Marketing resumes that prove growth, not just activity

What hiring managers in marketing actually want

Marketing CVs fail when they describe campaigns rather than results. A campaign description is a resume liability; a campaign outcome is a resume asset. For every role, surface the metric the role actually moved — CAC, LTV, MQL conversion, organic traffic, brand search lift, time-on-page, retention cohort delta. Name the channel (paid social, SEO, email, lifecycle, ABM, partnerships) and the tooling (HubSpot, Marketo, Braze, Iterable, Customer.io, GA4, Looker, Amplitude). For brand and content roles where the metric is softer, lean on reach: impressions, audience size, content production cadence, distribution channels owned. Avoid the "passionate about brands" preamble; the work shows that. The fastest filter recruiters apply: did this person own a number, or just contribute to one? Own one when you can.

Common ATS keywords for marketing resumes

Terms ATS keyword filters typically scan for in this industry. Use them when they describe work you actually did — never as filler.

• Google Analytics
• GA4
• HubSpot
• Marketo
• SEO
• SEM
• Conversion rate
• A/B testing
• Email marketing
• Brand strategy
• Content marketing
• Demand generation

Resume guides for top marketing roles

• Marketing Manager
  Programmes you owned, pipeline you sourced, and the metrics finance recognises — not a channel list.
• SEO Specialist
  Rankings earned, traffic recovered, and the technical SEO work that doesn't fit in a content brief.
• Product Marketing Manager
  Positioning, launches, and sales enablement — the work that doesn't fit on a content calendar or a paid dashboard.
• Email Marketing Manager
  Lifecycle programmes, deliverability discipline, and the revenue email actually drives — not a campaign count.
• Social Media Manager
  Engagement that drove outcomes, channels you own end-to-end, and the social work that's not just scheduling.

Related guides

• How to write achievement bullets that land interviews
  Most resume bullets describe duties. Interview-worthy bullets describe wins. Here's the structural difference, and a six-minute exercise to fix every line on your CV.
• Action verbs that actually impress recruiters (with examples)
  Lists of '200 power verbs' are everywhere and mostly useless. Here's a smaller, sharper set — organised by what the verb is actually claiming — with worked examples.
• Why tailoring beats sending a generic resume (the math)
  The case for tailoring isn't ideological. It's arithmetic — and the gap between a tailored and a generic CV is bigger than most candidates realise.