Professional Summary section in Your CV
Professional summary section is the most important section of your CV. In this episode you will learn why and what to include in this section. Enjoy :)
Episodes mentioned
[024] Interview Question: Talk About Yourself
Transcript
Hey guys, you are listening to the English Made Simple show episode number 145, number one hundred and forty-five, numero ciento cuarenta y cinco.
Good d’ay everybody! How’re ya? That’s my Aussie greeting to you all.
Welcome, my name is Milena from www.englishmadesimple.net
I hope you enjoyed the last episode where I shared something personal about me, it was a story about my very first experience with immigration. After New Zealand I emigrated to Australia about 13 years ago, long time ago now.
Maybe some of you resonated with my story. I do sympathise with you guys, with my fellow migrants. Maybe some of you had a similar experience moving overseas.
You should let me know! Or maybe you are thinking of moving either to New Zealand, Australia or Canada, US or UK or similar in the near future. And you also found that epiosde helpful as well.
Alrighty, so I only shared 3 tips with you in that last episode, tips on how you can improve your CV. So guys this month, if you are listening to this episode in October of 2017, during this month we are going to talk about CVs, English for work or job interviews! It’s kind of a a big topic, so we might even go into the next month, who knows? Right, cool!
So I only shared 3 tips with you in that last episode, tips on how you can start looking at your CV today and you will see that you can actually do a lot better, you can make it look more professional and persuasive, you know. You should keep your CV up to date. I actually have more tips for you, I think about 15 if you go on the website, just go to www.englishmadesimple.net/cv to get your free CV checklist.
What I’d like do today is expand a bit more on those tips I shared in the last episode.
One of the tips, I mentioned was that you should have your name clearly written in a way that’s easy to recognize. Just imagine this, if a hiring manager or a recruiter is looking at your CV they can go…hmm who is this person’s CV….oh yeah Carlos, Carlos – that’s his first name, yup he seems to be more suited to the role, will put him in the YES pile.
Alright, I am a bit exaggerating with my example.
Ok it may seem basic to you as I am saying this but this is often overlooked yet it is important. Especially for us, who have foreign sounding names.
Right the second thing I mentioned in the last episode which is quite important as well … the Professional Summary.
Now, I’d like to go into a bit more details of what a Professional Summary is, because I didn’t have time last time to explain it.
This section is needs to go at the very top of your CV, just below your contact details. You can call it a Professional Summary, Career Summary, Career Objectives – if you use this one, you are looking to move careers – Professional summary is also called Qualifications Summary, Competencies or Resume Summary Statement- whatever you decide to call it, put simply, a Professional Summary is a short paragraph about 3 sentences long containing important information like your strengths, your main skills and your achievements.
[And remember, you have 6 seconds to sell yourself to the recruiter, tell him or her why you are the best for the job. And this professional summary will help you sell yourself better.]
Ok guys, so what is a Professional Summary and why should you have it in your CV?
Mmmhm funny you should ask J
So it is a short paragraph, kinda like an introduction at the top of your CV that emphasises your Skills, you career achievements and your key skills that you are bringing to the role.
And this is one of the most important sections of your CV, this is a place where you sell yourself to a prospective employer.
The professional summary is what you can use to answer that #1 job interview question: Tell me about yourself.
That sounds familiar…I know! You’ve heard me say this before, we did mention this interview question, we mentioned it, in one of the earlier episodes… which I should’ve checked this before… it was episode #24 called – Tell Me About Yourself. It was in one of the earlier episodes I did. Cool!
This section is where you will be spending most of you time when you are writing your CV.
If you want to change your CV, if you want to improve it I suggest you add this section at the top of the page, call it Professional Summary for now. Keep it simple!
Here is what to include inside this section:
· Include your personal career achievements
· Include your previous work experience and your job responsibilities
· When you do include your past work experience make sure you mention how you contributed to that past project that you did or that project that you worked on or how you contributed to the company as a whole.
· Mention your achievements.
What are those? You can call them achievements or accomplishments. Some examples of this would be: in your previous job, did you save the company money or in other words did you reduce company costs? Did you bring any new customers to the company? Did you exceed your sales targets?
Ensure you put some numbers or percentages as well, it will really amplify your statement, and it will make it more compelling. Like for example, I exceeded my sales target by 50% or something like that.
Well, I hope that answers the interview question, of what is the Professional Summary and why you should put it in your CV. I hope this is enough information to get your creative juices flowing.
Next time you look at your CV, see if you can include that section Professional Summary.
If you would like to know more tips on how to improve your CV go to www.englishmadesimple.net/cv
You can get a checklist from there, you can download it for free.
Also, I’ve got 9 spots available in my Get Job Ready Program, so if you would like to join and start creating a winning CV in English, go to www.englishmadesimple.net/job where you will find more details about this program. If you are listening to this episode in October of 2017 please know that the program starts on 23rd October. Better hurry to reserve your spot today.
Hope to see in you in there guys.
Thanks for joining me amigos y amigas. You’ve been jamming with Milena from English Made Simple. Until next time! Hasta la proxima!