Copywriter Resume Writing Guide (+ Sample)

Well-designed copy is at the core of any successful marketing plan. Copywriters craft copy to sell products or services to the target audience.

Their duties include performing market research, analyzing competitors and audience, crafting copy to increase sales and customers’ preferences for the brand, and collecting feedback from customers to optimize their copies.

Note that copywriters are different from content writers. A copywriter sells the target audience to your brand and services, while content writers inform, educate, or instruct the target audience to build the groundwork for long-term sales.

Generally, copywriters craft short-form copy like landing pages, ads, and social media posts, while content writers write long-form blogs including white papers, EDM, and press releases.

Studies show that recruiters scan a resume for an average of 7 seconds. Therefore, you need a well-designed copywriter resume and a cover letter to demonstrate your skills and qualifications to attract potential recruiters.

Read the copywriter resume and cover letter guidelines below to successfully nail down your dream job!

Follow the 5-step guide to craft your copywriter resume that attracts recruiters!

ATS (Applicant Tracking System) is a resume-filtering system used by Fortune 500 companies to streamline the process of resume screening.

ATS scans, parses, and sorts out least-qualified resumes for opening positions. Hence, you should make your copywriter resume ATS-friendly to beat the system.

ATS favors the neat and clean resume. Don’t insert graphics, images, and charts since they are not readable for the system.

Also, not all ATS systems can parse information placed in the header and footer sections of a copywriter resume. Avoid placing important information in the header or footer.

Opportunity comes to the prepared mind. Before starting your copywriter resume, you could search for online copywriter resume templates and examples for reference and inspiration.

A tailored resume is the key to help you stand out from countless competitors.

To tailor a copywriter resume that impresses your potential recruiters, you should first research the industry, company, department, and job position to better understand the job requirements.

You could search for further information on the company’s official websites, white papers, annual reports, press releases, and social media sites, etc.

On top of that, you could insert important keywords like hard and soft skills from the job description to make your copywriter resume more relevant to the opening position.

Use numbers to draw recruiters’ eyeballs. Try to utilize rankings, ratings, volumes, and percentages to quantify your achievements and make them more reliable and impressive. 

For example, if you optimized a landing page’s copy and raised the conversion rate, you could quantify your results and write “boosted landing page conversion by 35% with content optimization.”

As a successful copywriter, you should have mastered various skills like copywriting, market analysis, business expertise, logical thinking, and creativity.

Besides, you should be good at communicating with colleagues from different departments to fully understand the products and services you’re promoting.  

Demonstrate your hard and soft skills in your copywriter resume to impress the recruiters.

Don’t forget to double-check the job description and make sure your strengths are relevant to the job requirements.

A copywriter resume objective is a statement of your career goals, showing recruiters your passion and ambitions. A resume objective is generally 2 to 3 sentences long.

1. Where to place the resume objective?
   It’s recommended to place the resume objective on the top of your copywriter resume, right below your name and contact info.
   
2. Things to include in the resume objective.
   First, you could briefly highlight your experiences like specific skill set and your years in the industry. Remember to keep it short and concise.
   
    Then, you could mention the company name and job position you’re applying for in the copywriter resume, and elaborate on how you could add value to your future company.
   
3. Things to avoid in the resume objective.
   Don’t make the resume objective too long or too generic. When summarizing your past work experience, you should focus on your achievements instead of your day-to-day responsibilities.
   
   Remember to make your job objective clear, concise, and relevant to the job opening.

A copywriter resume summary is 2 to 3 sentences summarizing your experience and qualifications that can convince recruiters to read the whole copywriter resume.

You should highlight your most competitive achievements like rewards, projects, and publications.

1. Where to place the resume summary?
   You could place it at the top of your copywriter resume, right after the personal information (name and contact information).
   
   It makes sure that the resume summary can come to recruiters’ eyes when they start reading your copywriter resume.
   
2. Things to include in the resume summary.
   You could share major achievements that are connected to the opening job.
   
   If you want to mention your work experience in the copywriter resume summary, don’t forget to explain your job position, major contributions, and quantify your results to make them more reliable.
   
3. Things to avoid in the resume summary.
   Please avoid generic statements that can’t showcase your competitiveness. For instance, don’t write statements like “I’m good at copywriting” or “I’m confident to be a good copywriter.”
   
   You could focus on the years of work experience, the number of projects, reviews from customers, or knowledge of the industry to demonstrate your qualifications.

The skill section is at the core of your copywriter resume. You could showcase both hard and soft skills to convince recruiters that you are the best fit for the job.

It’s recommended to write your skills for copywriter with a simple or extended bullet list. A bullet list helps recruiters to better understand your competitive advantages in a short time.

If you are a new graduate who is applying for an entry-level job, you could highlight your soft skills like “communication,” “time management,” and “problem-solving” in the copywriter resume as your strengths.  

1. Where to place the skills section on a resume?
   If you don’t have solid work experience, it’s recommended to place the skills section above your work experience section.
   
   On the contrary, if you are a senior applicant with solid work experience, you should place the skills section after the work experience section to prioritize your work history in the copywriter resume.
   
2. Things to include in the resume skills section.
   The more is not always better. Don’t stuff your copywriter resume with irrelevant and generic skills that can’t arouse any interest from recruiters.
   
   Make sure all the skills in your copywriter resume align with the job requirements. You can search for copywriter resume examples on Cake for more inspiration.
   
3. Things to avoid in the resume skills section.
   Copywriter masters words, so you should be extra focused when writing the copywriter resume. Please discard buzzwords and generic words like “nice,” “professional” and “good.” They can’t help recruiters understand your professional strengths.
   
    What’s more, avoid progress or percent bars in your copywriter resume. Recruiters won’t understand your proficiency of skills based on the bars. You could show your projects to demonstrate your proficiency.
   

If you are a fresh graduate applying for an entry-level copywriter job, don’t get frustrated about your limited work experience. Read the 5 pieces of advice and you can still craft a competitive copywriter resume! 

Advice 1: Choose the right resume format.
If you are applying for an entry-level job, the functional resume format would be a nice choice for you.

This format emphasizes the skills section as the main content of your copywriter resume, placed right under the personal information and resume summary to highlight your skills and extracurricular experience.

Advice 2: Adopt a career objective.
A career objective (or a resume objective) demonstrates your career goals and ambitions to recruiters.

You must make your copywriter resume objectives relevant to the job requirements, and it’s highly suggested to insert the company name and job title you’re applying for into the career objective.

Advice 3: Highlight your education.
As a fresh graduate, you should highlight your educational background in the copywriter resume.

Don’t forget to list down your degree, the location of your school, the name of your school, your majors, and the year of graduation. Your minors and GPA are optional content. If you have taken courses relevant to copywriting, it’s recommended to list them too.

Advice 4: Include your portfolio/blog/personal website.
Grab every opportunity to showcase your experience and strengths!

If you have copywriting portfolios, blogs, or personal websites that can showcase your copywriter works, don’t hesitate to include a link to them in your application document.

Advice 5: Write a sincere cover letter.
A well-designed copywriter cover letter helps you make a good first impression on the recruiters.

Include your contact information, the position you’re applying for, your intention for job application, your competitive advantages (skills, accomplishments, work history, or education background) in the copywriter cover letter.