Did you know that 95% of Fortune 500 companies use software known as applicant tracking systems (ATS) to automatically sort through resumes? This means that a whopping 75% of resumes never get seen by recruiters or human resources. Getting your resume in front of human eyes has never been harder but more important than now.
As a content writer, I’ve re-written countless resumes to earn side money or as favors to friends and family. And, as someone who’s been on the other side, hiring for various positions, I’ve seen well-meaning resumes that lack charm or compelling statistics.
Whatever customer service role you apply for, a hiring manager is going to look for a well-crafted resume that adequately demonstrates you can handle the breadth and challenges of the role. While it may seem impossible to achieve all of this in a one-page resume, there are concrete steps you can take to pass the software that sorts resumes and then convince a hiring manager you’re a good fit.
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In this post, I’ll review the sections you need to include in a successful customer service resume, as well as example resumes that you can use as inspiration for your next application.
Table of Contents
- Customer Service Resume Skills
- What is a Customer Service Resume?
- Getting Past Applicant Tracking Systems and Resume Bots
- Top 8 Best Customer Service Resume Examples
- What to Include in Your Customer Service Resume
- Writing a Stellar Customer Service Resume Isn’t Easy — But It's Worth It
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What is a Customer Service Resume?
A customer service resume provides a comprehensive but concise summary of your job history, professional experience, and special skills in the customer service field. It‘s also a great place for candidates to showcase any achievements or accomplishments they’ve had in previous customer service positions.
Some common customer service roles include:
- Customer service representatives
- Customer support specialists
- Customer success managers
Getting Past Applicant Tracking Systems and Resume Bots
I’ve often found that when a great job position is posted, companies get a lot of applicants who aren’t qualified or, sometimes, aren’t even real (think bots). This means organizations will turn to application tracking systems to ensure they don’t waste their time on unqualified candidates.
Here are some tips for getting your resume into the hands of the hiring manager:
1. Get a free resume checker score.
There are lots of free online resume checkers that can give you a score so you can see how you’d fare against different resume software. One of my favorites is Worded, an AI-powered platform that gives feedback on your resume or LinkedIn profile.
If you want some of the more advanced features like content suggestions, you’ll need to upgrade to premium. But if you just want a place to start, Worded can give you a free resume score.
Another software that can help you get past bots that filter through resumes is Jobscan, a free resume checker that uses technology to decide which resumes make it to the “yes” piles and how your resume compares.
2. Make sure your LinkedIn profile matches your resume.
A LinkedIn profile that matches the claims of your resume helps recruiters and hiring managers know that you’re a real person. LinkedIn allows fellow employees and managers to verify that you have the skills you say you have. So, after you update your resume, be sure to go through your LinkedIn profile and update accordingly.
3. Consider reaching out to the hiring manager or recruiter directly.
A lot of job postings have someone you can contact if you have further questions. Once you’ve applied for the job, shoot the hiring manager a quick email or message that briefly introduces yourself. As someone who has hired candidates in the past, this helps me know that you’re a real person, and if you make a good impression, it can help your resume skip the automated evaluation steps.
4. Make sure your certifications are up-to-date and clearly listed.
Often, ATS systems will search for specific certifications to ensure a candidate can handle the role. Depending on what kind of role you’re applying for, be sure to include any applicable certifications.
For example, if a role requires heavy Excel experience, you may want to obtain a Microsoft Excel Expert Certification. Or, if a customer service job deals with sensitive data in the healthcare industry, you may want to list any HIPAA certifications you possess. Check out these free courses offered by HubSpot to get more certifications for your resume.
Top 8 Best Customer Service Resume Examples
Check out the list below for the top ten best customer service resume examples for roles across the industry. Each customer service resume sample includes what we like about it.
1. Entry Level Customer Service Representative
What I like: I think this resume is a great example of someone who has no direct customer service experience but does have experience interacting with customers of different backgrounds. The fictitious Justine has made a clean-looking resume that clearly states the experience she has had working with customers and shows familiarity with hitting a metric of some kind in her sales position.
2. Mid-Level Customer Service Representative
What I like: This resume is a great example of someone who has a mixed background with both directly and tangentially relevant experience. She was a bank teller before she broke into the customer service industry, and putting it on her resume shows diversity and opens a conversation about why she began a career in customer service.
3. Experienced Customer Service Representative
What we like: I like that it's easy to tell right away that “Marie Clark” has been killing it in the customer service industry for some time now. She takes some space at the top to highlight what sets her over the edge as an applicant, making it clear she loves what she does and wants to make a career out of it.
4. Personalized Customer Service Resume
What we like: This clean and creative resume helps the candidate stand out right off the bat while still allowing room to fit all of their awesome experience. I like how this resume also shows the candidate’s growth within the same industry.
5. Classic Customer Service Resume
What we like: This is a prime example of a no-nonsense resume that still looks great. It's classic, clean, and clear, which can be a relief to recruiters and hiring managers who may look at hundreds of resumes a day. This formatting allows your experience to speak for itself and would be a great option for a candidate who has a lot of prior experience.
6. Formal Customer Service Resume
What we like: This resume is an effective mix of the first two I‘ve shown in this article. The pops of color and headshot show uniqueness, while the formatting leaves a lot of space for what you want to include. It’s muted and easy to read, so no one element is overwhelming to the point of throwing it off balance.
7. Customer Service Manager Resume
What we like: I appreciate that this customer service manager’s resume highlights the candidate‘s experience and impact, which is critical when applying for a leadership role. Using color, a modern font, and bullet formatting, this resume effectively divides the different sections while highlighting the most important aspects of this candidate’s background.
8. Call Center Resume
What we like: This resume outlines all of the skills and qualifications needed to work in a call center. It starts by listing the candidate‘s key attributes and then backs them up using their professional experience. On the right, it outlines other skills that the candidate possesses and categorizes them by either "hard" or "soft." This shows me not only what this candidate can do but also that they’re organized and think logically.
How to Write the Best Customer Service Resume
I’ve found that writing an excellent customer service resume can be done in five simple steps. Check out the image below to get an idea of what you’ll need to do:
Let's review each step below.
1. Start from a template.
I can’t stress how important choosing a well-thought-out template is. While it‘s still important to make sure your resume is unique to you, there are a number of excellent templates available to help you get started. For example, HubSpot has a selection of free resume templates that are fully customizable to the job you’re applying for.
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2. Keep it clear and concise.
Keep in mind that you only have a limited amount of time to impress job recruiters. And many are quickly skimming through a sea of resumes for each open position. Keep your resume short and sweet, and make it easy for employers to see that you're the right fit up front. I wouldn’t go past one page, even if that means cutting past jobs that don’t fit. Remember, you really want to focus on jobs and roles you’ve held that are applicable to the one you’re applying for.
3. Use the right keywords.
Speaking of skimming, hiring managers are also looking for a few magic words that tell them you're a good candidate to move to the next round. Look at the job description closely, and make sure your resume aligns with the language your prospective employer is using. I will sometimes plug in a job posting into ChatGPT and ask what the top keywords I should highlight are. You can also ask an AI tool to look at your resume and determine what changes you should make to target that specific job.
4. Highlight specific accomplishments.
When I hire for a position, I try to look past meaningless platitudes like “positively interacts with customers” or other generic statements. To combat being too general, it’s important that you get specific and try to quantify your experiences where possible (e.g., resolve x amount of customer inquiries per day).
In fact, I wouldn’t include any statements listed under your past jobs that don’t include a specific statistic. A great way to think about what to quantify is to ask:
- How many people did I help?
- What results did I generate?
- What problems did I solve?
- How many team members did I mentor/help?
- How much money did I save or generate at a company?
Here’s a great list of action verbs to use in your resume.
5. Showcase your personality.
Show recruiters what makes you, you. What qualities will you bring to the team? Infusing your personality is one more way you can separate yourself from the crowd. I remember one candidate I chose to hire listed their personal passion projects, such as a blog he was writing and a podcast he held.
While they didn’t directly relate to the position he applied for, it gave the team a better understanding of his likes and dislikes, as well as his personality. Customer service really is all about being personable, so don’t be afraid to share a little about yourself.
Now that we‘ve reviewed some fundamentals about how to write your resume let’s get into what you should include.
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- Google Docs
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What to Include in Your Customer Service Resume
The best sections to include in your customer service resume are an objective or summary along with details about your skills, experience and accomplishments, and education.
Customer Service Resume Objective or Summary (Optional)
Depending on the position, it may make sense to start your resume with an overview of who you are, what you‘re looking for, and what you’ll bring to the position. You can put this in paragraph or bullet form at the beginning of your resume to make it clear to whoever is reading it.
However, if you're running out of room on the page, I’d omit a summary. You can always take what you have written and weave it into other sections of your resume.
Here are a few examples of customer service principles you can highlight:
Putting the customer first.
Companies know that customer interactions with the product and the business are incredibly important. Making this stance clear will show hiring managers that your priorities are in line with theirs.
Teaching rather than explaining.
Customer autonomy is a huge bonus for a hiring manager. Let them know that you want to be so good at what you do that the customer's understanding of the product might reach a level where they no longer reach out to your team as often.
Desiring challenges from an unpredictable environment.
A day in the life of a customer service representative can be extremely unpredictable. Adding this as an objective will make it clear that you‘re ready to hit the ground running. Plus, it will reassure the hiring managers that you know what you’re applying for.
Growing your technical and product knowledge.
Learning is a huge part of customer service. So, showing eagerness to grow in technical and product knowledge is extremely vital to include on your resume.
Next up, let's talk about skills.
Customer Service Resume Skills
- Learning Potential
- Communication
- Adaptability
- Self-Motivation
- Product and Industry Expertise
- Emotional Intelligence
- Problem-Solving
- Improvisation
Another important section to include is the skills that you've developed as a customer service professional. Here are eight good ones to highlight.
1. Learning Potential
This is the big one. No matter what level of knowledge you have about the product or the business, you're going to be trained and coached. With this in mind, you need to show a willingness to learn, whether it be in a classroom or on the phone with a customer.
2. Communication
Though somewhat self-explanatory, these skills become more nuanced when you think about the different types of customers a company has. Can you take a technical concept and clearly explain it to people of all backgrounds? Plus, in addition to customers, you're going to need to be able to effectively communicate with your team too.
3. Adaptability
This can range from scheduling adaptability to troubleshooting on the fly. What do you do when your “surefire” troubleshooting step doesn't work? Are you cool under the pressure of the follow-up question? No matter what your level of product knowledge is, having adaptability and flexibility is going to be an asset.
4. Self-Motivation
Even though many companies block time for their reps to be on the phone, it‘s likely that no one will tell you what to do with your day as a whole. Self-motivation is a huge personality trait in this position because it’s one that no training team or manager can teach. At the end of the day, you have to want to be there and want to help solve for your customers.
5. Product and Industry Expertise
While this trait isn‘t imperative for getting hired, it is a nice detail that can stand out on your resume. Showing that you have a firm understanding of the product and its industry lets hiring managers know that you’re not only ahead of other candidates but that you also have a genuine passion for the business.
6. Emotional Intelligence
While product knowledge may be optional at first, emotional intelligence isn't. Emotional intelligence refers to your ability to interpret the thoughts and feelings of others and respond to them in an appropriate way. This skill is incredibly important for service reps because it creates a personalized and delightful customer experience.
7. Problem-Solving
If you know the saying, “When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade,” then your resume should make you look like an enterprise-level lemonade salesperson. Customer service is all about solving problems, and often, the solutions to those problems aren't clear. In many cases, reps need to think on their feet to come up with creative solutions to meet customer needs.
8. Improvisation
As a customer service rep, it's your job to do everything within reason to prevent churn. Sometimes, this requires creative problem-solving and the ability to improvise when things go wrong. Keeping cool and making the right choices in stressful situations is an incredibly valuable skill in customer service.
Once you‘ve laid out your skills, you’ll need to back them up.
Next up, let's talk about professional experience and accomplishments.
Customer Service Resume Experience & Accomplishments
In this section, you'll want to cover your recent professional experience in-depth, especially with regard to your career progression, projects completed, and milestones reached.
Here are some examples.
Customer Service or Professional Experience
If you‘re applying for a position in customer service and you’ve already worked in a customer-facing role, make sure your resume highlights your industry experience. I like to see what industry your company was a part of, what metrics you used to measure success, what goals you achieved, and the impact you've had on the company.
If you‘re applying for a customer service role and you don’t have industry experience, do some brainstorming about the transferable skills and experiences that would serve you in a customer-facing role. For example, if your previous experience is in marketing, you've probably developed effective communication skills. Most importantly, think about why you want to move into customer service so your resume effectively communicates that.
Career Progression and Advancement Details
I can learn a lot about an applicant based on their progression at a company. Be sure to ask yourself when writing your resume:
- Were you promoted in your last role?
- Did you ever manage a team?
- Did you collaborate with other colleagues on side projects, experiments, or campaigns?
- Were you tapped to lead an experiment or test case?
Make sure the experience section of your resume details examples of you being recognized or rewarded for going above and beyond. Hiring managers want to hire the best of the best, so make sure you highlight examples of this.
Volunteer or Community Involvement
If you‘re involved in your community, feel free to include that work on your resume as long as it’s relevant to the position. Including experiences like these will help you stand out to employers. Plus, it gives hiring managers an idea of what you like to do outside of work.
Next up, let's talk about education.
Customer Service Resume Education
I’ve often found that people don’t typically work in the field they studied in college. Despite this, it’s nice to see as a hiring manager that you’ve persisted in getting an education, which is no easy feat. In this section, you'll want to make sure you showcase your educational background. This includes any classes, research, projects, or accolades that speak to your ability to excel, your commitment and grit, and your industry expertise.
Here are some examples.
Higher Education Background and Achievements
Make sure your resume details your highest levels of educational attainment. Note where you studied, what you studied, and any particularly relevant projects or research you worked on. You can include your GPA, but I’d only include it if it’s above a 3.5; otherwise, feel free to omit this inclusion.
Additional Professional or Educational Training
If you‘ve taken training courses, certificate programs, or attended classes as part of your on-the-job training, include those diplomas in your resume as well — especially if they might be part of the tech stack the team you’re applying to uses.
As I mentioned earlier, there are tons of free online courses you can take to boost your resume. Check out the HubSpot Academy to get started.
Now that we‘ve broken down what to include on your customer service resume, let’s take a look at a few examples you can use as inspiration for your application.
Writing a Stellar Customer Service Resume Isn’t Easy — But It's Worth It
I’m sure you’re well aware that securing a good job is no easy feat these days. Yet, if you put your best foot forward and give hiring managers a resume that exceeds their expectations, you’re one step closer to getting hired.
I strongly believe that you can’t “waste time” working on your resume. The more you tune it to reflect your accomplishments, education, and personality, the more likely you are to get a first interview. Don’t forget that in this digital age, you’re not on your own — and there are always great free resume templates to explore, online courses to take, and AI tools to help us think of the best way to phrase things.
Whatever steps you take to improve your customer service resume, my hope is that you get matched with a company that you’re an exceptional fit for and that you’ll genuinely enjoy offering customer service at.
Editor's note: This article was originally published in August 2018 and has since been updated for comprehensiveness.
12 Free Customizable Resume Templates
Fill out this form to access your free professionally-designed templates, available on:
- Microsoft Word
- Google Docs
- Microsoft PowerPoint
- Google Slides
Download Free
All fields are required.
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