PPC specialists are like Tennis Players.
Most can hit a ball with a racket, but few can get the crowd to cheer for them
Headhunters and CMOs take 6 seconds to see if your PPC specialist resume is worth considering or not.
Be even a little vague here and you’ll be rejected.
And, why wouldn’t it be?
After all, hiring someone to spend thousands of dollars in ads is always a risk.
Hence, your resume should be like a highly targeted ad.
Good thing is, we've done most of the research for you here.
Here’s what you’ll learn here:
- What format to choose for a PPC specialist resume
- How to elevate the experience section on your resume
- What’s the best way to structure your resume header and summary
- How to emphasize your skills and certificates
Want to write a PPC specialist Resume that looks like that?
Let's go and see how you can create one like for yourself.
How to write a PPC specialist resume?
It's easy to find a PPC specialist that ran ads.
It's difficult to find a PPC specialist that generated ROI from ads.
It is rare to find PPC specialist resumes that can generate ROI, scale PPC reliably and make data driven decisions.
So, your resume should have three main goals:
- Show that you can generate ROI
- Show that you can scale Ads beyond certain $$$$s reliably
- Display that you're analytical and data proficient
Without doing that, there won't be anything that makes your resume stand out, compared to others.
2 Resume Formats for PPC specialists
You know that scale, ROI and data is what your resume should talk about. But, what it would look like?
So, pickup a resume format.
- Hybrid layout - brings equal parts of work experience and personality in your resume.
- Reverse chronological layout - shows your work experience in a neat timeline.
Reverse chronological format is great for any job application, especially if you have more than a couple of years of experience to show in your resume.
Hybrid resumes are perfect for people who are looking for a more fluid way of presenting themselves on paper, but are still adamant about the format.
Frankly, both reverse-chronological and hybrid format resumes can do the job just as well. It’s up to you which one you will choose.
You can see more examples in the post "Best Resume Layout: 9 Examples and Templates That Recruiters Approve".
However, a format on its own won’t land you that job.
Let’s get behind crafting these resume sections. We will start with resume header.
What to consider when writing a PPC specialist resume header?
Myth: A resume header helps you provide hiring manager with your contact information.
It does so much more than that!
If you maintain a blog or published something that's noteworthy on Marketing - this would be the place where you link to it.
Here’s what a resume header should include:
- Name, contact info and location
- Link to a portfolio, personal blog/website and/or social profile link(s).
- Desired title, Degree or Certification
PPC specialist resume header sample
A couple of simple resume mistakes to avoid here:
- Don’t list your full address in the header. It takes up precious space and nobody is asking you for it.
- Do make sure your email looks good. Just get rid of scrappyboy89@yahoo.com forever.
- Don't missout on the opportunity to link your LinkdIn account in the resume header. It will give an additional way of contact and follow ups for the recruiters to use.
Got it?
Great.
Now, that you know the steps to a great header design, let’s make a compelling career summary.
PPC specialist resume summary samples (including 4 examples)
From a good PPC specialist resume, here's what a hiring manager expects in the summary:
- Platforms and Ad spend
- ROI
- Years of experience
- And, notable achievements
Now, this is what most resumes usually have:
"PPC expert with 10+ years of experience in Facebook, Adwords, Bing Ads and Twitters. With a deep understanding of marketing trends"
What quality score would you give to this PPC specialist resume summary?
Not more than 3, right?
Add the 4 things that every hiring manager wants to see, and you'll have the perfect resume summary.
We have two good and bad examples below for your reference too.
2 PPC specialist resume summary examples
2 sample paid ads manager resume summaries
It takes a couple of sentences to outline your career and present an impactful fact from it that catches the eye of headhunters.
Whereas this is a classic example of making a Google search, taking the first career summary you have in front of you, and changing a couple of words.
Avoid summaries like that altogether, as they do your application no good.
Let’s keep up the tempo with the next section.
What you should know about putting experience in PPC specialist resume (samples included)
Great PPC specialists connect the dots between paid ads and the bigger marketing strategy for the business.
Employers look for marketers who know both pre and post click experience is crucial for successful ad campaigns.
Can you demonstrate your knowledge of sales cycle on your resume?
Pay attention to both samples and notice the changes.
2 PPC specialist resume experience examples
- •Executed several large scale ad campaigns
- •Completed hundreds of tasks in my first quarter
- •Optimised EDMs campaigns that achieved over industry average click through rate after optimisation
- •Increased mobile app downloads by 10%
PPC is pretty much a numbers game.
The below example doesn’t have the data to prove the claims, and that’s while it fails in comparison with the first one.
Make sure you’ll be able to prove your worth with cold hard figures and evidence.
Do you need education section on your resume?
As it’s the case with many marketing subfields, PPC professionals can constantly gather knowledge on the field. This, coupled with an abundance of online courses and internal training programmes (you can add your supplement documentation in the resume) make education section not that important on PPC resumes.
Still, if you have achieved higher than average GPA and you’ve got relevant education in Marketing and Sales, it won’t do you no harm to include it.
Make sure the education section features:
- Degree type
- Major
- GPA score (higher than 3.2)
- University
- Year
Resume skills for PPC specialists
You already know PPC professionals come with a swiss army knife of tech and soft skills.
PPC puts together the artistry of marketing with the science of signage. The combination of the two can be very challenging to work with, but can also be a very fulfilling puzzle, not in the least part because PPC is so metric driven!
Stephan Sarandrea, Directory of Strategy for Siteflood
This opinion is in close relation to the creativity and analytical mind that a great PPC expert possesses.
Successful PPC ad copies are based on psychology principles, with the slightest difference in text affecting whole campaigns.
Focusing on the art of persuasion as part of your skill set can show employers you’re able to trigger emotions to get the results you want.
7 soft skills for PPC specialist resumes
- Organisation
- Time management
- Credibility
- Flexibility
- Decisiveness
- Communication
- Analytical thinking
- Adaptability
With that being said, hard skills do pay off too, especially when you double down on techical skills (Javascript, XML & HTML) and Excel.
Nowadays, they are becoming industry standard for PPC marketers and you’d be expected to provide examples to back those skills up.
11 hard skills to add to PPC specialist resume
- Google Analytics
- Pay per click
- SEM
- Web development
- AdWords
- Facebook Ad Manager
- Excel
- Bing Ads
- Content Marketing
- Copywriting
- Web design
- Automation
Vlookups are a function of Excel that is the most important skill at the moment. Employees …[in the USA]… are mostly looking for workers to help sell products in that specific market. Without knowing how to perform a lookup, you won’t be able to run performance data report from Adwords and product sales reports together.
Joel Bondorowsky, founder at PPC designs
How to feature your certifications on the resume
PPC industry is fast-paced. To prove you can keep up, resume certificates play a big role.
Listing their name and date shows their recency and relevance.
Let’s sum up which are the top ones.
Top 8 certificates in paid ads specialist resumes
- Google Adwords Certification
- Bing Ads Accredited Professional
- Facebook Blueprint
- LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
- Twitter Flight School
- YouTube Certification
- Oath Ad Platforms Certification (Yahoo)
As we’ve already mentioned in the resume skills section, common tech and soft skills on PPC resumes are slowly becoming industry standards.
To stand out from the crowd, you might want to wrap your head around advanced certifications and courses in psychology, copywriting, Javascript and MS Office (with focus on Excel).
Pro tip
The above certificates expire every one or two years. Add a date to your certificate sections to show yours is still relevant to present date.
And that’s how you write a job-winning PPC specialist resume
Before you make your own resume, here’s what to remember:
- Make sure to highlight at least three big achievements on your resume instead of responsibilities.
- Show you can influence with a handful of words in your resume summary.
- List any industry-recognised certifications you’ve acquired to prove you’re on top of trends.
- Include a skills section but make sure to relate it to your job history.
- Place a springboard link to your own blog or portfolio in the resume header
- Make sure you demonstrate the quality of your work and that you take pride in what you achieved.