We recommend writing a summary statement for most job applications. However, we’ll break down some of the common reasons to apply for a new job and show you strategic resume summary examples so you can confidently write your own. Common reasons to write a new, tailored resume include:

• Promotion
• Internship to full time
• Recent graduates
• Apprenticeship to full time
• High school graduate
• Changing companies

There are a few times when we suggest writing a resume objective instead:

• Entry-level employees
• Career changers
• Reentering the workforce
• Relocating
• High school graduate without work experience
• College graduates
• Frequent work gaps
• Freelancers and job-hoppers
• Short-term contractors

If you fall under these categories, please hop over to our objective statement writing guide instead. This page will offer free examples, templates and tools to help you impress a hiring manager.

You can streamline this process and write your entire resume with our template-rich Resume Builder. Now let's look at these potential job opportunities and help you write a powerful summary statement that influences hiring managers to keep reading your resume.

Promotion

A well-written resume summary focuses on your accomplishments and how you can replicate them at a new job or workplace. What better way to apply for a promotion or senior position than to showcase evidence of your skills at the very start of your resume headline? You can tailor your opening statement to focus on a clearly requested item. Use the examples alongside our resume writing guide to get your application started.

Junior to associate engineer

Junior graphic designer to graphic design

Sales associate to team lead

Internship to full time

An internship is a valuable opportunity to learn and develop real-world skills and knowledge related to your education. A well-written resume summary will focus less on the limited internship length and more on the transferable skills and career-related accomplishments you fulfilled in your internships. You can find free downloadable intern resume templates here, and use these resume summary examples to see how focusing on career-specific knowledge helps boost your application.

Accounting intern to bookkeeper

Research intern to cell therapy research associate

Marketing intern to social media strategist

Recent graduates

A recent college or trade school graduate dedicates years to developing specific skills and knowledge. A well-written summary statement highlights those skills and references real-world applications relevant to your education and the open job opportunity. These text examples show how you can downplay your relative lack of professional experience in favor of your academic accomplishments. Use these resume summary examples and a free resume template for entry-level roles to write your resume in no time.

Bachelor’s in Business Management

Master’s in Literature

Master’s in Education

Apprenticeship to full time

An apprenticeship is similar to an internship: you’re learning employable skills in a hands-on environment and developing safe muscle memory. These resume summary examples can help you learn how to focus on the employable knowledge you developed when you’re ready to apply to full-time positions after the end of your apprenticeship.

Plumbing and AC repair apprenticeship

Electrical trainee

Embalming apprentice

High school graduate

As a high school graduate, you’re not likely to have a lot of formal working experience that you can highlight in your resume summary. We strongly recommend that you use an objective statement to highlight your transferable skills and desire to accomplish more in your first job. However, if you held an after-school job, you can reference these transferable skills to find your first part- or full-time job outside of school hours.

Babysitter

Office aide

After-school volunteer

The best way to write a resume summary is to:

• Focus on a few skills.
• Back those skills up with evidence.
• Mirror the requirements of the job posting.
• Directly tie your skills to the needs of the job.

To demonstrate these best writing practices, we’ll show you an example of a poor introduction and explain how it failed to capture a hiring manager’s attention. We’ll follow this up with an example of a good resume summary statement filled with persuasive information. To do this, we’ll create a sample job seeker looking for a full-time sales associate position.

Poor summary statement example:

Although this job seeker points out three skills that are crucial to a floor sales associate, we can’t really see how effective they are at their job. They say they have customer service and sales skills, but they don’t offer us any information related to their claims. A hiring manager can’t gauge how well they might work in the store without calling them in, and isn’t likely to spare that time if they see stronger applicants.

Good resume summary example:

This job seeker shares the same amount of experience and skills on their resume summary, but they add information related to their accomplishments. We know that they offer positive customer service because they were awarded with unsolicited compliments on a review site and store-specific awards related to their skill. They were also able to calculate how much a store earned thanks to their strong upselling skills. This awareness of their accomplishments means they are able to describe what profits they can bring to a new employer, making them a more desirable employee.

Now that we talked about the best writing practices for writing your resume introduction, let’s give you one more poor and strong resume summary example to see if you can spot the difference in professional details.

Poor resume summary example:

Good resume summary example: