If you have great recommendations on your LinkedIn profile, have you thought of including some snippets on your resume? Adding recommendations to your resume is a great way to have others toot your horn and increase your credibility. Now I’m not saying you need to include the entire recommendation, but an impressive statement attesting your skills, abilities, or performance can go a long way by adding another dimension to your resume. Here is an example:
I recently worked with a teacher who is very passionate about teaching and great in her field. After reviewing some of her performance reviews, and reference letters, and LinkedIn, I found some great statements from others that said in a couple sentences exactly what can be difficult to convey in a traditional resume. Without altering any of their comments, I added this little blurb into a small textbox next to her name:
“… an outstanding teacher who employs strategies geared toward enhancing students’ intellectual abilities and problem solving activities. Her room is alive with learning.”
B Smith, Administrator, Great Schools
This was included not only on her resume, but her cover letter as well – in essence creating a header for all her personal marketing documents.
Look through your performance reviews, peruse your recommendations on LinkedIn, and see if there are strong statements there that can attest to your abilities and expertise. With a little creative formatting, you can include a recommendation anywhere in your resume. A few tips to keep in mind:
- Keep it short and sweet. In our digital age keeping it short, direct, and to the point works wonders rather than a wordy recommendation, which will only distract the reader and potentially not add value.
- Make sure it’s strong. Verbalize the quote to yourself a couple times or to a friend. If you were to hear those couple sentences about a person you were getting to know, what image or idea would you get?
- Don’t let the recommendation take away from your resume, keeping in mind that your resume is after all, still a resume.
- Include the person’s name and title – which adds to the credibility of the recommendation.
- Steer away from using a recommendation from someone you provided a LinkedIn recommendation to. Potential employers will see this and there is a high potential that their recommendation will be automatically discredited.
Thank you to our resume expert, Jasmine Marchong, for this article and the resume tips.
Want more Resume and Cover Letter Tips? Watch these helpful videos Hallie has created by clicking here.
