The US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a projected 3% growth in the job market for top executives, including vice presidents, from 2022 to 2032. This growth translates to an average of 311,600 job openings each year during this decade. These openings are largely due to the need for replacements as workers retire or change professions.
Pursuing a position as a vice president? The employment landscape looks encouraging.
Despite the challenges of high stress and the need for rapid decision-making across various levels, achieving a VP position can be extremely fulfilling. To aim for a VP position, ensure your resume is top-notch, distinguishing you in the eyes of CEOs and hiring managers.
Check out a range of resume templates with expert tips and best practices. In this guide, you'll learn:
- Top strategies for tailoring a vice president resume that stands out
- Most important resume sections for vice presidents and how to write them
- Why staying relevant to the job offer is vital to making your resume more effective
- How to feature your work experience in a way that inspires recruiters
- Most sought-after technical and soft skills to include in your resume
For those seeking alternatives to our vice president resume example, we offer a wide range of other options.
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Vice president resume example
Here's where applicants really make their resumes stand out:
- Highlights significant achievements in leadership roles, such as increasing production efficiency by 20%, reducing costs by 15%, and driving a 30% increase in company revenue, which demonstrates the ability to deliver tangible results.
- Emphasizes expertise in Lean Manufacturing and sustainability initiatives, showcasing specialized skills that are highly relevant and valuable to manufacturing leadership roles.
- Includes certifications like Lean Manufacturing Certification and Advanced Project Management, which underline the applicant's commitment to continuous learning and professional development in key areas of manufacturing and project management.
To effectively highlight key information in a format suitable for a vice president role, understanding the most impactful strategies is crucial. Continue reading to discover top practices for making your credentials resonate.
How to format a vice president's resume
Preparing the vice president's resume involves thoughtful planning, similar to planning a key business project. It's important to align your resume with the job's specific needs, ensuring your skills and experiences are clearly linked to what the job description seeks.
Select resume sections that directly respond to the needs of the position. For a vice president application, consider these guidelines:
- Reverse chronological format: Highlight your career progression by listing recent roles first, showcasing your advancement to executive leadership.
- Resume file format: Use PDF to ensure your resume's layout is preserved across all devices.
- Contact information: Ensure your resume contact details are current, including a professional email, phone number, and location.
- Resume length: Strive for a maximum of two pages for your resume to concisely yet effectively highlight your leadership roles and accomplishments.
- Resume font: Use fonts like Lato, Rubik, or Montserrat in your resume to display the professional and authoritative nature of a vice president role.
This approach ensures your resume not only meets the expectations for a vice president position but also stands out in the selection process.
Different markets have specific resume styles – a Canadian resume, for instance, may require a different approach.
If you're uncertain about the best way to highlight your skills for a vice president role, our free ATS resume checker can help. For instance, it suggests methods to emphasize your quick decision-making skills across various levels, vital for VP roles. This service evaluates your resume on 16 critical points to make it stand out, enhancing your chances of getting more interview calls.
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To properly organize your resume for a vice president role, make sure to follow formatting practices that spotlight key sections effectively.
The top sections on a vice president resume:
- Executive Leadership Experience: This showcases your ability to handle high-level responsibilities, critical decision-making skills, and your capacity to steer the company in the right direction.
- Business Development Achievements: To highlight your track record in driving business growth, improving revenues, and expanding profit margins.
- Advanced Academic Education: To emphasize the candidate's relevant academic achievements and professional qualifications, underlining leadership readiness.
- Strategic Planning and Execution Skills: Recruiters look for this to examine your ability in setting long-term goals, planning strategies, and ensuring their successful execution.
- Crisis Management: Recruiters seek this to see your ability to lead and manage change, handle unforeseen situations tactfully and keep the company focused on its goals amidst change and crisis.
For vice president roles, resumes should be tailored to highlight strategic leadership and significant achievements. While they can extend to two pages to detail relevant experiences and accomplishments, it's vital to keep content focused and impactful. Each section of your resume should add meaningful content, keeping the hiring manager engaged without overwhelming them with unnecessary details. A concise, two-page maximum is advised to align closely with executive search expectations, ensuring all information is essential and directly relevant to the VP level.
Streamlining your resume to remove non-critical details will make it more effective in capturing recruiters' attention.
What recruiters want to see on your resume:
- Proven Leadership Skills: Recruiters prioritize this to ensure the candidate can lead teams effectively, set a vision, and drive performance towards organizational goals.
- Strategic Thinking: This is important for recruiters to ascertain the candidate's ability to make strategic decisions that can steer the company towards success.
- Relevant Experience: Recruiters look for relevant industry experience to ensure the candidate understands the unique challenges and opportunities within the sector.
- Relationship Building Skills: This showcases the ability of the candidate to forge strong relationships with key stakeholders - an essential skill for achieving strategic alignment and cooperation.
- Financial Proficiency: This is crucial in a vice president role, as recruiters want to ensure the candidate can manage budgets effectively and make sound financial decisions for the organization.
With a strong foundation in place, it's time to refine our strategy further. Demonstrate your skill in analyzing industry trends and tailoring executive strategies to these insights, showcasing your agility in leadership and strategic planning. This approach highlights your proactive and adaptive leadership style in a VP role, essential for driving organizational success in dynamic markets. Surely, this approach will impress not just recruiters but also CEOs and company presidents.
How to write your vice president resume experience
For a VP position, your resume should go beyond just listing tasks. It's about showing how you've led strategies that resulted in real, positive changes. Executives and boards want to see the actual impact of your work, not just that you managed a team or project. So, instead of saying you "led a team," share how your leadership increased efficiency, revenue, or customer satisfaction. This approach proves your value and sets you apart as a leader.
06/2011 - 08/2020 
- •Managed product development and sales operations
- •Met with investors to negotiate business deals
- •Responsible for training and supervising mid-level managers
Here's why these bullet points might not effectively showcase your capabilities in a resume:
- Lacks Specific Results
- Missing Quantifiable Achievements
- Vague Responsibilities
06/2011 - 08/2020 - •Increased employee retention by 43% through proactive leadership, problem resolution, and effective communication
- •Implemented new company policies and procedures to improve the overall effectiveness of the corporation
- •Saved $2M annually by reducing overhead expenses and renegotiating client contracts
See how a VP of Operations effectively showcases their accomplishments.
- Highlights clear and measurable results.
- Demonstrates understanding of operational procedures and methodologies.
- Connects initiatives to business results.
For VPs, emphasizing strategic leadership and impactful outcomes on a resume is vital. It's important to tailor your resume to pass through ATS (Applicant Tracking System) filters, which many organizations use to initially screen candidates. These systems evaluate resumes based on specific keywords and criteria relevant to the job. As ATS technology becomes more advanced, it's crucial to ensure your resume includes the right keywords and adopts unique, professional fonts such as Rubik, Lato, and Raleway. This combination of strategic content and visual appeal will help your resume stand out and be more effective.
After updating your resume with modern fonts, the next step is to focus on how to effectively quantify the impact of your work.
How to quantify impact on your resume
Based on our expert assessment, here's our advice:
- Include revenue growth percentages achieved under your leadership to demonstrate your direct impact on business expansion and profitability.
- Mention specific cost-reduction figures and efficiency improvements to showcase your ability to optimize operations and enhance margins.
- Detail the percentage increase in market share to highlight your strategic vision and success in capturing more of the market.
- List the exact number of new markets or regions your strategies have successfully penetrated, showing your capacity for business scaling and geographic expansion.
- Provide figures on customer satisfaction improvements, such as Net Promoter Score (NPS) increases, to emphasize your focus on customer experience and service quality.
- Quantify the impact of digital transformation initiatives you've led, including adoption rates or productivity gains, to display your forward-thinking and innovation-driven leadership.
With each job duty, try to include tangible metrics and quantifiable results to support your claims. It's a smart approach to enhance your professional standing and highlight your skill set.
How to list your hard skills and soft skills on your resume
Highly-effective vice presidents feature both hard and soft skills when applying to new positions:
Hard skills are more specific to the role and are indispensable for your success at the company. That includes skills like accounting, budgeting, management, sales, marketing, etc.
Soft skills, on the other hand, are non-technical. They're unquantifiable qualities that are determined by your personality traits and character.
This second type of skill helps you handle different tasks effectively and excel at your VP role.
You'll combine the two to make an outstanding skills section that gets you hired.
Best hard skills for your vice president resume
- Accounting
- Budget planning
- SCRUM & Agile methodology
- Marketing
- Data analysis
- Business development
- Finance
- Sales forecasting
- Strategic planning
- Business Intelligence Tools
- Familiarity with CRM systems
- Operations management
- Risk assessment
- Expertise in Supply Chain Management
- Performance Metrics
Best soft skills for your vice president resume
- Leadership
- Communication
- Decision-making
- Team building
- Motivation
- Negotiation
- Customer satisfaction
- Business planning
- Public speaking
- Training and mentoring
- Problem-solving
- Conflict resolution
- Adaptability
- Creativity
- Time management
- Multitasking
- Crisis Management
Placing relevant qualifications on your resume strengthens your profile, a wise strategy for VPs aiming to showcase their comprehensive capabilities.
How to list your certifications and education on your resume
For a vice president role, having an advanced degree in business, leadership, or a relevant field is often essential. Here's how to effectively outline your educational background in your resume.
09/2022 - 11/2023 - •Focused Study: Strategic leadership, global business trends, and executive decision-making
05/2017 - 03/2021 - •Core Competencies: Operational strategies, financial management, and organizational leadership
Gaining advanced certifications for vice presidents underlines their expertise and proactive approach to navigating the complexities of today’s business landscape.
Best certifications for your vice president resume
For VPs, it's all about making every section of your resume clear, especially the summary. This section should clearly highlight your key leadership achievements, setting a solid foundation for discussing your comprehensive career successes.
How to write your vice president resume summary or objective
If you're aiming for a VP position and have plenty of experience, adding a summary at your resume's start is wise. It allows you to briefly showcase the skills and accomplishments the job ad focuses on. This provides a quick snapshot for hiring managers to judge your fit for the leadership role.
The first example doesn't work well because it:
- Uses general terms without specific achievements or skills.
- No quantifiable results or timelines to demonstrate impact or success.
- Broad statements without detailed examples or outcomes of projects led.
The second summary example is better because it:
- Details specific increases in efficiency and profitability.
- Shows leadership in significant organizational changes.
- Highlights quick achievement of goals.
- Demonstrates improved team performance.
Additional sections for a vice president resume
For vice president roles, highlighting your strategic leadership and influence is crucial. Consider these sections for your resume:
- Courses: Demonstrates continuous improvement and knowledge in strategic leadership and business trends.
- Languages: Shows the ability to lead and communicate across global markets.
- Awards: Highlights achievements and recognitions in leadership and business excellence.
When discussing achievements, make sure to highlight them clearly.
How to put an Achievements section on a resume
The Achievements section showcases key initiatives, outlining objectives, strategies employed, roles undertaken, and outcomes realized. It provides a detailed look at the impact and success of each major project.
Key takeaways
- Highlight the 3% growth in VP roles until 2032, with 311,600 yearly openings, emphasizing the need for strong resumes to stand out in a competitive market.
- Emphasize strategic leadership and achievements to showcase your VP capacity to lead and drive success.
- Quantify your contributions with specific metrics to highlight your impact on efficiency, revenue, and team performance.
- Detail your executive education and relevant certifications to underline your leadership readiness and industry expertise.
- Balance listing technical skills and personal attributes to present a well-rounded profile for a VP role.
- Tailor your resume to match the job description, ensuring relevance and alignment with the role's requirements.
