Example Marketing Specialist Resume - Browse more resume templates and build a stand-out resume
A recruiters looking through resumes for a marketing specialist can spot the best candidates by focusing on one area: experience.
A generalist will have shallow knowledge with a broader range of skills and disciplines.
But a true marketing specialist develops deeper technical skills by focusing on one specific field.
A poorly written resume that pegs you as a generalist will land you in the “form rejection letter” pile.
But by following the tips in this guide, you’ll craft a winning marketing specialist resume that will get your phone ringing with interview requests.
This guide will provide you with the following:
- Marketing specialist resume samples real candidates used to get jobs 9/10 times
- How to showcase your specialisms through your summary and experience sections
- The laser-focused skills you need to highlight in your marketing specialist resume to get noticed
- The way to get more interviews from your applications
Marketing Specialist Resume Examples
How to write a job-winning Marketing Specialist resume
While your marketing skills may be exceptional, your resume needs the “it” factor to get noticed.
A broad range of experience in several different areas will not impress the recruiter or the hiring manager.
Why? Because the position is seeking a “specialist,” not a “generalist.”
To win over the recruiter and land the interview, you have to narrow your career achievements.
Think “Tiger Woods” rather than “Michael Jordan the baseball player.”
Find the specific area of marketing that relates to the job posting and focus on just those skills.
Show how you’ve mastered that specific area with examples, details, and wins.
That’s what makes you valuable as a specialist.
Now, start thinking about your resume based on that “laser focused” marketing prowess.
Pay close attention to the following sections in your resume and you’ll get more calls for interviews:
5 sections that makeup a great marketing specialist resume
- Header section with links to marketable info
- Resume summary that makes you amaster of one, not a “Jack of all trades”
- Work experience that highlights specialist marketing wins through results
- Specific marketing and professional skills that separate you from the competition
- Educational background that doesn’t overemphasize your academics
Remember, a recruiter is looking for specifics that prove you’re a good fit as a marketing specialist.
Make yourself stand out by being more than just a “Jack/Jill of all trades.”
Instead, your resume should project you as a master of one (or few).
How to structure your Marketing Specialist resume header
Your very first chance to make an impression in your marketing specialist resume is the header section.
You want to go above and beyond by displaying other “marketable” information that you want the hiring manager to see.
Some items to include:
- Your social media profiles to demonstrate how you “market” your personal brand
- A personal website that shows off your professional portfolio
- Just the city where you live, since a residential address isn’t necessary at the resume stage
- Alternate methods of contact, such as Skype or Google Hangout
2 Marketing Specialist Resume header examples
Your header needs to market your most important project--yourself! Show off your Linkedin profiles, link to your portfolio or website too.
The more creative you can get when marketing yourself, the more successful the recruiter will believe you can be for the company.
How to craft your Marketing Specialist resume summary
As a marketer, you’ve been trained on how to translate features into benefits.
But remember to stay focused.
Your summary needs to stay specific to the position you’re applying for. Writing a generic description of your broad experience will put you in the “generalist” category.
And those end up at the bottom of the pile … or in the recycle bin.
There are several specialized areas where you can apply your expertise:
- Content
- Product
- Digital
- Social media
- Demand generation
- Lead generation
- Advertising
Having 4 specialties is over the top. Listing 3 specialties is better, but showing solid expertise in 2 specialties specifically related to the job posting is the key to success.
For example, if the company wants someone who can provide leads to the sales team, social media marketing skills are extraneous.
List only the areas that will interest the recruiter and separate you from the crowd of applicants.
2 junior Marketing Specialist resume samples - summary
Congratulations. You’ve just spread yourself so thin in the marketing arena that you’re practically transparent.
That means you’re going to be invisible to the recruiter and hiring manager.
Your summary should promote your experience and your unique value proposition in 1-2 specific areas to the employer.
For a senior marketing specialist resume, it can be tempting to make yourself seem like a “master of all things marketing” in the summary section:
2 senior Marketing Specialist resume examples - summary
While all of that seems rather impressive, those attributes are broad and vague and show little value to the company.
Use the summary section to highlight skills and wins:
In the marketing world, the idiom “Less is more” can be a difficult piece of advice to follow.
In your marketing specialist resume summary, you should strive to have a balance of good information that doesn’t go too far over the top.
How to write the experience section of your Marketing Specialist resume
How did Tiger Woods get so good at golf? He played the same game every day.
That’s the type of dedication you need to show in your resume’s experience section.
A lot of marketing people believe the best route to success is to be what is known as a “T-shaped marketer.”
That is someone who develops broad knowledge over a wide range of marketing tactics.
While that can lead to varied career experiences, it lacks the depth and subject matter expertise recruiters look for in a marketing specialist.
The opposite end of the spectrum is an “I-shaped marketer,” who only specializes in one specific field.
That’s good for a beginner, but you’ll need a bit more depth. You should shoot for 2-3 specialties. Anything more is inefficient and doesn’t go deep enough.
A marketing specialist resume should never keep the bullets generic, showing off multiple skills instead of results:
2 Marketing Specialist resume samples - experience
None of that demonstrates any type of success.
Does that seem like a good candidate to you?
Remember to hit the highlights and show the wins you accumulated:
Remember to tailor your past results to most closely match the job description. Stating that you had great success in direct mail will not impress a company seeking a digital specialist.
Recruiters and hiring managers want to see outcomes, not outputs. Demonstrating your previous success as a marketing specialist will make you a more attractive candidate.
Skills to highlight in your Marketing Specialist resume
It's tempting to show your prowess with everything related to marketing, from software to strategy.
But knowing 4 different types of email marketing systems hardly makes you a specialist.
The technical skills you list should paint a broader picture of your expertise in a specific area.
For example, if you’re an email marketing specialist, you’ll want to focus on:
- Template development
- Writing
- Editing
- Proofreading
- Attention to detail
- Data analytics (e.g., bounce rates, CTAs, click-throughs)
Also, marketing specialists are most valuable when they are capable of driving revenue for their employers.
Since marketing is often seen by CEOs as a “cost center” rather than revenue generating, you need to show that you can focus your efforts on meeting (or exceeding) corporate business objectives.
Here are some skills that you can list to show a dedication to revenue generation.
Top Marketing Specialist skills employers are looking out for in your resume
- Strong understanding of branding & positioning
- Copywriting, story-telling, customer experience
- SEO and content marketing
- Design & UX / HTML and CSS
- Email marketing
- Paid ads
- Conversational marketing
Meanwhile, there are also several “soft skills” that will also make your marketing specialist resume attractive to potential employers:
10 Top Soft Skills for Marketing Specialists
- Flexibility
- Tenacity
- Intuition
- Emotional Intelligence
- Collaboration
- Curiosity
- Willingness to Learn
- Empathy
- Adaptability
- Team Building
Both technical and soft marketing skills are necessary to get your resume noticed.
Experience and abilities are important, but the more personal, human qualities will separate a decent marketing specialist from an exceptional one.
Tips for listing education in your Marketing Specialist resume
For many marketing specialist positions, education is more a requirement than a priority. The minimum education level is there to solidify a baseline level of knowledge and maturity.
Still, you can use your education section draw attention to areas that reinforce your goal for marketing specialization..
For example, if the job posting seeks someone with brand promotion skills, and you happened to do a lot of promotional work for your college or university, then you can list that in the education section.
In short, what makes a great Marketing Specialist resume?
Now you know what it takes to promote yourself as a marketing specialist to the hiring manager.
Stay focused on the following items when creating your marketing specialist resume:
- Market yourself throughout the resume by including creative elements like social media links, project/portfolio pieces, and “outside of the box” reasoning
- Summarize only those specific marketing skills that pertain to the position and demonstrate your expertise in 2-3 focus areas
- Emphasize empirical data in your experience section that demonstrates your ability to “move the needle”
- Show that your marketing strategy is driven to produce revenue and positively impact the company’s bottom line, which is most important to senior leadership