Office Manager Resume Examples, Skills, and Keywords

1. Begin With a Strong Summary

The first paragraph of your resume is your resume summary. This is your first and maybe only chance to describe yourself and your experience to a hiring manager. Take the opportunity to make an impression by writing a solid resume objective.

‌Good office manager resume samples begin with robust summaries, explaining how the applicant will solve the hiring manager’s problem. Mention how long you’ve been in the field, your primary duties, and any relevant skills or certifications. After reading your objective, the hiring manager should have a basic understanding of the skills you offer and why you’re a great candidate.

‌For example, “Experienced office manager looking for the opportunity to leverage experience in improving efficiency and employee morale. 10+ years of management experience includes training a staff of 10, managing transition to a paperless office, and cutting costs by 17%.”

‌Keep your opening paragraph short and to the point. Two to three sentences are more than enough to summarize your experience and include relevant office manager resume keywords.

2. List Common Skills for Office Managers

Managing an office requires a broad range of skills, from technical and equipment proficiency to interpersonal communication. Hiring managers look for specific office manager skills, types of experience, and other qualifications when sorting through applicants. Listing your relevant knowledge and skills in a single place makes it easy for them to scan your resume and find what they’re looking for.

‌It’s also a good idea to customize your skills list for every job application. Different companies want their office managers to achieve a wide variety of goals. Listing the skills a company mentions in a job post is much more likely to get your resume through filters and into the hands of the hiring team.

3. Use Action Words

Be specific in your resume. You have one page to explain why you’re worth hiring. Make the most of it and use active voice and action words instead of generic or boring wording.

‌For example, instead of saying you “took part” in a project, explain what you did. Some examples of phrasing for office manager resumes include saying you “lead” projects, “spearhead” initiatives, and “implement” procedures. Using these specific verbs instead of generic words gives hiring managers a better idea of your actual role and responsibilities at past employers.

‌Avoid generic terms like:

• ‌Make
• ‌Talk
• ‌Take part
• ‌Arrive
• ‌Appear
• ‌Guide
• ‌Responsible for

‌Instead, use action verbs that are relevant to management, like:

• ‌Lead
• ‌Manage
• ‌Supervise
• ‌Implement
• ‌Train
• ‌Teach
• ‌Build
• ‌Reduce

4. Reference Hard Numbers

Since hiring managers have to read so many applications, anything you can do to make their job easier gives you an advantage. Just like action verbs are more interesting than generic words, hard numbers are more valuable than general statements.

‌For example, you can say that you designed a paperless document system and managed a large staff, or you could be more specific. “Reduced paper consumption by 90%” and “Managed a 30-person office for seven years” are both more accurate and more attractive to hiring teams. Putting hard numbers to your successes allows the hiring manager to compare apples to apples.

5. Make Your Professional Experience Clear

When you’re applying to office management positions, humility isn’t a virtue. Hiring teams want to choose the best possible person for the job. If you downplay your experience and skills, you may make other applicants seem like a better choice.

‌The easiest way to avoid underselling yourself is to explain your experience in clean, quantifiable language. List your position titles, the companies for which you worked, and the dates you worked there. Then list your responsibilities and achievements according to their relevance to your job application.

‌If you aren’t sure what’s worth including, put yourself in the HR team’s shoes. They’re trying to solve the problem of an organized office. What have you done to solve that problem in the past?

• ‌Did you save the company money?
• ‌Did you improve employee efficiency?
• ‌Did you implement new, more efficient training methods?

‌Highlight any of these accomplishments and include quantifiable data when you can. An office manager who’s saved a previous employer thousands of dollars is an exciting prospect. When you can provide office manager resume examples that explain how you’ve actively helped your past employers, you have a strong argument that you’re worth hiring.