Marketing Resume Example & Writing Guide

As a marketing expert, you live to come up with strategies, make campaigns, and find the right people to target. Having this in mind, you should think of your marketing resume as another project that you’re supposed to work on in order to get a better job in the field.

Your target audience is recruiters, and your strategy should be to grab their attention with a captivating resume. The process sounds simple enough, but there’s a bit more to it when it comes to writing a marketing resume.

That’s why we’ve compiled a thorough guide that will lead you every step of the way. Let’s get started!

What is the Right Format to Use for a Marketing Resume?

The order in which you present information to recruiters is just as important as the information itself. Certain parts of your resume are more important than others, so you’d want to highlight them first.

That being said, one format has proven time and again to yield some of the best results, and that's the chronological one. It's one of the most common formats in the business world, and it puts the most weight on your most recent achievements, which are often the most important ones. To top it all off, the format is both recruiter- and ATS-friendly.

However, if you lack professional experience and you want to make up for it by showcasing your skills, you could use the functional format. It makes the skills section a focal point of your resume and balances out any shortage of work history.

On the other hand, if you have years and years of work history, it’s recommended that you take advantage of the combination format and highlight both your skills and professional accomplishments.

Resume Layout

Now that we've figured out how to organize our marketing resume, let’s find out how to make it pop visually.

The goal is to have all the information neatly and concisely displayed on one page. Here are a couple of tricks to help you achieve that:

What Sections Should a Marketing Resume Contain?

Before you start customizing and organizing your marketing resume, we first need to determine which sections it needs to feature.

When crafting your resume, you should always include all the mandatory sections and only add optional ones if there’s room left. Of course, you could always expedite the whole process and remove all the guesswork by using our resume builder.

We’ve created an intuitive and user-friendly tool where you simply fill in the blanks with your details to have a resume ready in minutes. On top of that, there are plenty of customization options where, with just one click, you can change the font, color, or layout of your resume.

Marketing Resume Contact Information

Before you get to show recruiters what you can do, you should first introduce yourself and give them a way of contacting you.

Your contact details belong in your resume’s header and should, at the very least, show your full name, phone number, and email address.

Additionally, you could include a link to your LinkedIn profile, as this social networking platform is often used in the professional environment. And if you have a portfolio or a personal website to link to as well, even better!

Let’s see all that in an example:

You could also include your address, but only if it’s required by the job posting or you’re applying for a job in another state/country. Even then, be brief and just mention your city and state.

Here are a few final tips to help you perfect this section:

• Match your professional title to the one in the job ad since it acts as a keyword for the ATS.

• Avoid listing an unprofessional email address. If necessary, make a new, business one.

• Ensure no mistakes by thoroughly checking everything. A single mistyped character could make it impossible for recruiters to contact you.

Marketing Resume Objective or Summary

A marketing resume summary or objective is the first section where you get to talk about yourself. Since recruiters sometimes spend as little as a couple of seconds skimming through resumes, this is the section to grab their attention. That’s why it should be brief, at the top of your resume, and packed with remarkable details about your skills or achievements.

You should write an objective to highlight your career goals and emphasize your skills when you’re writing a marketing resume as an entry-level candidate.

If you’re a seasoned veteran, you should go with a resume summary to showcase your most prominent work-related accomplishments.

Entry-Level Marketing Resume Objective

A good marketing resume objective shows your strengths right off the bat. Besides mentioning some achievements you’re most proud of, feel free to list any experience gained through internships, volunteering, projects, or similar activities.

Here’s a good example:

Just for comparison, let’s take a look at an uninspiring resume objective that lacks any significant details:

Marketing Manager Resume Summary

As an experienced marketing expert, you can use a resume summary to put your best foot forward. Highlight a couple of your most prominent professional achievements to entice recruiters into examining your resume further.

Let’s take a look at an example:

Compare that to the following generic summary:

That could be said for pretty much any candidate with experience, right? There’s nothing catchy or memorable about this resume summary, and that makes it too terse and incomplete.

Marketing Resume Work Experience

In general, your work experience section will be the bread and butter of your marketing resume—especially if you’re using the chronological resume format. Let’s see how to get the most out of it.

No Marketing Experience

What happens when you have little to no marketing experience?

If you’re making a marketing resume as an entry-level candidate, you can still use all the guidelines we discussed previously. The only difference is that you’ll be leveraging experiences other than professional ones. There are always college projects that you could showcase, as well as internships, freelance work, and more.

Here’s a good example of a candidate using their internship to write a compelling work experience section:

Marketing Specialist Experience

As an experienced marketer, writing a work history section is all about tailoring it to the specific job position. You likely have plenty of impressive results and accomplishments to showcase, which is why you want to highlight those that are most splendid but also most relevant.

Let’s see that in an example:

Marketing Resume Education Section

The importance of your education section varies and depends on how much work experience you have. If you’re making a marketing resume as a fresher, you’ll want to make this part of your resume more prominent. Nevertheless, the education section is always great at adding credibility to your skills.

In essence, this part of your resume should showcase the following details:

• Your degree

• The institution that issued it

• Years of attendance

• Relevant achievements

Here’s what the education section of an experienced marketer should look like:

If you’re an entry-level applicant, you can enhance your education section by including your GPA (only if 3.5 or higher), relevant coursework, extracurricular activities, etc. in the form of a bulleted list.

Additionally, you could include your degree even if you’re still studying. In that case, you can mark your graduation year as “expected” to let your potential employer know your plans.

Marketing Resume Skills

When it comes to marketing resume skills, it can be difficult to define which ones to include in your job application. There are many different types of marketing and positions within the industry, which is why you want to start by researching the job posting and the company.

Once you discover the specific skills they are looking for, you can begin adding them to your resume—if you possess them, of course. However, creating a list of soft (people) skills and a list of hard (job-specific) skills and calling it a day is usually not enough.

One of the best ways to demonstrate your skills is to include them next to relevant accomplishments. You can do that by mentioning some of your vital abilities in your summary or objective and in your work experience section.

Hard Skills

Soft Skills

Marketing Resume Optional Sections

Optional sections can help you give additional information or make your marketing resume even more relevant to the job you're applying for. So, let’s see some that you could add to your resume.

Courses & Awards

Relevant coursework helps show dedication to the craft and adds trustworthiness to your skills. Awards, on the other hand, are proof that you achieved exceptional results.

Both of them warrant a place on your resume to help you be more prominent and grab recruiters’ attention.

Languages

If the company you’re applying to is present on the international market, proficiency in foreign languages can land you the job on the spot. Even if the job ad doesn’t explicitly ask for this skill, it’s a valuable one that will always embellish your marketing resume.

When adding language skills to your resume, you should simply list them starting with the one you speak best.

Projects

If your line of work features some projects you can showcase, you should add them to this section to further demonstrate your proficiency. As we mentioned previously, you should also include a link to your portfolio or your personal website in your contact information section to substantiate your claims.

Hobbies & Interests

While this section seemingly has nothing to do with marketing, it can portray you as a passionate and entertaining individual. List those hobbies and interests that you truly enjoy to show recruiters who the real person behind the resume is and leave a lasting good impression.

Should You Submit a Cover Letter With Your Marketing Resume?

A cover letter is a perfect supporting document for your job application. Submitting it with your marketing resume already shows drive and dedication.

To get the most out of your marketing cover letter, you should write it specifically for the position you’re applying for, address the recruiter personally, and use the body of text to talk about your skills, achievements, and motivation. Still, make sure you don’t repeat yourself—this document is supposed to present only the information you didn’t manage to disclose in the resume.

Closing Thoughts

And just like that, you now know the ins and outs of creating a marketing resume.

It’s up to you to create a resume from scratch or to opt for our resume building tool and let it do the heavy lifting. In any case, if you follow the article’s guidelines, it won’t be long before you’re invited to an interview and before you land that marketing job you want so much!