Power up your professional profile .

After reviewing hundreds of CVs, I know the sections people struggle with the most- the professional profile/ summary section being one of them.  Formulating a strong professional summary isn’t easy, particularly for those in the early stages of their career such as students and graduates who feel they lack relevant experience to successfully compete in their chosen field. Bare in mind, it isn't always down to what you don't have, but communicating effectively what skills, knowledge and experience you DO have. Taking the time to formulate a strong professional summary is going to significantly increase your chances of getting noticed (for the right reasons), intriguing the reader and make them want to meet you- which is the whole purpose of a CV.  On the other hand, a weak, generic and impersonal professional summary is likely to see your CV instantly discarded by employers, recruiters, and even applicant tracking systems (ATS).  The idea of being rejected by a machine, is particularly disheartening.  So let's not let this happen to you.

The aim of a professional summary, is to  summarise your experience, skillset and personal attributes in a unique and engaging way. Of course, doing this can be extremely challenging and actually quite stressful for some.  However, it also isn’t an impossible task. You will have people tell you that you have to, ‘sell yourself; tailor it; get your USP across; use buzz words; don’t use cliches’. But if you haven’t reviewed hundreds of CVs like I have, how are you to know what all this means and more importantly, how to actually do these things in practice? Well, that’s why I am here.

So what is a personal summary?

For those of you who don’t know, a professional summary is a very brief paragraph at the beginning of a UK CV which comes after your personal details. Your summary is where you either make a good impression and entice the reader to read further, or repel them, urging them to discard your CV.  Harsh, but true. From my personal and professional experience, the professional summary part of a CV is so significant as it instantly provides the reader with an evaluation of, your grammar, spelling, use of English, ability to reflect on your career, awareness of your skills, attributes, level of confidence in the value you can add to a workplace and whether you really know what you are looking for.  Essentially, it can either give off an air of confidence and certainty, or create vagueness and confusion. 

It is one of very few places on your CV, where you have the space and freedom to personalise and express your uniqueness. So do not waste this valuable space. 

The strongest professional summaries are ones which outline where the person is currently in their career, gives an overview of their skillset, knowledge and experience and what they are looking for now and WHY. They are authentic, meaningful and make sense for the roles the person is applying for. If you find yourself having to change your professional summary a lot when applying for jobs, then you perhaps have to stop and ask yourself whether you have really clarified what kind of role you are looking for because your skills and USP shouldn't change and should be a match for the jobs you are applying to.   

Good personal profiles cover three main areas:

1.    Your current situation 

What you are studying, or what subject area you recently graduated from. There is no trick here, you have to simply outline where you are at with your career. For example: 

 An MBA student at __ university. 

But doing this with some level of detail, reflection and elaboration will get you further. A better example:

I am currently on a full time MBA programme at ___university, where I am developing my knowledge of cross cultural communication and international business relations to further my career in the UK. 

Notice the difference? 

How you choose to tell your story is fundamental to getting to where you want to be. 

2.    Overview of your skills, knowledge and experience 

You have to be strategic with this. Look out for key words and phrases which re appear in job adverts you are looking at and research the skills required for the industry you want to get in to and include these in your professional summary. If you are applying for large organisations who most likely use Applicant Tracking system (ATS) to sift CVs, yours won’t get through the very first screening process if you don’t have the key words the company is looking for. Do not put key words simply for the sake of it- you have to be able to evidence and elaborate on whatever you put in your CV so don’t tell any lies, even little white ones. They will come back to haunt you.

This is probably the most challenging part of the personal profile, because it requires you to put in some effort to reflect on what your main skillset is, personal attributes and the nature of your industry experience. Do not include everything in your work history- you have to be rigorous with what you decide to include and this is where you have the opportunity to be smart and position yourself for where you want to get to. For example, if you have a range of experience within the HR industry, but you now want to get a role in recruitment, then you need to highlight, emphasise and evidence any recruitment related experience you have. Same applies to if you are an IT professional, with extensive experience using various computer software programmes, but now looking for a role in cyber security. You would focus on emphasising your skills, knowledge and experience of cyber security because this is the information you want employers and recruiters to pick up on. Don’t be scared of creating a niche for yourself in your personal profile, as this is what distinguishes the stronger one from the weaker ones and employers will have confidence that you know and understand your professional skillset. 

How you write about your experience is fundamental to how the reader is going to perceive it. For example, if we compare the two below sentences:

I am currently doing an MSc in Human Resource Management in the UK and want to get a job in consulting.

Or…

I have chosen to do an MSc in Human Resource Management at a UK university so I can enhance my professional skillset and understanding of cross cultural communication and knowledge of UK business and workplace culture to ultimately  move into a consulting role, where I can use my international business experience to support a company to establish and grow their global business partnerships.

The difference is that, in the second on, we know that individuals’ personal motivations and reasons for choosing to study a masters and why.   This adds meaning and instantly personalises what could have been a very factual and meaningless sentence. We are all humans, and employers employ the person in the end, not the CV. 

3.    What kind of opportunity you want going forward and what you have to contribute. 

Do not be vague. Be specific about exactly what kind of opportunity you are looking for and why! Additionally, what makes you worthy of this type of job, i.e what can you bring to the role? One of the biggest downfalls people make with their professional summary is when they have only written about what they want and not given any indication of what they can offer to an employer or team. The employer or recruiter needs to understand what value you can bring and why you are worthy of an interview and it is your responsibility to communicate this. If you don’t know this, they certainly won’t. It’s your job to persuade them why they should offer you an interview over someone else who may have a very similar professional background to you. 

Essentially, the reason people find professional summaries challenging is because it requires them to sit down and actually thing about, where they have been, where they are now and where they want to be and WHY. As I said, this isn’t easy as it is probably something you haven’t had to do previously and in quite an objective and rational way. 

It all starts with reflecting, knowing what you have to offer, valuing what you have to offer  and how you choose to tell your own story.  My last top tips:

• Avoid bullet pointing your Professional summary
• Don't write about yourself in the third person
• Strike a balance between your soft AND technical skills
• Stay away from overly used words, 'enthusiastic, motivated, passionate, leverage, problem solver, good communicator'.
• Re word cliche phrases, 'I can work well as part of a team and independently', 'I am an asset to an organisation'.

Thanks for reading and ciao for now. 

Bianca.