Chief Marketing Officer Resume: Examples & Writing Tips for 2023

Chief marketing officers are engineers specializing in human needs.

You’re a business maestro.

You coordinate between customer expectations and the possibility of further development of products.

Your sharp analytical thinking helps you create the right products for the right consumers.

But unfortunately, not every hiring manager can see what you’re responsible for.

So when writing your chief marketing officer resume, you have to remind them of two things:

• How vital you were to your former employers (to highlight your experience).
• What hiring you would mean to the business (How will you help it grow?).

The secret to creating a stellar chief marketing officer resume is to:

• Think of yourself as the product, your resume as the marketing channel, and the hiring manager as your target audience.
• Find your unique value proposition as a CMO. Then promote it throughout different sections in your resume.
• Not sell yourself as a generalist. Instead, combine what you want to achieve with what the job requires to find a unique voice to communicate in.

• 7 chief marketing officer resume examples
• How to tailor your chief marketing officer resume to the position you’re applying to
• How to talk about your value while showing how you can help the recruiter’s company
• Ways to describe your duties as a chief marketing officer
• 20 Important skills that hiring managers look for when choosing the right candidate

Looking for Related Resumes?

• Brand Manager Resume Examples
• eCommerce Marketing Resume Examples
• Marketing Manager Resume Examples
• Marketing Associate Resume Examples
• Marketing Director Resume Examples

How to Write a Chief Marketing Officer Resume

When marketing is at its best, it brings the whole organization together.

Recruiters understand that very well. And they’re looking for the best chief marketing officer to help them achieve it.

Each section you write in your resume has to support the claim that you are a professional marketer.

Show how things changed for your former employers after they hired you. And also, dive into more details about how you helped identify a target audience and communicate with it.

The best chief marketing officers today are result-oriented. They continuously test out new marketing ideas and promotional activities.

They develop new strategies to meet end-users where they are and serve them top-notch customer experience.

Chief marketing officers lead marketing teams. And they guide them to test and improve strategies intended to increase revenue.

For more information on the best resume formats, read our guide: The Best Resume Formats You Need to Consider (5+ Examples Included).

Chief Marketing Officer Resume Header: how to write one

Does the header section in your CMO resume look like this?

It’s an okay version, but it only contains general information.

It lacks specificity to the job you’re applying to, and it doesn’t give the recruiter a chance to know more about you.

Instead, let’s try this:

In addition to all the necessary information, this header has a link to your LinkedIn profile.

That allows the hiring manager to know more about you in a very short time.

Also, it includes a brief reference to your qualifications in the field. And that hints that you are a qualified candidate for the job.

Here’s the information you should include in your chief marketing officer header:

• Name
• Job Title
• Email Address
• Location
• Phone Number
• (Professional/Personal) Website or LinkedIn profile

If you want more ideas for stand-out resume headers, read through our guide Perfecting Your Resume Header so You Get Noticed.

Chief Marketing Officer Resume Objective or Summary - tips & recommendations

In a few sentences, you can leave an outstanding first impression on your recruiter.

You’ll encourage them to read further while paying close attention to everything you say in the rest of your resume.

Make sure to avoid writing fluff or relying on filler words to make your point.

All that shows that you’re a qualified copywriter who can lead marketing teams to craft persuasive web copy, white papers, product descriptions, and blog posts.

You also have to rely on your previous winning campaigns and products to make your point.

Then you can back that up with concrete numbers such as ROI, sales revenue, website conversions rates, etc.

Because there are a million things you can say in the summary, let’s begin first with what not to say in your resume summary.

Starting your summary with an “I” gives an early negative impression. It makes it seem like the whole paragraph is going to be about you and what you want.

That’s not something your recruiter is going to be pleased with.

They want you to tell them why they should care:

• How have you helped your former employer?
• What change will you bring after you’re hired in the new company?

Most CMOs are more than willing to go the extra mile and work for long hours if that helps the company to thrive.

Therefore, hard-working they’ll expect from you.

On top of that, this summary lacks proof of your eight years of experience as a CMO.

• What business and marketing aspects were you in charge of during that time?
• Did you have any successful marketing campaigns?
• Were you responsible for any successful products?
• Did you receive any positive feedback from your customers?

Show some precise numbers and concrete results.

And while at it, briefly tell them how you did it.

Let’s try this again.

This is a bit better, but it’s still ineffective.

Due to two reasons reasons:

• It’s vague, generalized, and provides very little context.
• It doesn’t reflect your years of marketing expertise.

We can do better:

This summary has everything an amazing summary needs because it:

• States some of your most important past accomplishments.
• Features your long years of experience working as a chief marketing officer.
• Provides concrete results with precise numbers.
• Shows that you’re not mass sending your resume by mentioning the name of the organization you’re applying to.

For more tips on crafting an attention-grabbing resume summary, check out our guide Resume Summary: How-To Guide (30+ Examples You Need To See). If you’re looking to craft a compelling resume objective instead, read our writing tips at 10 Resume Objective Examples You Need to Steal (How-to-Guide).

How Should You Frame Your Chief Marketing Officer Resume Experience?

Marketing is a creative field. It requires tons of different skills working together to produce the desired results.

This is often where chief marketing officers get lost when creating their resumes.

Sure!

You may have launched dozens of successful campaigns. Or sold millions worth of online products in your career.

But not every task you accomplish is relevant to a chief marketing officer’s role.

Your experience section needs to be tailored specifically to show that you can:

• Handle high-level metrics such as branding and lead generation
• Work with individuals from different departments with different positions in the company
• Lead teams of different sizes and efficiently delegate responsibility for execution
• Conduct in-depth analysis and measure ROI and marketing spending.

The vagueness in this example makes you feel like the applicant doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

It gives the impression that you’ve copy-pasted those responsibilities from the web.

Let’s tweak it a little bit by adding specific details on your past roles and accomplishments.

This is detailed enough to make the hiring manager trust you more and have a positive feeling about hiring you.

For more ideas on how to create an actionable resume experience section, check out our guide How to Describe Your Resume Work Experience.

How to Describe the Duties of a chief marketing officer on a Resume

• Set new branding and marketing strategies that increased brand awareness and lead generation.
• Participated in research to come up with new product ideas and growth strategies.
• Managed and supervised the in-house marketing team on several projects.
• Controlled the marketing budget and conducted sales forecasts.
• Planned and implemented new marketing strategies and advertising campaigns.

Does your chief marketing officer resume need an education section?

Let's be honest.

You're applying for executive level positions that enable you to sit alongside the C-Suite".

You've already proven to be an excellent marketer capable of driving and saving millions of dollars.

So, whether you want to go to Havard or Cambridge doesn't really matter - but it does present an interesting talking point.

Here’s some information you can include on your most recent degree:

• University/College name
• Location
• Study years or year of graduation
• Degree type

Browse more essential tips on how to feature education on your resume, in our guide Perfecting the Education Section on Your Resume.

Chief marketing officer resume’s 20 skills to showcase

A lot of what you do as a chief marketing officer is data, strategy and people-oriented.

Your role requires you to work with lots of different teams within the company. Therefore, you have to be both a leader and a team player at the same time.

And your recruiter knows that.

Let’s face it.

Even if you could list hundreds of skills in your resume, unless they're carefully picked, you’d still not be chosen for the job.

Only include major skills that gain you a competitive advantage against other candidates.

For example, every CMO applying to this job knows how to use Microsoft Office. So, it would be counterintuitive to include that in your resume.

Instead, focus on these skills:

Are you still not sure what skills will win recruiters over? Check out our guide on How to Create A Resume Skills Section To Impress Recruiters (+10 Examples You Need to See).

Chief marketing officer resume certificates - should you include them?

Struggling to highlight certain aspects of your experience throughout your resume?

This section is your savior.

Most job applications state clearly what the job requires you to do.

Getting a certification is a genuine way to show your interest in the job and draw attention to your high ambitions for the position.

For more information on how to properly list resume certifications, we recommend reading our guide How To List Certifications On A Resume (Examples Included).

Other sections to include on your resume

Depending on the company, job seniority level and your location, you may want to include more sections to your CMO resume:

• Language skills
• Hobbies and interests
• Projects
• Volunteer work
• Highlights
• References
• LinkedIn on Resume
• GPA

What are the tricks for the best chief marketing officer resume?

• Create a resume specifically tailored to the chief marketing officer role
• Use your summary as a brief introduction to showcase your sales and marketing skills
• Highlight your successful campaigns and brilliant marketing ideas throughout your resume
• Use precise numbers to prove your competence in understanding customers and creating winning products
• Use certifications to authentically turn your career shortcomings into strong selling points