For some clients, you will need to submit a professional business resume as part of your business proposal for services. Clients often want to see the qualifications of the people who will be working on their projects.
Business professionals are driven by a hunger to achieve business goals/objectives. Their role is imperative for business expansion and success.
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Professional Business Resume
Considering the importance of business professionals’ role in an organization, how do you make sure your professional business resume embodies the key attributes of your professional career?
It is important to note that just merely filling up space from what the resume template offers is not ideal. It is the same as letting the algorithm dictate what you want to see/do.
We devised a guide that addresses the concerns of a business professional. Check out the following exhaustive list that covers the key essentials required in a professional resume. If you run a resume writing business, these tips can help you secure new clients.
Professional Experience
An overview of your professional journey, this section should highlight your key aspects and contributions. Hence, merely going in depth about your roles and responsibilities is not effective when you are trying to create an impactful professional business resume.
Incorporate the following tips to create a stellar professional experience in your business resume:
- Make action-oriented statements: Try to establish a cause-and-effect relationship in all the points you include in this section. Use the STAR format which stands for situation-task-action-result, to write points.
- Avoid long paragraphs: Try to limit each bullet in this section to one-line. Long paragraphs significantly reduce the readability of your resume.
- Bucketing & Bolding: Bold key elements of each statement, and create functional sub-headings for 3-4 relevant points. For example, business development & budget forecasting, etc.
Professional Resume Summary
As a business professional, you need to construct this section in a way that showcases your relevant skills to the target profile.
The best way to construct this section is by writing it at the very end of your professional resume writing process. This helps you select achievements that you think are of utmost importance. Further, it also helps in modifying the summary as per the job description.
Check out the following example:
7+ years experienced Business Development Expert with a track record of developing brands. Skilled at recognizing market expansion opportunities to foster revenue growth and achieve business objectives. Adept at maintaining positive relationships with clients for customer satisfaction.
Education section
Business professionals go through a dire module during their educational journey. Achieving a business degree is not an easy task.
Recruiters recognize this problem hence the education becomes very critical for your professional business resume.
Here is what you need to include in this section:
- Month, year of enrollment & graduation for each listed degree.
- The entire name of the college/university. Avoid abbreviations.
- Key modules and academic achievements.
For example:
- Master of Business Administration | Stanford University | Stanford, California | Feb ’16 – Mar ‘20
- Key Modules: Budget Forecasting, Online Marketing Strategy, Business Modeling, Product Enhancement
- Awarded with $4000 (USD) to deploy marketing strategies to improve Stanford’s online presence
Areas of Expertise
While skimming through your resume, ease the recruiter’s work by listing your core-skills distinctly.
Also, this section is very important for your resume in passing the ATS (a software for screening resumes based on a set of keywords).
Let’s say as a business owner managing your own website, you are trying to improve your SEO. To do that you need to optimize your content with keywords that are highly critical for your target audience.
The same goes for your resume, it should have keywords and expertise that are highly relevant to the target industry/profile.
Profile Title
Do not make the mistake of making your profile title “resume” or “curriculum vitae”. Your profile should either have your current role or your functional industry present.
Here is what a profile title should look like:
Business Development Expert
Accountant & Certified Business Analysis Professional
Tip: You can mention any recent certifications you have earned as it showcases your relevance to the target industry.
Key Points in a Professional Resume
As you write your professional resume, keep these three key points at the forefront:
- While writing statements in your resume, minimize the usage of first and second-person pronouns.
- Make sure the header contains your contact information along with a profile title which should not be named as “resume” or “CV”.
- Choose a functional professional business resume format if you do not have any working/professional experience.
