaluating SEO and SMO strategies, updating the existing UX best practices and PPC affiliate marketing integration.

Production manager

B.E. in industrial engineering, MBA in Administration, Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma with nine years of experience in a leading production company as an APICS certified production manager. Skilled in timely delivery of products with quality control, setting up logistics chains and vendor negotiations. Reduced raw material costs by 62% by sourcing from local vendors and inventory costs by 39% through Kanban-based automation.