Packaging Yourself For Success: A Search Marketer’s Resume Guide

In today’s competitive search landscape you need to go beyond a basic resume and find a way to stand out in the crowd of applicants. It’s not just about outlining your experience anymore. Employers are raising the bar with specific metrics, certifications and requirements. Here are a few key components to hone in on when vamping up your resume to help separate yourself from the pack while demonstrating your search skills & expertise.

Use numbers, numbers and more numbers. Unlike other industries, search marketing really does thrive on stats. A search marketer needs to highlight a variety of metrics they have successfully managed during their last job. Examples include traffic increase percentage during your tenure, number range of keywords managed, and budget levels that you handled. Potential employers are assessing whether your past campaign experience qualifies you for the position’s demands. Now is the time to use specific numbers to highlight how you could optimize and grow successful search campaigns.

Get engaged with the search marketing community. Truly engaged. Unfortunately, “joining twitter” does not qualify you as being part of the search community. A search marketer needs to highlight, in his or her resume, ways in which they have made a conscious effort to be active in both online and offline search communities. This can include membership in larger organizations like SEMPO, or simply leading local search clubs, tweet-ups, or industry dinners. Employers give precedent to search marketers that demonstrate leadership ability, as it suggests the candidate can handle future positions in management. Engagement in the search community also displays a need to be connected with leaders in the search space, highlighting a candidate’s strength in team-building and collaboration skills.

Get those certifications. Search marketers are held to a different standard when it comes to education and training. Although a number of degrees qualify as a solid educational background, such as marketing, advertising, business, etc., some of your potential employers are also demanding specific certifications. At the very least get AdWords Certified, and complete either web training seminars or on-site workshops. Especially as we move forward, and more tools surface in the search marketing industry, employers will expect that job applicant’s have formal training in the foundations of search marketing.

Acquire tool expertise. With the sheer volume of second and third party tools out there, it’s crucial to outline which you are an expert with and even those you have just some experience with. For those of you who are in-house marketers, it is worth your time to mention the capacities of any in-house tools and third party integrations (if any) you have used to manage your campaigns. Although many of the platforms use similar metrics, there are certainly advantages to having experience with a variety of management systems rather than just a few. A search marketer’s resume should reflect their breadth of exposure to the multitude of management resources available.

Miscellaneous factors. There are a number of other search-related components you could highlight as an advantage over other job candidates. For example, under the Experience section you can mention any guest blog posts you have written, conferences you have attended or speaking engagements you have done on search topics. Use this section as a way to demonstrate yourself as an authority in a particular aspect of search marketing. Basically any way you have gone above and beyond in the search industry should be laced into your resume in one way or another.

Now is not the time to be modest. The job market is obviously in turmoil, and companies are cutting back on salary budgets. Although our industry is still experiencing growth, the bar for new hires is rising. The expectations of a resume are shifting and the likelihood of a phone interview really depends on how well you have marketed your experience and skill set. A search marketer, more then others, is aware of the importance of numbers, reputation management, and networking. Be sure your efforts in these divisions are properly packaged in your resume and gain the upper hand on your next job hunt.

Here’s a sample template that you can use to create your own “rise above the crowd” search marketing resume.

A resume template