9 Best Brand Manager Resume Examples: Writing Guide, Templates, and Application Tips

Ever wondered who’s in charge of your favorite brand? Brand managers live and breathe their client’s brand story, voice, and personality, ensuring that every single marketing campaign, interaction, and communication adheres to the brand strategy.

Not only that, but brand managers play a powerful role in overseeing how customers react to the brand, requiring in-depth knowledge of market research as well as project management and planning. All of these need to be conveyed in any brand manager resume that you write.

Whether you’re looking to become a brand manager or a brand director, this article will provide you with key insights on how to write a stellar brand marketing resume that blows the recruiters away.

How to Write a Stellar Brand Manager Resume

Brand managers are wizards when it comes to crafting compelling communication, so why should your brand manager resume be anything less? Sell yourself properly by showcasing your most notable achievements and skills from top to bottom, from resume header to additional achievements and beyond (AKA your brand manager cover letter).  

Resume Header

Let’s start nice and easy with the resume header, also known as the resume profile, headline, summary, and objective section. This quadruple threat of self-marketing is your first shot at grabbing the hiring manager’s attention, and it kicks off with the brand manager resume title. 

The resume headline is a succinct phrase that sums up who you are. It’s the first thing a hiring manager will learn about you, so you need to make this as engaging and eye-catching as possible. 

In other words, avoid bland brand manager resume titles like ‘Experienced Brand Manager’ and lean towards compelling brand manager resume samples like:

• Senior Brand Manager With 10+ Years Experience
• Passionate Brand Manager Specializing in the Fashion Industry

This is followed up by the resume profile, which is just fancy terminology for your contact information, such as phone number, email address, location, social media, and website or portfolio link. While you can certainly add more things, be sure to avoid adding personal information (like gender, age, marital status, and race) to your brand manager resume. Expected salary and insurance numbers are also to be avoided, as they’re only needed once you get the job.

Next onto the resume summary. This is a short, 2 to 3 sentence paragraph that outlines who you are and your most notable achievements and skills, such as: 

Last is the resume objective, where fresher brand managers can share their career goals and motivations, such as what they envision for the role and what they hope to gain. For example: 

Work experience

Regardless of the resume format you choose, the work experience section is the most important part of your brand manager resume. That’s because it shares with the recruiter your transferable skills and how they have benefitted relevant academic and professional experiences. 

This section may not require as much formal structure as your brand manager cover letter, yet there are still important aspects that need to be tended to to make sure your brand manager resume stands out, such as: 

• Using Keywords From the Job Description: While implementing keywords may feel like copy and pasting, it’s actually the best way to get yourself noticed. Not only is it one of the easiest ways to bypass rejection-by-ATS, but using keywords from the JD is also a great way to highlight how your experiences relate to the responsibilities and requirements of the job position. 
• Implementing Action Verbs: Aside from livening up your brand manager resume, action verbs help put you at the center of the action, making you the hero to any and every problem. Which is much better than using the passive voice when you’re trying to highlight your skills and achievements.

• Including Quantifiable Results: “Increased Instagram followers by 22%” looks a lot more credible than “greatly boosted the number of Instagram followers”. Why? Because you provided quantifiable results, giving explicit evidence of your achievements. These can be easily added into your work experience section by using the following template: Action Verb + Task + Quantifiable Result. 

Skills

Skills are an important part of any resume, but the number and relevance of skills for brand manager resumes depends on two factors: your chosen format and the responsibilities outlined in the JD.

As discussed in this article on types of resume formats, the functional format incorporates more skills, meaning that you may be needing to dip more into the 30 hard and soft skills listed below than chronological resume formats.

However, when doing so, make sure to strike a balance between hard and soft brand manager resume skills that are related to the position, as employers will be looking for both relevant technical and interpersonal skills.

Education

Regardless of whether you’re a senior or fresh-out-of-the-gate brand manager, it is imperative that you mention your academic background on your brand manager resume. Luckily, this section doesn’t have to be exhaustive - just the program name, institution, and dates.

Use the following brand manager resume example education section for an idea on how to insert your studies succinctly into the resume. Note that, should it be recent, you can also include any academic awards, relevant coursework or extracurricular activities.

Additional Information

From senior to fresher brand manager, it doesn’t hurt to add certifications, awards, and/or related extra-company activities to your brand manager resume, as these can offer further evidence and credibility of your skillset, work experience, and knowledge of brand management. 

What’s more, additional information like this is easily addable and only requires a few bullet points that state the certification title or name of event, name of the institution, and the date.

Brand Manager Resume Writing Tips

Now that we’ve covered the details on how to write a brand manager resume, it’s time to find out how to make your creation the very best it can be. Should you want to impress the hiring managers, you’d do well to adhere to the following 5 tips:

Choose the Right Format

There are actually three types of resume formats you can use as the basis for your brand manager application: chronological, functional, and hybrid. Though a chronological resume format is most common for brand manager resumes, whichever is best for you depends entirely on your own work experience and individual career path.

Pick an ATS-friendly Format

ATS refers to the Applicant Tracking System that large companies use to wheedle out unsuccessful applicants. While this can refer to applicants that didn’t meet the minimum requirements, individuals that fail to include the right keywords (i.e. those from the JD) or have unnecessary tables, charts, or columns are often also clumped into this group. 

Ensure that your resume passes the ATS inspection by picking an ATS-friendly brand manager resume template, like the ones offered by Cake. We have a variety resume templates ready for you to use and download.

Tailor the Resume to the Company

Remember how we said you need to use the breadcrumbs left for you in the JD to create the perfect brand manager resume? Well, it’s time for you to add your own breadcrumbs to lead the hiring manager to select you as the ideal candidate. 

There’s no better way to do this than by ensuring that you tailor your brand manager resume to the company, as well as the position. This is easily sorted by researching the company beforehand to uncover any particular values or culture that is emphasized - that you can sprinkle into your resume. 

Include a Portfolio

While a resume length should never exceed 2 pages, portfolios are a great way to provide more examples of work experience than a resume allows for. Portfolios are also particularly important for brand managers to demonstrate their skills and achievements, as they offer strong visual evidence for projects and assignments.

Coupled with action words and quantifiable results, an excellent portfolio, like those crafted using Cake, is the kind of stuff that will encourage recruiters to see you as the perfect candidate.

Brand Manager Resume Examples

Learning from others is always a good idea if you’re not sure where to start, so go on and browse the following examples to get an idea of what a stellar brand manager resume looks like. 

Entry-level Brand Manager Resume (No Experience)

Mid-level Brand Manager Resume

Senior Brand Manager Resume

How to Write a Brand Manager Cover Letter

While sometimes optional, it’s not uncommon for recruiters to use cover letters to gain a grasp of your writing skills, as well as to better understand the relationship between your experience and motivation to apply to the brand manager position.  

Ensure you satisfy the hiring manager’s expectations by respectfully and eloquently conveying the following in your brand manager cover letter: 

• Contact Information: Make it easy for recruiters to contact you by providing key contact information, such as your full name, email address, and mobile number.
• Introduction: Don’t forget to introduce who you are and what job you’re applying to (including what site you found it on). 
• Motivation: Mentioning your reason for applying to the job - i.e. your motivation - is key to letting the recruiter know that you want the position. It’s also a good idea to tie this into how your career goals and experience directly relate to the compny and the position. Qualification: You’ve already outlined your work experience on your brand manager resume, now it’s time to explicitly address what professional or academic experience makes you most suitable for the brand manager position. 
• Closing: Follow the proper resume format by thanking the recruiter for considering your application. You should also express your excitement for the opportunity, and politely provide a Call To Action, such as an interview. 
• Sign off: Even if it’s a pdf or a filled-in section on a website, it’s important to realize that a brand manager cover letter is still a formal document. In other words, certain resume formalities, like a polite sign off and signature, are still required.

Now let’s see all of these parts in action with the brand manager cover letter sample below.

Conclusion

While writing a brand manager resume may seem just like any other marketing resume guide you’ll find on Cake, only exceptional brand managers will know that different skills, certifications, and keywords can make or break your application. 

Make sure your resume doesn’t fall through the ATS by creating a punchy resume header, persuasive work experience section, and relevant skills section, as well as choosing the right format and tailoring your brand manager resume to the position using (or copy-and-pasting) keywords from the JD.

— Originally written by Eva O'Mara —