Executive Resume Template Example

What Executive Resume Template Should You Use?

Command the attention of prospective employers with a well-crafted resume. Start strong by choosing a resume template that lays a solid foundation for your work history. The best executive resume template has a clean, professional design and highlights your key skills and achievements. Choose a simple format that gives you room to demonstrate your management knowledge. Let your words do the convincing and avoid decorative graphics that detract from the content of your resume.

What to Include in an Executive Resume

After choosing the perfect resume template, it’s time to put in the work. Your template will come ready to go with all the basic resume elements you need. Employers will learn who you are, how to contact you, and what makes you eligible for the role. Here’s a closer look at what each section of your executive resume should include:

  • Contact Information. Open your resume with all the basic contact info. Provide your name, phone number, email address, location, and a link to your online professional profiles (e.g., LinkedIn).
  • Resume Title. Add a resume title that matches the title of the job you’re seeking.
  • Profile. Use four to five sentences to make your first impression on resume readers. Briefly discuss your executive experience, specializations, and career goals. Include the job title you’re interested in and the company’s name in your opening paragraph.
  • Work Experience. Outline your most relevant work history, starting with your current position. Include job titles, company names, and dates of employment. Present your specific career achievements in this section. Detail how your actions impacted the companies you worked for and the projects or people you managed. Use numbers and action verbs to describe your roles and responsibilities.
  • Education. Highlight your academic accomplishments and give context to your experience. Provide a list of degrees and certifications pertinent to the position you’re applying for. Give the institution names, degree/certification titles, and dates attended/completed.
  • Key Skills. Consider the skills you have as an executive professional that make you eligible for the job in question. Generate a list of 10 to 15 key skills that display your technical proficiency and relational intelligence based on the job you’re seeking. Choose hard skills such as financial management, software competency, data analysis, and soft skills such as delegation, critical thinking, adaptability.

How To Write an Executive Resume

Executive professionals are often familiar with the monumental task of filtering through hundreds of resumes. What makes those few resumes stand out above the rest? How can you craft your resume to do just that? We’ll give you strategic advice on how to write an executive resume that keeps readers engaged and interested. Follow the tactics below to effectively demonstrate your management experience, optimize your content, and call attention to your qualifications.

Quantify your experience

Hiring managers want more than a list of job duties and responsibilities. They want to know how you executed your role. They want to see the results of your efforts. The best way to quantify your experience is by giving examples of metrics, numbers, and key performance indicators you influenced. Take a look at our example:

Do
  • “Managed a marketing budget of $50,000 for the 2016 back-to-school campaign, delivering a positive return on investment of 20%.”
Don’t
  • “I was responsible for managing marketing budgets and executing seasonal campaigns to increase ROI.”

Tailor your resume for each application

Make your executive resume relevant to each of your potential employers. Every time you apply for a position with a different company, take a few minutes to align your resume with the job listing. Use keywords from the job description and organically work them into your text. Speak to the company’s needs and present yourself as the missing piece to their puzzle.

Highlight both hard and soft skills

Adding a “key skills” section to your resume is a great way to highlight the qualifications that make you the perfect candidate. A simple bulleted list is the most effective way to draw attention to these skills. Include both hard and soft skills that are required for your specific executive position. Here’s a small sampling of executive key skills you could use on your resume:

Common Hard and Soft Skills for an Executive

Hard Skills Soft Skills
Strategic Planning Emotional Intelligence
Project Management Conflict Resolution
Contract Negotiation Problem-Solving
Data Analysis Leadership
Team Management Creativity

Use common action verbs

Streamline your resume by using action verbs to present your experience and objectives. Instead of using cumbersome first-person language (e.g., “I was responsible for leading…”), start your sentences with action verbs. This tactic helps you get straight to the point, saving space on your resume and drawing attention to what you’ve accomplished. Consider using the following action verbs on your executive resume:

Action Verbs
Directed Initiated
Transformed Orchestrated
Optimized Spearheaded
Developed  

What if you don’t have experience?

If you want a job at the executive level, you’ll need at least 5-10 years of experience to obtain an authoritative role. However, it is possible to make a horizontal move into a different industry with little to no industry-specific knowledge.

  • Optimize content: Research your targeted industry and the companies you want to work for. Use their corporate jargon and work in keywords. Highlight the equivalent skills that you have.
  • Fill gaps: Substitute similar skills and experiences where you may have a gap in knowledge. Use real examples as much as you can to illustrate your abilities.
  • Invest: Take a short certification course to increase your industry-specific training. This is a quick way to bulk up your resume and show your interest and commitment to this new pursuit.
  • Future focus: Shift the perspective of your work experience by tailoring your achievements to the new industry. Think about the value you bring from your past, but present it in a way that is more relevant to your future work.

Executive Resume Template Text Example

Donald Lee
(123) 456-7890
[email protected]
LinkedIn | Portfolio
City, State Abbreviation Zip Code

Profile

A digital marketing director with over 10 years of experience defining marketing strategies for enterprise organizations. A proven track record of building high-performance marketing teams and collaborating with C-level executives. Adept at leveraging data-driven strategies to enhance market penetration and achieve positive business outcomes.

Professional Experience

Digital Marketing Director, Factor75, Philadelphia, PA
November 2017 – present

  • Develop and implement digital marketing strategies for a gourmet meal delivery company valued at over $250 million, identify opportunities to enhance digital advertising, and successfully increase revenue by 230% over four years
  • Manage, build, and develop a dynamic marketing department with over 30 personnel and collaborate with senior leadership to define long-term roadmaps and strategic objectives
  • Lead direct-to-consumer and pay-per-click marketing campaigns, align brand messaging with target audiences, and achieve an 11.7% conversion rate

Marketing Manager, L.L. Bean, Philadelphia, PA
May2013 – November 2017

  • Executed quarterly influencer marketing campaigns generating over $220,000 in sales and resulting in a 20% increase in website traffic
  • Generated $150,000 in new business by collaborating with cross-functional teams to plan and execute a successful product launch event
  • Optimized website content and search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, resulting in a 30% increase in organic traffic and a 10% increase in online sales

Certifications

  • Marketing Management Certified, AMA, 2018
  • Online Marketing Certified Professional, OMCP, 2015

Key Skills

  • Brand development
  • Cross-functional leadership
  • Digital advertising
  • Digital marketing strategy
  • Experiential marketing campaigns

Education

Master of Science (M.S.) Marketing, September 2013 – May 2015
Temple University, Los Angeles, CA 

Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) Communications, September 2009 – May 2013
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

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.

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