There’s so much competition in the working world that you can’t afford to slack in any part of the process of trying to secure a job. Resumes are the first impression that a potential employer gets of you and you have to bring your A game.
A bad resume is like going for an accountant position interview in ripped jeans and a t-shirt. The security guard might not even let you in the building, let alone the receptionist. Because of the high competition, one chance is all you’re probably going to get and you have to make sure that from the font, to the layout of the resume, to the grammar, etc, it’s all perfect.
Even if you have all the requirements that they’re looking for and more such as working for Google or creating a new system that saved your previous workplace a lot of money, they might not get to that part of the resume, if it’s not presented in the right way.
Before we get into detail about what a digital marketing resume should include, make sure your resume has met the following basic requirements that any resume should have.
1) No Typos and Grammatical Mistakes
Unfortunately, grammatical mistakes and typos are common nowadays, even from university graduates. You may argue that the position that you’re applying for doesn’t need you to have good grammar but typos and poor grammar say so much about you.
It shows that you’re not keen and don’t care. It also makes you look like you’re a poor communicator.
Getting a digital marketing resume sample off the net and editing it will not suffice if you have poor grammar. If you know that you’re weak in these areas, get a friend to proofread and edit your resume for you.
2) Snapshot Layout
Knowing that you have very few seconds to convince the HR to take an in-depth look at your resume, make sure that they can get a strong sense of your resume by glancing at it as they would if it were a snapshot. The company may also have a program that scans through applicants’ resumes and discards the ones that aren’t up to standard so use the correct format.
Your name, where you live and email should be included at the top of the resume. You can also include the URL for your Linkedin profile and a website if you have one.
This should be followed by a brief career objective and then a summary of your skills/ qualifications. Your career objective should be linked to the current job you’re applying for and how it will impact the company that you’re applying to positively.
You can either place your education or professional experience next depending on which one will sell you more. Those lacking experience should lead with their education. For education, start with the last course you did and move backwards in chronological order. Do the same with your work experience; start with your most recent job and work backwards.
In the section covering work experience, the name of the company that you worked for should be on the left while your date of employment and length of employment should be on the right.
You can then list volunteer work, achievements, etc.
This very basic resume covers the above layout. As you can see, it’s clear and neatly laid out.
Now, a list of 7 skills or (work experience) that you must include in your digital marketing resume:
1) Growth in numbers
A digital marketing resume needs to indicate growth you brought about in previous places of employment or even in your own business such as conversion, increase in traffic, increase in followers, the number of people in the team you managed and what objectives you met, etc.
And this needs to be illustrated using numbers such as, ‘A 70% increase in online sales between March 2016 to March 2017,’ rather than, ‘An increase in online sales.’
Below are 2 snippets of a digital marketing resume example that illustrates this point.
2) Strong knowledge of SEO, Email Marketing Skills and social media skills
It’s a given that you need this expertise but you’ll be surprised at how shallow people’s skills are in this area. Having many followers on your Instagram account does not suffice. Where we’re at now, you need to have in-depth knowledge of SEO, email marketing and social media.
Besides, the social media tools, you need to be adept at content creation, what hashtags to use, how to find out what your followers are searching for, what topics are relevant, how to use WordPress effectively and WordPress plugins such as Yoast SEO and much more.
There are many courses on these topics being offered which provide certification on completion that should be present in a social media marketer resume or a resume for digital marketing.
3) Experience in effective paid social media advertising
Anyone can pay for a social media advertisement but that doesn’t guarantee that it will be effective. Social media advertising is actually quite an intricate process. , Companies want a skilled digital marketer who knows how to place a social media advert that will reach their target market, be effective and get their desired results.
A digital marketer needs to know how to work within the budget they’re given, create campaigns and be able to meet their objectives for that advertisement.
4) Knowledge and know-how of social media tools
As a digital marketer, you have a vast amount of content and work to do. The resume for digital marketing applicants should include knowledge of tools such as Social Pilot, Buffer, Hootsuite, Coschedule ,Mailchimp which will help you manage all social media platforms with ease and help you schedule content, post it to many recipients at a go, design beautiful posts using templates and so much more.
In order to be efficient and effective, you have to use these tools. It saves a lot of time and work and increases your output, engagement, conversion and revenue.
5) Data analysis
There is a lot of data available to companies right now which is a key component of marketing strategies. As a digital marketer, you have to know where to source for the relevant data that you require and be able to interpret this data and use the findings to serve your company.
For example, if you’re working for a tour company, then you need to know what demographic you’re targeting, what packages they like, where to find them online, how to attract them, what searches they make, what deals they’re looking for, how to get them to book hotels or tours with your company, how to measure whether your adverts are effective and what to change to make them effective.
There is an abundant amount of data and you need to be able to sift through it quickly, pick what you need as part of your strategy to help the company meet its goals. This means that you should be conversant with analytics tools like Google Analytics, Twitter analytics, Facebook insights and also be able to use the data to show whether a campaign was effective or not.
Digital marketing resume examples:
6) Ability to integrate platforms
A good digital marketer should be able to integrate all social media and digital platforms to achieve both the digital marketing strategy of the team and the overarching marketing strategy of the company.
They also need to know which platforms will work best to meet their marketing objectives. Many times you will get more results focusing on a few specific channels that are best suited to your brand and strategy rather than using all platforms simultaneously.
7) An eye for design, photography, video and storytelling abilities
Photos and videos are the best way to tell a story and they are more powerful than captions or articles when it comes to attracting and holding a viewer’s attention. Through this media, people feel more connected and engagement increases.
Posting visual content is not just about posting frequently. You have to have an eye for imagery or videos that will attract people’s attention and get them interested enough to watch the video or click the caption.
Videos and photos also increase the chances of the viewer purchasing what you’re selling. For example, if you’re selling a holiday villa, and you write about it versus showing a video with an influencer giving a tour of the villa and telling viewers how much they enjoyed their experience and what they liked about it, there will be many more bookings made because of the video than there will be because of the article.
Digital marketing specialist resume sample
Get an expert to take a look at your resume
Once you’ve written down your digital marketer resume, either pay a professional or get a friend in HR to look at your resume and edit it. It will probably make a world of difference.
They know the right language to use, what’s trending in the market, and they can quickly point out mistakes and correct them because they see them daily. It’s advisable to sit with them as they’re editing it because they might need to get additional information from you that you’ve overlooked that will really boost your resume.