If you’re a job seeker or career changer interested in seeing how you compare to your competition, consider browsing through resume examples. Seeing the resumes of people in roles similar to the ones you’re after can provide you with insight about the strengths and weaknesses of your own resume.

You might find some skills you should brush up on, tools and technologies you could learn, or accomplishments to strive for. You might be inspired to find a way to sell yourself as ready for the next step. Resume examples can be a perfect launching point for a job search.

All that said, don’t forget that an individual job posting is your primary source when filling out an application. You can demonstrate your ability to fulfill an employer’s needs by echoing relevant keywords from the job listing. Using the right resume keywords can get your resume noticed–not just by an applicant tracking system, but ultimately by a human who can offer you an interview.

Resume examples can definitely be useful, but consider them a secondary source.

The word cloud above was generated using the text from a dozen customer service job postings. The larger the word, the more times it appeared throughout the posts.

Customer service resume keywords

  • Account
  • Answering
  • Client
  • Communication
  • Computer
  • Customer
  • Database
  • Detail
  • Guest
  • Organized
  • Manage
  • Office
  • Organized
  • Phones
  • Requests
  • Scheduling
  • Service
  • Solutions
  • Team
  • Training
  • Verbal

People and organization

To succeed in customer service, you need the foresight to help solve problems for people, and the organization and innovation skills to not only keep things running smoothly, but to spot opportunities for streamlining and simplifying. You also, of course, need people skills. (And remember—it is possible to highlight soft skills on your resume.)

Targeting your resume keywords for customer service

Check out Jobscan’s list of the top 500 resume keywords. To personalize your keywords for the job, try Jobscan’s skills comparison tool. Just upload your resume and paste in a job description to see which resume keywords you’re missing (among many other resume checks).

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Trista Winnie

Trista Winnie has been writing and editing professionally for nearly a decade, primarily covering the job search, investing, engineering, and health.

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