How to Write a Resume Personal Profile with Examples and Tips
You must stand out to potential hirers in today’s ultra-competitive world. With fewer jobs and more applicants for every position, it’s critical that you do everything within your power to catch a hirer’s eye.
A professionally crafted resume is the key to achieving that, but it’s essential that you do things correctly and that you make the best use of every aspect of the resume. That includes your personal profile. What is a personal profile in a resume? How does a resume personal profile help you land that dream job? We’ll discuss all that and much more in this guide.
What Is a Personal Profile on a Resume?
Let’s start with the basics. What is a personal profile for a resume? In a nutshell, it’s a brief but important section at the top of the resume that highlights who you are as a professional. Think of it as a snapshot of your skills, experience, and motivations.
Your resume personal profile gives hirers a concise summary of why you are a strong candidate for the job. Depending on the focus, you may be more familiar with this section as a CV summary, resume objective, or career objective, but it comes down to the same thing.
What to Include in a Short Personal Profile?
Your resume personal profile is brief, so it’s important to make the most of it. This is a prime opportunity to grab a hirer’s interest and encourage them to read the rest of your resume. It also puts you in a positive light and, if formulated correctly, can give you an edge over other applicants. So, what should you include? Here are some important points:
- Professional Identity – This should be just a brief statement that explains your current position or qualifications.
- Relevant Skills – Highlight the core skills you bring to the role, particularly those mentioned in the job description.
- Experience and Achievements – Include a summary of notable achievements, showcasing how your experience relates to the role.
- Career Goals – Mention your career aspirations and how they align with the company’s objectives to show your long-term potential.
Of course, knowing the key elements to include on a resume personal profile and understanding how to frame those components are two different things.
Key Elements of a Strong Personal Profile
What makes a strong personal profile on a resume? It really comes down to four key elements: conciseness, relevance, impact, and clarity. Let’s dig into each of those to illustrate how they play into how to write a personal profile on a resume.
- Conciseness: Keep your resume personal profile short and to the point. Ideally, it should be no more than three to four sentences. Essentially, you’re trying to sum everything discussed in the previous section up into just a few statements.
- Relevance: Your personal profile in a resume should be tailored to the position/hirer in question. That means you’ll want to create a new one for each application. This will help ensure that your statement is as relevant to each hirer as possible. Some elements can be reused, but make sure that your skills, experience, and goal align with the individual hirer/organization.
- Impact: Don’t list skills and experiences that don’t really stand out unless you have nothing else. Review your achievements and experiences to find the ones that really set you apart. That’s the point of this entire exercise: to create something like a unique selling proposition (USP) that makes hirers take notice.
- Clarity: Make your personal profile crystal-clear. Resist the urge to use industry jargon or complex language. You want this information to be as clear and direct as possible. Imagine that you’re trying to explain it to someone who has no experience in your position or even within your industry.
4 Steps on How to Write a Personal Profile for Your CV
Now that you know a bit more about what to include in a personal profile on a resume and the key elements that make your personal profile stand out, let’s look at what it takes to create a compelling statement.
1. Start with a compelling power statement
The first sentence of your personal profile must grab the hirer’s attention. A strong opening could be something like: “Experienced data scientist with a passion for creating data-driven solutions.” This sets the right tone and gives an immediate understanding of who you are professionally.
2. Align with the job description
Carefully read the job description to identify the skills and experiences the hirer is looking for. Then build those elements into your personal profile. The goal here is to make sure your profile aligns with the job description, but also the hirer’s underlying needs and goals. This ensures that your profile resonates with the hiring manager’s expectations and will help you stand out from other candidates.
3. Focus on showcasing soft skills
Employers want to see both technical and soft skills. That means you need to show off your interpersonal, problem-solving, and leadership abilities. Remember that it’s not all about the hard skills. For instance: “Effective communicator and team player with a strong ability to adapt in fast-paced environments.”
4. Seek inspiration from resume writing guidelines
While your personal profile needs to grab attention and make you stand out, don’t think you need to reinvent the wheel here. Take a cue from examples and guidelines for writing resumes in your industry. Websites like LinkedIn, career blogs, and professional organizations often have templates and tips that can help.
3 Benefits of a Personal Profile
Why should you even bother creating a resume personal profile? A well-crafted profile can offer some pretty important benefits. Let’s talk about three of the most important.
It demonstrates your research and suitability
First, a professionally written personal profile shows that you’ve done your homework on the company and the role you’re applying for. Employers actively want to hire people who take an interest in the company and are not just shopping around for “a job”. It also shows that you took the time to tailor your profile to the employer’s specific needs.
It concisely summarizes your experience and goals
Second, a personal profile can give you a chance to quickly summarize important elements for a hirer, like your skills, what you’re looking for in a new role, and your career achievements. Think of it like an introduction designed to pique the reader’s interest and get them to read further.
It provides insight into your identity and motivation
Finally, it goes beyond highlighting your experience and provides insight into your personality, as well as what drives you in terms of professional goals and development. This helps hirers determine if you’ll be a good fit not just for the role, but for the company and its culture.
Things to Avoid When Writing a Personal Profile
We’ve covered some important things to include in your resume personal profile. However, there are some pretty essential elements that you need to avoid, too.
- Being too vague – Skip generic statements like “hardworking” or “dedicated.” Instead, provide specific examples of your accomplishments. Remember the adage “Show don’t tell”. Give the hirer examples of how you are hardworking or dedicated.
- Overloading the profile with jargon – Don’t try to impress a hirer with complicated terms. It’s simplicity and clarity for the win. If someone needs a thesaurus to make sense of your profile, you’re doing it wrong.
- Copying from templates – While templates are helpful, avoid using them word for word. Recruiters can easily spot generic profiles and that will count against you. Use templates but then take the time to customize and refine them. It’s definitely time well spent.
- Listing irrelevant information – Focus only on skills and experiences that are pertinent to the job you’re applying for. No one is going to care that you were the founding member of your high school computer club. Think back to the beginning of this guide: concise, impactful, and relevant are the keys to a great profile.
By this point, you should have a solid idea of how to write a resume personal profile. However, chances are good that you still have questions. What might a personal profile for a resume look like for a particular field? Below, we’ll explore examples of resume personal profile formats for different fields.
10+ Examples of Resume Personal Profiles
Ready to learn how to write a personal profile on a resume? Read through the examples below and you’re sure to find a sample personal profile for a resume that will help you structure your own. Note that these are just basic profiles that should then be customized to the individual employers and job roles.
Student engineer resume personal profile
"Driven engineering student with a strong background in CAD design and mechanical systems, seeking an internship to apply academic knowledge and develop real-world skills."
Physiotherapist resume personal profile
"Dynamic physiotherapist with a strong track record of helping patients recover mobility through individualized treatment plans."
Data scientist resume personal profile
"Data scientist with expertise in machine learning and predictive analytics, dedicated to leveraging data to drive strategic business decisions."
Marketing CV personal profile
"Rerults-oriented marketing professional with 8+ years of experience in digital and traditional marketing channels, seeking to drive customer engagement and brand growth."
Developer resume personal profile
"Full-stack developer with 4+ years of experience in web development, specializing in JavaScript and Python to create scalable web applications."
Nurse resume personal profile
"Compassionate registered nurse with 5+ years of experience in acute care and geriatric nursing, dedicated to providing high-quality patient-centered care."
Healthcare resume personal profile
"Experienced healthcare administrator with a focus on improving operational efficiencies and enhancing patient outcomes in a high-volume hospital setting."
Content marketing resume personal profile
"Creative content marketer with a passion for storytelling and data-driven strategies, aiming to enhance brand visibility through innovative campaigns."
Support worker resume personal profile
"Empathetic support worker with over 7 years of experience in mental health services, specializing in individualized care plans for vulnerable adults."
Pharmacist resume personal profile
"Licensed pharmacist with a decade of experience in retail pharmacy and a passion for patient education and medication safety."
Content writer CV personal profile
"Versatile content writer with a knack for producing SEO-optimized, engaging content that connects with target audiences."
Use these examples to help you build your own personal profile to highlight your skills and experiences, as well as your career goals. And don’t forget that you need to expand on the basic information contained in these examples. Customize the personal profile you use for each job position and business.
Key Takeaways
Writing a compelling resume personal profile is an important part of your overall strategy. A well-crafted personal profile in a resume should highlight your key qualifications for the position and your career goals. It should also pique the hirer’s interest and encourage them to keep reading.
However, you need to tailor your personal profile to the position in question. Do some research on the company in question and then adjust your basic profile so that it fits the business’s culture, as well as the job role in question.
Finally, remember to keep your resume personal profile concise, clear, and relevant. Skip the industry jargon and irrelevant information. The goal is to provide an accurate snapshot of you as a professional, with a little bit of personal color.
FAQ
1. How long should a personal profile be?
Ideally, your personal profile for a resume should be no more than three to four sentences. We recommend coming up with a solid framework like the examples of resume personal profile options we included in this guide and then tailoring it to fit each job role/application.
2. What should I include in a personal profile?
Keep your resume personal profile relatively brief. You’re limited to no more than four sentences, so find ways to succinctly communicate your professional identity, relevant skills and experiences, as well as your professional goals. We recommend taking the time necessary to distill this information beforehand. That might require initially writing two or three hundred words and then whittling that down until you have the essence of your personal profile.
3. Should I customize my personal profile for each job application?
Yes, your personal profile should be tailored for each job application. In the US, it’s expected that applicants will customize their entire resume for each application, and your personal profile is an important part of that.
Customizing your profile does several things to improve the chances that a hirer will read on. First, it shows that you’ve taken some time to learn about the business in question. Second, it shows that you’re willing to put in the effort to make the best first impression. Third, it tells the hirer that you’re more likely to be a good hire than someone who’s just shopping the same resume and personal statement around to any company that’s hiring.
4. Should I mention my career goals in the personal profile?
Yes, you should absolutely mention your career goals in your personal profile. However, resist the urge to launch into a lengthy description that describes your entire career arc. It’s also important that you skip listing any goals that aren’t relevant to the company and its objectives.
Remember that the point here is to give a relevant snapshot of your professional self within the context of what the business wants and needs. The hirer might think it’s great that you eventually want to be a VP of marketing, but if they’re hiring for an entry-level copywriter position, that might not be relevant to the discussion right now. So, yes, mention career goals, but make sure they’re applicable.
5. Is a personal profile necessary for entry-level resumes?
You might think that a personal profile is really only necessary if you’re applying for a higher position, but that’s not true. You should create an accurate personal profile even if you’re trying to land an entry-level position. Competition for all jobs is fierce today, and you need every advantage.
A personal profile can give a hirer a much better idea of your skills and goals even if you don’t have much (or any) experience in the field. This will help them compare you to other candidates and (hopefully) get you shortlisted for the position.
However, remember that since you’re just starting out, you won’t have much in the way of experience to highlight. Opt for brevity here, rather than trying to force the profile to a full four sentences by including irrelevant or unimportant information. Respect the hirer’s time and keep it relevant and concise.