Summaries are a weak way to open. Instead, we recommend to lead with your most impressive thing first – for 99% of people, that's likely their current job. We also recommend putting a bullet point about the company itself, as company numbers and stats (like Fortune 100, market capitalization, venture capital raised, annual revenue, number of users, number of employees, etc.) often dwarf a candidate's individual numbers or stats. We want to anchor the screener on the most impressive things possible in the first 2-3 things their eyes jump to (which are nearly always current employer -> current title -> top bullet point, in that order). You can even tweak your current or past titles depending on the job you're applying for to make yourself more of a "bullseye" for the role (within reason; don't misrepresent yourself – for example, changing your title from "Software Engineer" to "Front End Engineer" to apply for a front-end role is fine).
The reason you almost never want to lead with a summary is that anyone can write a fancy summary that claims they're God's gift to mankind, but not everyone can say they do cybersecurity at a Fortune 500 company. Lean into what separates you: your employer, your role title, your responsibilities, your achievements, your university, your major, your GPA – there are SO many things that separate people from one another, and a summary isn't it.
Still don't believe us? Ok, here are 3 more reasons why you should avoid summaries on resumes:
- They are often skipped entirely, taking up valuable real estate at the top of the resume that could be used way more intelligently to anchor the screener.
- They put you on the same "visual footing" as everyone else with a summary, which elevates bad candidates, and harms good candidates. Screeners know this, so they clock summaries as a negative signal that you’re likely a weak candidate (because good candidates want to lead with their most impressive experience). You may have an awesome employer and a totally relevant title and a perfectly targeted first bullet point, but now the first 25% of your resume is just… “I’m great!” over and over, like everyone else with a summary. You’ve visually pushed your most impressive and distinctive things down, in favor of generic language that literally anyone could also write. Maybe they’d be lying, but they could write it.
- There’s no context for them to understand your summary without reading the rest of the resume. You have that context in your brain when you’re writing it, which is why it makes sense to you when you’re writing it, but to the screener they still need to validate what you’ve written by screening the rest of your resume. So the summary is de facto pointless since they must screen your resume anyway to validate that what you’re saying in a summary is true.
We will admit that there are two reasons why you maybe would want a summary: 1) you’re making a career transition and want to explain quickly why you're qualified despite your experience, or 2) you've been out of the workforce for an extended period and need to explain the extenuating circumstance (even then, you should probably just put "self employed" for the time you've been out, or consider starting a personal LLC in your area of expertise to show continued activity in a relevant role). In other words, if you have something to explain, a summary can be important if the resume feels "lacking" without it.
There are almost no other circumstances that justify a summary.