Manager Resume Examples & Skills for Getting a Job in 2023

You’ve got your dream job. You’re a leader. A strategic planner. A creative problem-solver. The person who makes sure that things get done and KPIs shoot through the roof.

Until you hear the alarm beep.

What if your dream came true and you actually got the manager job? After all, you’ve got the necessary background and skills. You just need to persuade the hiring manager that you’re the best person for the job. In other words, you need to write a brilliant manager resume. 

And here’s how. 

This guide will show you: 

• A manager resume example better than 9 out of 10 other resumes.
• How to write a management resume that will land you more interviews.
• Tips and examples of how to put skills and achievements on a management resume.
• How to describe your experience on a resume for a manager to get any job you want.

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Manager Resume Example

Your resume can be just as impressive as Daniel’s, no matter what kind of managerial job you’re applying for. Let’s go through the process of writing a manager resume step by step:

1. Format Your Manager Resume Like a Pro

Meet Ms. Griffin. 

She’s a hiring manager. And right now, she’s got 150+ manager resumes to sift through. So she only spends a few seconds on each resume. If the layout is confusing or the font makes her eyes hurt, she discards the resume without even reading it. She just doesn’t have the time to read unprofessional resumes.

How do you make a resume that catches Ms. Griffin’s eye and makes her actually want to start reading?

First, use the good old reverse-chronological format. Both humans and applicant tracking systems love reverse-chronological resumes because they’re so easy to read.

“Reverse-chronological” simply means starting with your most recent work experience and going back in time. Usually, work experience goes before education. But if you have very little experience, put education before experience because it’s more important in your case.

But how do you structure the page itself?

You can check out our detailed resume layout guide or just continue scrolling to see the best practices in a nutshell.

First, let’s set up the page. Set the margins to 1 inch on all sides, pick a classic resume font, and set the line spacing to 1.15.

On top of your resume, create a header with your contact information: full name, job title, phone, email address, LinkedIn account, and possibly other professional accounts if relevant to the job you’re applying to. For example, if you tweet on management-related topics, you can add your Twitter handle.

Then, create the following sections:

• Resume summary / Resume objective
• Work experience
• Education
• Skills
• Additional sections as needed (Certifications, Conferences, Volunteering, Hobbies, Languages etc.)

Make the section headings big and easy to spot. Add extra whitespace around the sections so that the page doesn’t look cluttered.

Pro Tip: Unless the job ad clearly states otherwise, save your resume as a PDF file to preserve its formatting. A Word document can look wildly different when opened on another device, and you don’t want this to happen to your resume.

2. Present Your Managerial Work Experience

We’ll start with the work experience section. As we’ve already mentioned, the best way to describe your work experience is to start with your most recent job and go backwards.

But don’t go too far back, and avoid including random jobs with absolutely nothing to do with management.

Here’s how to show work experience on a resume:

• Always provide the full job title, company name, location, and start and end dates (months and years are enough).
• Each entry can have up to 6 bullet points that present your achievements (rather than responsibilities and duties).
• Demonstrate measurable results wherever possible.
• Start each bullet point with an impactful action word.
• If you’re unsure how to phrase a bullet point, use the Problem-Action-Result technique: show the Result of the Action you took to solve a Problem.
• Tailor your job description to the requirements and expectations described in the job ad.

Let’s check out a few examples:

Manager Resume Sample: Work Experience

The bullet points make it clear how the candidate leveraged their skills and knowledge to solve business challenges and boost relevant KPIs.

So… this person apparently showed up and did something. But how much money did they save when optimizing costs? Were the agile projects successful? You can’t really tell.

This work experience entry leaves us with more questions than answers, which isn’t a good thing. As a manager, your job is to achieve specific business goals, not to do something without measurable results.

Also, writing that you were “responsible” for something doesn’t prove you were good at it. (Technically, the people who built the Titanic could put “Responsible for building an unsinkable ship” on their resumes and not be wrong.)

OK, this sounds effective if you’ve got a bunch of measurable professional achievements that you can be proud of.

But what if you’re just applying for your first manager job?

Here’s your secret weapon: transferable skills.

See, the fact that you’ve never had the word “manager” in your job title doesn’t mean you’ve never managed anything. You’ve already had a chance to build and use many skills a manager needs in your previous jobs.

Let’s look at an example. This candidate is applying for the position of assistant sales manager at a retail store. They’ve never had a managerial job before, but they have experience working as a retail sales associate. Here’s what they wrote:

Management Resume: Work History Example With No Experience

This candidate’s resume clearly shows that she’s already done some management tasks and excelled. So promoting her to assistant manager is a no-brainer.

What about this example?

None of these bullet points prove that she’d make a good manager. So giving her a management job seems pretty risky—you never know whether she’s cut out for leading a team, actively working towards KPIs, or solving problems.

When making a resume in our builder, drag & drop bullet points, skills, and auto-fill the boring stuff. Spell check? Check. Start building a professional resume template here for free.

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When you’re done, Zety’s resume builder will score your resume and tell you exactly how to make it better.

3. Put Education on Your Manager Resume The Right Way

It’s true that simply having a degree in business administration doesn’t automatically make someone a fantastic manager. But the proper education is still important, especially for senior management positions.

But how do you put it on your resume?

It depends on how much work experience you have. If you’re a mid-level to senior manager, just list your highest degree, the school, and the graduation year. If you’re a junior, enhance your education section with a few bullet points highlighting your most relevant academic achievements.

Resume for a Manager Position: Education

This candidate already has tons of professional achievements to speak for him, so he doesn’t need to include a detailed education section.

If you have a degree of any kind, there’s no more need to mention your secondary school on your resume. And even if you don’t, never add irrelevant bullet points—you’re only wasting valuable space and making yourself look unprofessional.

Education on an Entry-Level Manager Resume

Here’s what a junior manager can write in the education section of their resume:

Note how the bullet points showcase specific achievements that illustrate the candidate’s skills and qualities.

4. List the Right Manager Skills on Your Resume

If you listed all the skills that a manager needs to succeed, you’d probably come up with a few pages of bullet points. But for your resume, you must pick around 8–10 skills, so which manager skills should you list?

You’ll find the answer to this question in the job ad. 

Read it carefully and identify all skills-related keywords. These are the skills that go on your resume. Which of these skills do you have? Yes, it’s that simple: only include the skills that you can find in the job ad and in your actual skillset.

If you come up with a huge list and can’t seem to trim it down, you can divide your skills list into Soft Skills and Hard Skills or make a separate list for the software you’re proficient in.

Ready with your skills list? Now look back at the previous sections.

• Do the bullet points in your work experience and education sections illustrate the skills in your skills list? 
• Can you squeeze some skills keywords into the descriptions of your achievements? 

If that’s the case, edit the previous sections a bit. Scattering skills keywords throughout the entire document makes it easier for the applicant tracking systems to understand the relevance of your resume.

Here are some skills that you can put on your manager resume, provided that they’re relevant to the job ad:

Management Skills for Your Resume

• Oral and written communication
• Presentation skills
• Persuasion
• Leadership skills
• Active listening
• Conflict resolution skills
• Time management
• Analytical thinking
• Decision-making skills
• Problem-solving skills
• SAP S/4HANA

• Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP
• MS Project
• Jira
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• Microsoft Outlook
• G Suite
• Risk assessment
• Agile project management
• Scrum
• Data analysis
• SQL 

Wow, that’s a lot! But you can’t fit all of those skills on your resume. So pick 8–10 skills that have the highest relevance for this specific employer (ideally, these should also be the skills you’re particularly good at). Your skills section could look something like this:

Manager Resume Skills: Sample

• Agile framework
• Product lifecycle management
• Budget administration
• Document management
• Microsoft Excel
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• G Suite
• Jira
• Microsoft SharePoint
• Coaching
• Leadership

5. Show Your Certifications, Awards, Hobbies, and More

Is there anything else about you that’s worth including on your resume? Certifications, awards, conferences you’ve spoken at? Can you brag about interesting volunteering activities that illustrate your management skills? Or can you speak multiple languages?

Then go ahead and make extra sections, as long as you do not include irrelevant information and exceed one page! (Yes, unless you’re a senior manager with decades of experience, your resume should fit on one page).

Here’s what those additional resume sections can look like:

Note how the volunteering section serves as proof of the candidate’s time management skills and project management expertise.

6. Write Your Manager Resume Summary or Resume Objective

Remember how we skipped one resume section at the very beginning?

Let’s get back to it and write your resume objective or resume summary. They’re much easier to write when you’ve got the rest of your resume laid out in front of you.

But first, let’s define them.

A resume summary is that short paragraph that goes on top of your resume. A resume objective is also a short paragraph that goes on top of your resume. What’s the difference, then?

A resume summary is what you write when you’ve got several years of relevant work experience under your belt. In your resume summary, you cite some of your most impressive accomplishments and offer to leverage your skills to achieve similar results for your new employer.

A resume objective, on the other hand, is what you write when you’re applying for a junior position—either because it’s one of your first jobs ever or because you’re starting a new career. In your resume objective, you focus on your skills (because you don’t have a lot of achievements yet) and promise to help the employer achieve their business goals.

Both resume summaries and resume objectives follow the same formula:

Here’s how to use this formula:

• Re-read your resume and the job ad.
• Identify 2–3 top achievements and skills most relevant to the management position you’re applying for.
• Insert them into the formula and maybe edit for clarity. You should have around 3–4 sentences.

Let’s look at some examples of resume summaries:

Professional Summary for a Manager Resume: Example

Sounds like someone who’s definitely worth inviting to a job interview.

But what about this one?

It’s nice that they’re looking for a challenge, but… have their project management efforts ever led to measurable business achievements? Like, you know, cutting project costs or optimizing resources so that a complex project gets delivered on time?

If not… then why hire them? No one hires managers just to keep them busy with professional challenges.

OK, those were resume summaries of experienced candidates. But what about juniors and their resume objectives? Let’s see:

Resume Objective for Junior Managers: Example

This person looks like a promising retail sales manager. They’ve already done some managerial tasks and are clearly eager to contribute to Shirtorado’s success.

Not only is “think outside the box” a painfully overused cliché, but this resume objective gives zero proof that the candidate would make a good sales manager. Heck, they can’t even sell themselves.

7. Complement Your Manager Resume with a Matching Cover Letter

Congratulations, you’re almost done!

Now you just need to write a matching cover letter.

Yes, every hiring manager appreciates them. A professional cover letter shows you’re serious about the job opening and clearly sets you apart from the lazy candidates who didn’t bother to write four paragraphs.

So how do you write a manager cover letter?

It’s quicker and easier than you probably think—just follow our complete guide to writing cover letters and be done in no time!

In a nutshell, here’s how it goes:

• Configure the page layout according to the best practices for writing business letters.
• Create a cover letter header with contact information.
• Start your manager cover letter with a classic greeting like “Dear Mr. / Ms. Smith” and an attention-grabbing first paragraph.
• In your second paragraph, give specific proof that you match (or even exceed) the expectations and requirements outlined in the job ad.
• Then, create a paragraph that shows your passion for this specific company.
• In the final paragraph, ask the reader to schedule a call and remind them of the value you’re going to bring to the company.
• Sign off with “Sincerely” or a similar closing formula, and add your name and, ideally, the scanned version of your handwritten signature.
• Add a P. S. if you feel like it.

You should come up with somewhere between 250–400 words. This doesn’t sound like much, but it’s the best cover letter length to aim for.

A great cover letter that matches your resume will give you an advantage over other candidates. You can write it in our cover letter builder here. Here's what it may look like:

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See more cover letter templates and start writing.

Key Takeaways

Writing a manager resume that lands jobs is easier than you think. Here’s how it goes:

• Structure your resume using the reverse-chronological format.
• Create a resume header with contact info.
• Demonstrate your work experience, starting with your most recent job and focusing on achievements rather than duties.
• Showcase your educational background.
• Craft a list of skills that are highly relevant to the job ad.
• Add extra sections where you show your certifications, volunteer experience, language skills, and maybe even hobbies and interests.
• Top it all with an impactful resume summary or resume objective.
• Add a matching cover letter.

Thanks for reading my guide! Do you have a question to ask or a story to tell? Let me know in the comments!