When you’re applying for a new job, your resume is what makes your first impression. Especially in a competitive field like social media marketing, having an awesome resume that stands out from the pack is essential to advancing your career.
While everyone struggles with what to put on their resume, social media resumes are particularly difficult to craft. Obviously, you can’t list every single tweet that you’ve ever written on behalf of a client. But at the same time, you want your resume to be representative of the kind of work you do.
So how do you strike that balance? One way is to look at some stellar examples of social media resumes. That’s why we’ve written this guide. Below, we’ll detail five awesome social media resumes and what we love about them.
Why Is a Professional Social Media Marketing Resume Important?
A professional resume not only proves your deep expertise in planning and executing a successful social media strategy, but it also:
Markets You
Your resume has to do more than provide career information in this competitive job market. It has to sell your relevant skills, too. A professional social media marketing resume is tailored to a particular job and applies different strategies to show your mastery.
Improves Your Chances of Being Selected for an Interview
When you take the time to craft your social media marketing resume, a recruiter will not think twice about giving you an interview because you have what they’re looking for.
Gives You an Edge Over Other Applicants
Part of nearly any social media marketing job is to create material that’s unique and stands out. When your resume itself already shows that you have this ability, your potential employer will take notice.
What Should Your Social Media Marketing Resume Cover?
A successful social media resume will showcase personal and professional aspects that make you suitable for the job. All this will be covered in different sections for better flow.
Below are six areas your resume must cover:
Name, Role, and Contact Details
This is the first thing a recruiter sees when they open your resume.
The information you provide here adds a personal touch by introducing yourself, including your name, mobile number, and an alternative way for them to reach you besides on the phone. Some people also include their physical address or geographical location, but this often depends on job requirements.
Potential employers also have a chance to find out more about you through social media channels. Most applicants add a link to their LinkedIn profiles or work portfolio.
Finally, include the role you’re applying for, making sure to match the job description.
Some tips to ace this section and keep the recruiter reading include:
- Use an official email address that speaks to your professionalism.
- Job briefs may use different names to refer to the same role, such as “social media marketing specialist” and “social media manager.” Be specific as possible in matching the job description’s language.
- Keep this section as brief as possible to avoid overwhelming the reader with unnecessary information.
- Always include two or more ways for a potential employer to get back to you.
Example
Objective/Summary/Profile
This section goes by different names but serves the same purpose: to summarize your skills and career achievements and show how your experience is relevant to the social media manager position.
Think of this section as an elevator pitch for your social media manager skills, work history, and professional experience. And if you’re just starting with minimal or no experience, use this section to discuss your career goals instead.
Include details like how long you’ve worked in this role, business goals and KPIs you’ve helped clients achieve, and why you look forward to joining this particular employer.
Excellent content writing skills are an integral part of social media marketing. If your summary section catches the employer’s eye, you’re on your way to an interview.
Other things you can do to excel in this section:
- Use keywords from the job description within the summary.
- Tackle common pain points that companies with poor or no social media marketing person are likely to face.
- Use metrics and data to quantify results with other clients.
- Be as comprehensive as possible while using only a few words. One or two sentences are enough for this section.
Related Read: Social Media Marketer: Where to Start + How to Succeed
Example
Professional Experience
This part is crucial to determining whether your resume moves to the interview stage.
Here, you should provide proof that you’ve carried out social media marketing duties whose results contributed to business growth. It shows your mastery of different social media platforms and how you’ve used this to hit KPIs.
Start with the role you played, the name of the company you worked with, and your start and end dates. This information provides more context for the employer on things, including how much experience you have and how well you can work within a marketing team.
Next, list your responsibilities, followed by achievements for each. Avoid getting stuck in the loop of stating what you did without mentioning your accomplishments.
To make your professional experience stand out:
- Use strong action verbs like “launched,” “developed,” and “measured” to emphasize the roles you played.
- Just like the previous section, use data and numbers to show your exact achievements.
- Focus more on how you met your clients’ needs as opposed to the duties you had.
- Include relevant work experience that’s tailored to the job description.
- If you don’t have much work experience, look for things like an internship, volunteer work, school, and personal projects that demonstrate your desire to grow a social media career.
- Use keywords and skills specific to the application to help you pass in case of an ATS.
Example
Skills
This section cements your work history by showing the skills it took to carry out your job with previous employers.
You can either list the skills one by one, group them into categories, or explain how you used each one of them in prior roles. Remember to include technical skills like social media analytics tools and soft skills like teamwork.
To make the most of this section, consider the following:
- Include the skills relevant to this application and those mentioned in the job description to pass the ATS.
- Skills should be related to social media marketing, including content creation, interpersonal communication skills, content management systems, writing, social content marketing, and so on.
Example
Educational Qualifications
Even though social media marketing doesn’t require a degree, educational qualifications will add weight to your resume. This is especially true if your educational background is relevant, such as a degree in marketing or creative writing.
However, serious employers are more interested in your experience, track record, and past professional achievements than your education.
Simply listing the schools you attended, dates, and degree gained is enough. If you took an online course, you could also add any relevant hard or soft skills you learned.
A few tips to ace this section of your resume include:
- Start with the most recent education, especially if it’s related to social media marketing.
- Include any accomplishments or awards you won while obtaining your education.
- Suppose you’re still in school or just graduated. In that case, you can list some of the things you’ve been learning that are relevant to social media marketing.
Example
Certifications, Licenses, Awards, and Recognitions
Without a degree in social media management, many candidates turn to renowned courses that offer certification upon completion. If you have any relevant certificates or recognitions like writing competition awards, include them in the last section of your resume.
Start with the name of the certification, the institution that awarded it to you, and what year you took the course.
Applicants with these sorts of certifications demonstrate an initiative to learn and take action independently. These are all attractive traits to potential recruiters.
Here are some things you can do to stand out:
- Only list certifications, awards, and recognitions relevant to the role.
- Make sure to check whether certification expiration dates are due before listing them.
Example
5 Awesome Social Media Marketing Resumes (and What Makes Them Work)
Here are five examples of professional social media marketing resumes to serve as a guide as you create yours:
Example 1
Source: Resume Lab
Why We Love It
This resume takes advantage of colors to appeal to the visual senses. But most importantly, it includes all the sections and features recommended for a functional social media marketing resume.
The applicant’s name on the header is in a large font, which catches attention immediately and compels a reader to start there and read on. The role is clearly stated, along with two methods of contact.
A social media manager’s job involves working with and on different platforms. Listing three social media accounts allows the employer to learn more about the candidate’s expertise, especially if they can show organic growth through content creation.
The resume objective section summarizes this resume in a few sentences and with data to quantify results. Other parts use strong action verbs, show both responsibilities and accomplishments, and are tailored toward a social media marketing role.
Example 2
Why We Love It
Ideal for entry-level social media marketers, this resume is brief enough for the recruiter to scan through.
In the career summary section, the candidate lacks deep expertise but still shows their hard work and initiative to grow in social media marketing. And even though they don’t have much work experience, the list of relevant courses and job skills they possess qualify them for social media jobs.
This resume is good because it uses the applicant’s strengths and professional shortcomings to amplify their social media skills.
Example 3
Source: Resume Worded
Why We Love It
This resume is brief but comprehensive to cover every crucial aspect of a professional social media marketing manager. This includes having the necessary sections, using numbers and metrics, and language tailored for such an application.
It will also appeal to most recruiters who prefer plain, clean, and straightforward resumes that get straight to the point. In the summary section, the applicant proves they can work in a cross-functional team by leading people from different departments.
Example 4
Why We Love It
Social media marketing managers who have grown in their career path for years may find it difficult to compress their work experience and achievements into just one page.
This social media manager resume stands out because the applicant has summarized loads of information into this value-packed brief. In the profile summary section, the resume lists not only a few tools the qualified candidate can work with but also a well-recognized digital marketing certification that’s likely to catch the recruiter’s eye early enough.
Example 5
Why We Love It
If you decide to use colors and illustrations on your resume, do it carefully so that they blend in and don’t take away value.
This is a good resume because the colors don’t overwhelm the reader but get their attention instead. Such creativity can be ideal for a social media marketing job because it shows an ability to think outside the box. Strategic copywriting is also evident, which increases the chance of standing out.
The applicant is a student who’s looking for an internship or an entry-level social media marketing role, and this resume does an excellent job of demonstrating that. Most of their expertise comes from personal projects. Functions, educational background, and achievements are well-listed to support the candidate’s zeal to grow in social media marketing.
Tips To Create a Resume That Stands Out From the Competition
As you create your social media resume, consider these resume tips:
Stick to a Single Page
Recruiters and employers don’t have much time to review the dozens or hundreds of resumes they receive. Summarizing your professional expertise in one page makes it easy for them to find everything they need in one place.
Use an Easily Readable Resume Format and Design
A poorly designed resume will put off the recruiter and discourage them from reading further.
Try the Inverted Pyramid Style
The inverted pyramid style of writing presents essential information first. Do the same with your resume by first providing a concise summary of your work history, expertise, and skills in the career objective section.
Provide Data and Numbers To Quantify the Success of Your Campaigns
Running successful social media campaigns implies that you understand what it takes to excel in your work. Prove this by using metrics and data throughout the resume to quantify the results of your input.
Use Keywords From the Job Description
An employer has specific needs, which they’ll mention in the job description. Using these keywords to describe your expertise will catch their attention and make them look deeper into your resume.
Be Specific and Cut the Fluff
One report on recruiter behavior shows that you have only 6 seconds to impress a potential employer. Get straight to the point and cut out any text that doesn’t add value or one that regurgitates an issue you already covered.
Customize Your Resume According to the Job
One of the ways to show you can meet an employer’s needs is tailoring your resume to the job by using keywords in the description, adding relevant experiences and skills only, mentioning the company in the summary section if possible, and so on.
Don’t Forget To Proofread
Writing is an integral part of social media marketing. Even minor spelling mistakes or grammatical errors can cost you the job. Always go through your resume at least once to edit and proofread.
FAQs About Building a Social Media Marketing Resume
We’ve got the answers to your most frequently asked questions.
What’s a Good Social Media Resume Headline?
A good resume headline introduces your professional background, work experience, and skills in a concise summary. It should be short, but comprehensive enough to cover the most critical parts of your resume.
A good headline will be tailored toward a specific job listing and encourage an employer to pay more attention.
Are Social Media Marketing Internships Helpful in Building Your CV?
Yes. Social media marketing internships and even personal projects can build your resume by showing the responsibilities you took and KPIs you hit.
An internship also adds to your experience and recruiters select a candidate based on such added advantages.
How Do I Prepare for a Social Media Marketing Internship Interview?
The best way to prepare for a social media marketing interview is to learn as much as you can about the company interviewing you. Besides what they do and the products or services they offer, research their social media presence and find their strengths and improvement opportunities.
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