A marketing consultant resume does what your best run campaigns do: it generates intrigue and gets your target audience to give your product a try. Your clients come to you to help them create this effect, so your resume needs to show off your abilities.
While you may be an expert at marketing products and services, your job search is another matter. Resume.io offers a full range of resources for any job seeker, including writing guides and resume examples for 300+ professions.
This resume guide, along with the corresponding marketing consultant resume example will cover the following topics:
Marketing consultants are people who work with clients to develop and implement effective marketing strategies to improve business for clients and companies. They utilize strong commercial awareness to develop excellent marketing strategies and improve client relationships.
Marketing consultants need to jump into new situations quickly and develop an understanding of the needs and goals of clients. They implement changes to achieve sales growth and an increase of market infiltration. Marketing consultants seek to retain customers and attract new ones for their clients by improving advertising and brand penetration.
What are the key responsibilities for a marketing consultant?
Marketing consultants work to improve operations, profitability, management, structure and strategy in a firm, Totempool, a marketing career platform says.
Marketing consultants careers may overlap with other job categories. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics does not track this category separately, but predicts advertising, promotions and marketing management will see a 6% uptick, while marketing research analysts are in for a booming 18% increase in jobs over the period from 2019-2029. Marketing consultants with digital expertise will be in especially high demand.
Marketing consultants just starting out can expect to earn about $41,000, Payscale.com reports. By mid-career, that rises to $73,000 and consultants with more than 20 years experience may earn $81,000.
If you’re looking for brands that may need a marketing consultant, these are some good times to check in, according to marketing agency Viacon:
The elements of your resume are your key to success. Here are the sections your marketing consultant CV should include:
You know that when you are branding a product or service, you need to know your audience so you can direct the message to them. Do the same during your job search. Find out everything you can about the product or service, the company philosophy and how the organization works. Then use that knowledge to target the hiring manager and your prospective boss.
Maximize language for the ATS
Especially if you are digitally savvy, you know that algorithms make many preliminary decisions. When you apply online, your marketing consultant resume will be screened and scanned by an Applicant Tracking System before hiring managers see your brilliant campaigns.
Optimize by using keywords and phrases within the job listing to give you a better chance to avoid being filtered out by the ATS. That means, personalizing each resume sample to target the individual job.
Our go-to resume format is reverse chronological order because recruiters prefer it and most ATS software is designed to scan that way. However, if you are new to the job market, are a career-changer or are a well-seasoned professional, you may want to consider the hybrid resume format which begins with an "Experience" or "Skills" section followed by a shorter employment history section.
We don’t recommend using a functional resume format since it is mostly reserved for highly technical or scientific careers where a professional wants to emphasize niche skills over experience.
How do you brand yourself? Consider the summary section of your marketing consultant resume as your best chance to use your copywriting skills to market yourself. It is only here that you get a little creative room, so use it to your advantage. Use a sentence to introduce yourself and your career. Then, take another sentence or two to impress with your best marketing success. Finally, wrap it up with a sentence that shows you understand just what the company needs and explain how you are going to provide it.
Looking for more inspiration? Head over to our marketing resume samples. There you can see:
You can find a resume sample for your summary section below.
Innovative marketing consultant with several years of experience providing strategic and practical advice to achieve company marketing efforts. Adept in assessing the needs and desires of target audiences and identifying effective strategies to reach them. Bringing forth valuable industry experience and the expertise necessary to increase company visibility and gain customers. Equipped with knowledge of marketing principles and best practices and a commitment to helping clients achieve goals.
While the employment history section of your marketing consultant CV is a bulleted list, don’t relax here. Use strong action language to describe your successful marketing campaign and other business activities.
Generate leads that feel compelled to follow up with you by shining a light on your achievements. Remember that smart content applies to your job hunt as well. Target your prospective employer with examples that directly address their needs.
Data-driven results and the details of your actions and the problems you solved will strengthen your bullet items.
You can find a resume example for your employment history section below.
Your skills section is the easiest one to optimize for the ATS. It’s a little like SEO in that you want to get those keywords in wherever you can. Choose the skills you believe are most important for the job and match them to those your prospective employer needs.
If you’re an expert in a specific industry or with marketing automation, make sure you list that here (and expand on that in either your summary or employment history sections.) Remember to add soft skills such as leadership, empathy or organization.
Below you will find an adaptable skills resume example.
The education section is simply a list of your academic degrees. Most marketing consulting jobs require at least a bachelor’s degree in a related field such as marketing, communications or business. Your high school experience is unnecessary if you hold a degree higher than a bachelor's degree. No need to include your GPA unless you are fresh out of school and it is at least a 3.5.
If you have a shelf full of marketing awards and/or are active in professional organizations, you may want to create a separate section called Awards and Affiliations to attract more attention to your recognition and networking efforts.
Below you will find an education resume example as a formatting guide.
Once you lose a lead, it’s almost impossible to get it back, so make a great first visual impression. You may be tempted to go all out on the design of your marketing consultant resume to show off your visual acumen, but try to scale it back.
The design of your resume should complement the message behind it. Remember that the goal is for recruiters to be able to read about all your accomplishments. That means eye-catching, but neat and legible. Too much graphic design detracts from your message.
The header of your marketing consultant resume says a lot about your personal style and professional image. Make sure to get this section right, not only in terms of the appropriate contact information, but also in the page design. A resume template can help you get a head start.