How Do You Write an Executive Resume?

The Format is Key

A chronological resume best shows your career progression. It makes the reader understand your values in context as your achievements are included within your career timeline.

Identify the Employer's Needs

Your executive resume should be tailored to the job for which you are applying. So should your executive summary. It is crucial to tailor your summary to the job description since that is the first part recruiters read and decide to read further.

Know that it is Your Story

While tailoring your summary to the jobs you apply for, ensure that your summary and your profile are tailored to you.

Across your executive summary and your executive resume, emphasize skills, experiences, and attributes that are unique to you.

Understanding Personal Branding and Value Proposition

Branding is not an optional habit. It links your passions, your personal attributes, and your strengths with your value proposition.

It produces a clear message that differentiates you from your competition and resonates with your target audience.

Key Sections of an Executive Resume

1. Executive Resume Summary

The executive resume summary conveys the following things:

• Quickly articulates your value - Recruiters enjoy reading executive resume summaries. The 3-5 line summary shows your qualification for the post and therefore saves time and effort.

• Makes you stand out from the crowd - Your executive resume summary emphasizes strengths and highlights transferable skills.

• Along with highlighting your skills, an executive summary should convey to the recruiters that you are a strong communicator. Recruiters look for simple, synthesized takeaways of complex concepts.

2. Put Skills on an Executive Resume

• Highlight your employee development skills, change management, P & L, mergers and acquisitions, process engineering/re-engineering, global strategy, etc. Include them in your "Skills" section right under your executive summary.

• If you have technical skills vital to your future role, divide your section into "Key Skills" and "Technical Skills.”

3. Describe Your Experience on an Executive Resume

• Your executive resume should signify the skills that you bring to the table.

• While you should include qualitative results to help the recruiter understand what kind of person you are, you must also deliver impact through your points. Which means it is important to show the results including (if applicable) the numbers.

• One of the simplest ways to accomplish this is by creating a sub-section within each job you’ve held called “Key Accomplishments” or “Key Highlights.” Bold the most impressive quantitative stuff so that it’s easy for people to find this information quickly.

4. Value Your Education Section

• Start with the basics:

College Name and Location
Years in School
Degree

Align your college name to the left with your location and time period to the right in the same line. Add your degree and any relevant co-curricular to extracurricular activities that you took care of.

5. Other Sections in an Executive Resume

• It is important to have many significant executive resume points mentioned. These build your personality along with your profile which is important for the hiring of an executive.

• A few important activities or additional information might allow you to build your credentials as an executive.

• Design matters - Your executive resume should be clean, readable, and simple while drawing attention to key information. If you want readers to focus on something, bold them to highlight those names or methodologies in a prominent place. Highlight numbers, techniques, and key skills.