How to write a powerful advertising manager resume?
A great advertising manager resume should call attention to your understanding of marketing and advertising, great sales and presentation skills, and excellent communication skills. As this is a senior role, you should also possess experience with leading a team or coordinating with different departments.
To make sure your advertising manager resume is flawless, follow the tips below.
1. Treat the resume summary as your elevator pitch
As an advertising manager, you’re probably quite creative and have great copywriting skills. Why not use these skills to grab recruiters' attention from the get-go?
You can do so in a resume summary, which is just like an elevator pitch for your resume.
In 1-3 sentences, summarize who you are — what’s your professional title, how many years of experience you have and what your best work achievements are.
Something like this should suffice:
Advertising Manager with 5+ years of experience in creating award-winning advertising campaigns for well-known brands such as Siemens, Coca-Cola, Heineken, and Nike.
2. Boost your advertising manager work experience resume section
In the work experience resume section, list all relevant work experience to advertising, including your job title, name of the company, and duration dates.
However, instead of listing your duties, make sure most of your bullet points discuss impressive work achievements. Even better, use numbers to illustrate them — how you increased sales, how big of a budget you controlled, or the number of marketing campaigns that you created.
You can even mention notable names, for instance if you had some successful campaigns, happy clients, or mentions in big media outlets.
Each bullet point should also include a strong action verb that fits your industry. They help you beat vague statements and make literally everything sound much more impactful.
Best action verbs to use on an advertising manager resume
- Created
- Designed
- Completed
- Developed
- Directed
- Supervised
- Advised
- Examined
- Exceeded
- Increased
- Initiated
- Contributed
- Managed
- Oversaw
- Collaborated
- Executed
- Delegated
If you combine all of these tips in your advertising manager work experience section, you’ll get something like this under each job:
- Developed the entire social media advertising strategy — generating over $1M revenue in less than one year.
- Created an innovative marketing campaign in cooperation with Bank of America.
- Managed team of 7 designers and 5 copywriters.
3. Pack your resume with advertising manager skills
Advertising managers should possess a wide variety of skills — from marketing, advertising, analytics and media to project management.
Therefore, you should reflect these in your resume’s skills section — to show employers you have what they’re looking for.
Best skills an advertising manager resume
- Market analysis
- Contract negotiation
- Writing
- PR
- Sales
- Social media
- Budgeting
- ROI calculations
- SEO
- PPC
- SEM
- Google Analytics
- Google Adwords
- ActiveCampaign
- Zymplify
- AWeber
- Affise
- Exponea
- Wishpond
However, required skills will also vary based on the job for which you’re applying, so don’t forget to review the job ad first. Check the requirements and then try to match them with your skills and experience. In other words, tailor your resume to each job.
Then incorporate relevant skills in your skills section and throughout your work experience descriptions.
If you also want to include some soft skills, focus on communication, critical thinking, leadership, organization, collaboration and creativity.
4. Highlight your advertising certificates
While certificates may not be required for an advertising manager position, they can better showcase your skills. And it can definitely set you apart from other job candidates who don’t have any.
Here are some of the best certificates to include on your advertising manager resume right now:
- Google: Google Ads Certificate
- Google Data Analytics Certificate
- Facebook Blueprint Certification
- Certified Advertising Specialist (CAS)
- Certified Sales Professional (CSP)
- Hubspot Digital Advertising 101
- Hootsuite Advanced Social Advertising Certification
Either include them on your resume in the education section or in a separate section called “Courses & Certificates” (if you have more of them).
List them in reverse chronological order and include:
- Name of the certification
- Authority
- URL or code
- Any relevant dates
That's it! We hope this guide was useful and good luck finding your next job as an advertising manager! If you're still hungry for more information, you can check out our comprehensive guide on how to write a resume.