How to Write a Digital Marketing Resume to Impress the Recruiter

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Facing job interviews is a one-lifetime scary event for many aspiring digital marketers. A single rejection mail drops at the inbox and sets the rest of the week in blues. Have you ever questioned yourself “what is it that you don’t have in your digital marketing résumé?” or “what the recruiters are exactly looking for”?

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Digital marketers who have just started their careers get clueless when their fellow students from the same institute get recruited. It’s the ability to sell yourself which is the key parameter on which Digital marketers get recruited/rejected.

Again, there is nothing that can be quoted as a “perfect” digital marketing résumé. Here an important fact is recruiters barely give 6.25 sec. (Forbes, 2012) to look at a résumé.

So, you have only this much time within this span either you have to impress or depress the recruiter. Get a fresh Google doc and grab a steamy cup of coffee.

How to Write a Killer Digital Marketing Resume

Here’s how you can write the ideal digital marketing résumé that would make every recruiter stop by.

1. What should be your goal?

First, decide who your audience is. Knowing your audience is important because they are the ones for whom you are framing your résumé. This one small step will increase the possibility of getting an interview call.

Being a digital marketer you should be well aware of your job role. Performing a bit groundwork about the company profile will also help in writing a better résumé.

For instance, if your job needs to write your articles/PR/blogs then inquire whether your job role includes keyword research and web analytics too.

Always have a close look at the structure of the organization. Many times it has happened that small organizations hire digital marketing experts who need to perform every part and bit related to the digital marketing field. On the contrary, big companies only seek people who have specialized skills in a particular genre.

Once you get all these aforesaid information it gets easier to draft a résumé aligning with the job requirement. Make sure you have featured all your skills and keywords to easily get noticed by the recruitment manager.

Pro tip: Always remember, the recruiter will first notice your key skills, experience, and keywords before passing it to the next level. Make them tangible.

2. How would be the format?

One amazing fact is your résumé can reflect as a digital marketer how organized you are. Make your CV formatting smart, fuss-free, and easy-to-read.

Keep the writing language plain and simple along with a regular font type. Let the focus be always on your skills, experience, and most importantly the core message. Break up your résumé with bullet points, noticeable hyperlinks, and bold titles.

Pro tip: Avoid using info-graph and design elements as these will make the résumé look too busy. Keep the formatting crisp and minimum.

3. How to communicate about your unique value proposition?

While creating an effective digital marketing résumé clearly mention your unique skills. Clearly establish your proposal. Before writing your proposal, define those key features that would differentiate you from the throng.

A digital marketer can have skills in varied aspects such as writing catchy digital campaigns, in-depth competitor research and keyword analysis, creating fascinating videos, and much more. There can be a whole lot of other unique value propositions; know it and jot them all down in your digital marketing résumé.

Pro tip: Align all these features considering the job position you are applying to.

4. How to tailor your messaging strategy to your target audience?

It’s a common belief amongst the job seekers that the hiring panel will only consider the experienced ones. This is not true, they look for someone who is the best fit for the job position.

Take your time. Do research on the published contents of the company and their tone of communication. Frame your messaging strategy according to that. In this segment, you are required to consider:

Prepare a professional cover letter that is practically the nutshell of your résumé.

Highlight your value proposition.

Identify the keyword and include them in your résumé.

Mark your achievements in that particular domain asked for.

Choose the best template reinforcing your message.

All these aspects should be carefully considered before you end up writing anything.

Pro tip: Knowing your target audience will give added leverage to your digital marketing résumé.

5. Spell-check, proofread, and edit and rewrite

Whether it’s the résumé of a digital marketer or any other professionals, a résumé with type and spell errors are the biggest turn-offs. In the digital business world where communication is the key, an erroneous résumé apparently finds its route to the recycle bin.

Make sure your core message gets immediately identified and supported by flawless grammar, sharp sentences, and befitting punctuations.

Résumé is nothing but selling yourself as a brand. No one can ever think of a website or a newsletter with a faulty content type. Proofread your content and rewrite (if necessary) before pressing the send button.

On a similar note leaving typos are unforgivable. Any of such inconsistencies reflect worse on your personal branding.

Pro tip: Consult with a friend/consultant who holds several years of industry experience and can give you an honest assessment.

6. Market yourself as you market a brand

Over the years the expectations of hiring managers have changed a lot. In a digital marketing résumé, the recruitment manager will invariably give a close look at where your marketing stacks up.

Make your résumé engaging. Give the HR manager a glimpse into your caliber to perform the said job role.

Take this opportunity to showcase your skills and talents. In order to take it to an advanced level, keep your noted exiting works hyperlinked (websites, blogs, and social media pages) on your résumé.

Your résumé is just a key to enter the screening process. The screening process is actually beyond those couple of pages of your résumé.

Participating in LinkedIn discussions and contributing tweets against industry updates can surely add to your credibility. This will make it easier for the recruiter to find you on Google with some positive response.

If your marketing skills reflect on paper, you are practically one step ahead of closing the deal in the interview.

Pro tip: Consider your résumé as the ‘About us’ page of your website- features the key skills or unique selling points.

7. How to optimize the view of your résumé?

If you are applying online for the post of digital marketer make sure you are you do it from your laptop/PC. Here we advise that instead of using Microsoft Word, use Adobe PDF.

Adobe PDF can be opened from any device. Besides the formatting of the document remains intact and there will be no spacing issues too.

What should be the ideal focal points in a Digital Marketing résumé?

Here we will discuss the high points that every digital marketing résumé must-have.

There are multiple other reasons that can bore a recruiter. A recruitment manager has to go through a bunch of résumés on a daily basis. Obviously, dreariness can happen to anyone.

Put your focal points in order so that it can absorb a recruiter quickly. Nobody is willing to read lengthy job descriptions.

Here are a few important things that a recruiter wants to see in a digital marketing résumé.

1. formatting: There must be plenty of things that you feel writing on your résumé. Don’t just write anything and everything. Keep a distinct format so that the recruiter is able to see them clearly.

If you have used infographic elements to get your résumé a unique look, make sure you don’t overdo it.

2. Proper Length: A recruiter doesn’t have the entire day to read your résumé. They only give 6 seconds to a résumé and come up with a decision. So, the ideal résumé length would be one page.

These days LinkedIn is the platform where HRs collect all the information about a candidate. Even though you have a good amount of working experience, try not to exceed two pages.

3. Hobbies and interests: You can use this particular section to interest the employer. Depending upon the job role you are applying for, frame your hobbies in that parallel.

Here you are applying for the post of Digital Marketer. Your hobbies should include staying updated with the latest technical development, going for bungee jumping, or might be addicted to PlayStation.

From this section, HR gets an overall notion about your personality. For obvious reasons, a professional digital marketer’s résumé won’t look the same as the fresher’s résumé.

Always provide useful information. Don’t end up overstating to lure the recruiting manager. There are organizations that consider too many hobbies in one résumé as distractions.

4. Years of experience: Frequent job changes and a long gap in employment both are considered as red flags to the employers. This fluctuating tendency appears as a lack of commitment of an employee to the organization.

You should stay in an organization at least for a couple of years. Else, it’s hard to get a go from the recruitment cell.

After resigning from one job if you take a break longer than 6 months, it creates a bad impact on your résumé. The hiring manager won’t be ready to listen to your coherent clarification justifying the gap.

1. Academics: Academics refer to your educational qualification. When you are applying for a particular job role, you must know which of your academic qualifications you should highlight.

For a digital marketer, you should invariably highlight the name of the institution he/she obtains the degree from. Your professional degree should be in sync with the job you are applying for.

This doesn’t mean only marketing degree holders can apply for a marketing job position. Recruiters can hire people who according to them has the best competency to market a product.

Similarly, the grade you obtained in your school board is a focal point from the HR perspective. A community college graduate with 85% is any day more preferable to an IIM graduate with 50%.

2. Location: It’s often seen that recruitment managers give importance to the place where you reside. This is because some recruiters want candidates to relocate as per the job requirement.

If your job location is far from your home, get prepared to face relocation related questions during the interview. Omitting this section from your résumé can make the HR confused.

3. Use bullets, not paragraph: There shouldn’t be more than 5-6 bullet points in each of the segments. Bullets make the recruiters scan your résumé quicker than paragraphs.

Make it easy to find your achievements rather than mentioning duties that you would like to accomplish if get selected.

4. Mention metrics and goals in your résumé. The recruiter will find it easier to draw a clear comparison between you and other candidates.

In a nutshell what your résumé should have: