If you want to break into the C-Suite, you need an executive résumé—not just a polished version of your mid-career résumé.
A good executive résumé follows a few key guidelines.
I’ve worked in HR, recruiting, and executive coaching for over two decades. In this post, I’ll share with you how to craft your executive résumé in a way that makes you an obvious choice for the role.
Your Résumé Needs to Appeal to the Entire Hiring Committee
When you send out your résumé, it will typically pass through a whole group of stakeholders, each with their own priorities.
If you can understand the diversity of perspectives of the hiring committee, then you can effectively position yourself in a way where you impress everyone.
Here are the people who may see your résumé, in order of whose opinion will likely matter most.
The Hiring Manager (likely the CEO or another C-suite executive) wants to know that you can solve business challenges, get results, and gel with the leadership culture.
Board Members will focus on your strategic vision, governance experience, risk management approach, and your potential to increase the company valuation and maintain healthy stakeholder relationships.
The Department Executive (typically other C-suite members) wants someone who will contribute to the company’s long-term success, offer a complementary leadership style, and skillfully collaborate across departments.
The Recruiter (usually an executive recruiter from a third-party agency) acts as a gatekeeper who determines if your résumé gets passed along to the rest of the team or into the recycle bin. They'll make sure you meet the key requirements for this C-level position.
While that might seem like a lot to keep track of, if you just follow the simple steps in the rest of this article, you’ll have all your bases covered.
How Executive Résumés Differ from Middle Management Résumés
In writing an executive résumé, there are a few ways you need to differentiate it from a middle management résumé.
And a lot of that comes down to how you frame your professional experience. Here are three distinctions with examples:
Executive Résumé | Middle Management Résumé | |
Scope | Showcases strategic leadership ability that drives company-wide impact. | Highlights projects executed within a specific department. |
EG: “Developed and implemented an enterprise-wide process optimization strategy, increasing operational efficiency by 25%.” | EG: “Led a cross-functional team to streamline workflows, reducing project turnaround time by 25%.” | |
Level of Leadership | Focuses on vision, strategy, and high-level decision-making. | Emphasizes team leadership and operational execution. |
EG: “Built and led a high-performing sales organization, driving a 15% increase in company-wide revenue.” | EG: “Managed a team of 15 sales representatives, exceeding quarterly revenue targets by 15%.” | |
Level of Detail | Highlights big-picture achievements, emphasizing strategic impact and business growth rather than granular tasks. | Focuses on specific, hands-on contributions and measurable results within a department. |
EG: “Redesigned talent acquisition and development strategy, increasing workforce productivity by 25% and boosting retention by 30%.” | EG: “Spearheaded a new onboarding program that reduced employee ramp-up time from 90 to 60 days.” |
Knowing these distinctions will help you frame your résumé. From there, you just need to emphasize the right qualities.
5 Qualities You Should Emphasize in Your Executive Résumé
Beyond being qualified for the duties of your job, there are five crucial characteristics that you need to convey as an executive.
Strategic vision: Show that you don’t just solve immediate problems but that you identify long-term opportunities that make the company more profitable.
Leadership philosophy: Leadership needs to be a top value. As a C-suite executive, you’ll lead teams ranging from dozens to thousands of employees. Make it clear that you’ve thought deeply about your leadership principles, decision-making style, and how you inspire others.
Business impact: To work as an executive, you need results to back you up. Your résumé should be brimming with numbers and specific achievements that make your impact undeniable.
Cultural fit: It’s not just about how effective you are, your values matter too. For example, a powerhouse executive like Darren Woods (CEO of ExxonMobil) might not land a leadership role at Patagonia, a company that famously values environmentalism. If your values do align with the company’s mission and culture, don’t be bashful about talking about it.
Stakeholder management: As an exec, you’re not just leading internally—you also need to align and negotiate with external stakeholders. Depending on your role, that could mean securing investor buy-in, working with board members, managing regulatory compliance, or collaborating with industry partners. Where possible, highlight your ability to balance competing interests while advancing the company’s goals.
If your résumé speaks to these 5 elements, you will make it clear that you are a winning candidate.
Now you just need to make sure your résumé follows the right format.
The Format of an Executive Résumé
You want to create an easily digestible résumé so that when the hiring manager looks at it, they can get an idea of who you are and what you have to offer in about 6 seconds.
Shoot for 2 pages. 1 page just can’t convey everything. And more than 3 won’t get read. (The only caveat is if you’re working with the executive recruiter, and they tell you the CEO is looking for a four-pager.)
Be as concise as possible.
And think of your résumé as having three main parts.
Part 1 is an intro to who you are as a leader and what you can do. A quick glimpse should reveal a general picture of you. This section includes:
Your name and contact info
Your title
Executive summary
Areas of expertise
Part 2 is your work experience and results. This is diving deeper into the evidence that backs up your leadership experience.
And Part 3 is the bow on top. It includes extra information that might add a little more credibility. It includes:
Education
Awards
Certifications
Languages
Here’s what an executive résumé template should look like:
Let’s go over each section.
Name and contact info
Simple as it sounds. Include your:
Name
Phone number
Email (make sure to use your personal email, not your work email. You don’t want your potential employer to think you’re using resources from your current company)
LinkedIn profile
Websites if relevant (like a thought leadership blog, website for your personal brand, or portfolio)
Title
In general, I’d recommend putting the job you’re applying for as the title.
If you’re applying for a CFO, then for the title write “Chief Financial Officer.”
No need for a headline under your title, as your achievements will speak for themselves.
Profile statement
Your profile statement is a short paragraph where the reader can take a glance and see that you have the main areas the company is seeking. Don’t include any pizzaz or braggadocio here. Let the achievements in the rest of your résumé speak for themselves.
It’s vital that you completely tailor this section to what the company is looking for–don’t use a generic template for multiple applications.
In your profile statement, include information that was specifically asked for in the job prospectus as well as anything you heard through the grapevine.
To give you an idea, here’s an example of a C-level HR candidate's profile statement:
“Human resources executive leader with 15+ years’ experience driving strategic people and culture initiatives in healthcare, biotech, and staffing organizations.
Align people human resources strategies with organizational goals, foster inclusive workplace cultures, and exceed key performance indicators.
Launch successful complex programs and projects that deliver change management, innovative human capital solutions, employee engagement, and leadership and strengths-based coaching.”
Professional Experience
For each role you’ve had, I recommend writing a short paragraph describing the responsibilities of the role.
Then underneath that, use bullets to convey your achievements.
Try this go-to format for writing your bullets:
Action Verb + Impact
Here’s an example:
“Drove internal promotions 35% within 2 years by developing 500+ managers.”
(Note: don’t use colors like this in your résumé. In this case, it’s just to convey the components of each bullet.)
The most important thing here is the results. The company doesn’t care how you boosted internal promotions by 35%, they just care that you did it.
However, there may be achievements you’ve had that deserve a little more space. You may want to give context if a situation was high-stakes, or required exceptional strategic cunning.
In those cases, you can use this format:
Action Verb + Impact + Context
For example:
“Reduced attrition by 35% and increased executive engagement by 50% YOY amidst fragmented company culture that caused high executive turnover.”
While powerful, this format is more longwinded so use it intentionally
Number of bullet points
As far as the total number of bullets, never make a list longer than 5 bullets. It’s too hard for our brain to process lists any longer than that.
If you have more than five bullets to add to a role, you can break it up like this:
Key achievements
One
Two
Three
Four
Top projects
Five
Six
Seven
In general, shoot for 5-7 total bullets for your current role, 4-6 for previous exec roles, and 2-5 for non-exec roles. For jobs over 15 years old, it’s fine to just include the job title, company, and dates.
Education, awards, certifications.
If it’s relevant, consider including the following in their own short section. But don’t include these extras just to fill space—only if it’s notable for the position and helps you stand out
Education
Awards
Certifications
Training
Languages
Memberships to industry associations
Community Leadership
Your Executive Résumé Checklist
So you’ve written a killer résumé…congrats! But don’t send it yet! First, go through this checklist to make absolutely certain all your ducks are in a row.
✅ Triple-check contact information to avoid any typos.
✅ Verify that all pages fill the entire page.
✅ No "orphans" or "widows." Orphans are lines with just a single word. Widows are sentences that finish on the top of the next page.
✅ Paragraphs are descriptions of the role.
✅ Bullet lists are achievements.
✅ Achievements start with an active past-tense verb.
✅ No more than five bullets per list.
✅ Use numerical numbers versus spelled out version (EG “10” instead of “ten”)
Make Sure You Have an A+ Résumé
If you follow the tips in this article, your résumé should be in great shape.
But if you don’t want to take any chances, you could hire a professional résumé writer. From my experience, the most successful candidates have a team of a career coach and a résumé writer working with them to ensure they secure coveted executive interviews.
Your team will interview you to understand your work history and turn your career journey into a beautiful, compelling, polished résumé.
Check out this link to learn more about working with a professional career coaching team. Our executive-tier package also includes both coaching and expert résumé writing.
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