Editor Resume Templates and Examples for 2024

Editor Resume Template Example

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Your editor resume should reflect a deep understanding of the written word and demonstrate an ability to collaborate with writers. It must emphasize good editorial judgment and adaptability to different writing styles and formats. This guide offers strategies and examples to help you write a resume that proves your editorial expertise.

How To Write an Editor Resume

If you want your resume to have a professional, put-together look, use a modern template to organize your information. Be sure your editor resume includes these sections:

Contact information

Provide all of your contact information at the top of your editor resume in a simple header. List your full name, email address, location, and links to your online professional profile and portfolio of writing samples. Double-check your info so you don’t miss out on a job opportunity due to a broken link or mistyped phone number.

Profile

Your resume profile is the hook that draws in the hiring manager, giving them a glimpse of your narrative arc as an editor. Distill your career into a few compelling sentences, listing your job title, years of experience, and key strengths or specializations. Be sure to include keywords from the job ad to catch the reader’s eye and emphasize your suitability for the role.

Key skills

Your resume would likely be pages long if you wrote down all of your editing skills. So, which ones should be on your list? First and foremost, understand what the hiring manager is looking for. Match your own editing skills up with those given by the employer, then add on any more abilities you think would be relevant to the job.

Common hard and soft skills for editors

Resume writer’s tip: Use strong action verbs

As an editor, you know how important action verbs are when creating compelling copy. Use these words to transform mundane, wordy descriptions into concise statements. The best place for action verbs is in your professional experience section. Start each bullet point with a verb to convey your active role in past positions. Consider using some of the words below in your editor resume:

Professional experience

The professional experience section is the heart of your editor resume. It should provide a detailed account of your past responsibilities and editorial achievements. Create bullet points under each previous position to describe the scope of your work and give context to your key skills. Use numbers to measure the scale of your accomplishments when possible.

Resume writer’s tip: Quantify your experience

To join the more than 100,000 working editors, you’ll need to prove to employers you can achieve similar or even better results. Use percentages, dollar amounts, and other metrics to illustrate the accomplishments listed in your professional experience section. Demonstrate the value hiring managers stand to gain if they bring you on as an editor.

Resume writer’s tip: Tailor your resume for each application

Employment for editors is projected to decline over the next decade, increasing competition in an already competitive job market. To land your dream job, put those editing skills to use and tailor your resume for each application.

Think of the job ad as a style guide of sorts. It informs you of the organization’s culture, values, and needs. Just like you would fine-tune a piece to suit a specific publication’s style and readership, try to incorporate keywords and language from the job description into your resume.

What if you don’t have experience?

You may not have officially held the title of “editor,” but you’ve likely performed similar tasks. Highlighting transferable skills and pulling from related experience is the best strategy. Perhaps you’ve proofread papers for classmates, managed a blog, or collaborated on a newsletter. While these may not have been jobs per se, they demonstrate valuable related skills.

If you majored in English or journalism, elaborate on relevant coursework and school projects. Also, consider any extracurricular activities. Did you edit your school’s newspaper? Did you volunteer or complete an editorial internship? Describe these experiences on your resume.

Education and certifications

Most employers are looking for editors with at least a four-year degree in a related major like communications or journalism. Regardless of your level of education, always list your highest degree first, followed by any relevant coursework or academic achievements. If you’ve earned any industry-specific certifications or skill specializations, include that information as well.

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Andrew Stoner

Executive Resume Writer and Career Coach

A resume should be a forward-looking value proposition that showcases your most relevant accomplishments for a target role — not a rear view summary of your previous roles and responsibilities.