Pocket CV: Including a personal statement or a professional summary.

03. What is more important, a personal statement or a professional summary? What’s the difference?

A personal statement or professional summary serves as a quick biography of an applicant. Although they sound similar, both terms reflect different goals. A personal statement outlines the objective of your application, i.e., why you are applying for a certain role. For example, the personal statement of a software developer would read: I am an experienced software developer now looking for a senior position.

On the other hand, a professional summary presents a few sentences summarising the content of a CV.

The professional summary goes a step further than a personal statement, in that it typically displays the number of years spent in a role, and other details such as skill sets and personal attributes.

Are these important to include? “Yes, if there is space,” Tijana answers, but not at the cost of your document length. If you have a lot of content to include on your CV, it’s not worth including either a personal statement or professional summary. However, Tijana considers another type of applicant: “If it is a graduate profile, an introductory personal statement is very welcomed.”

There is no real preference between a personal statement and a professional summary, as both can have a place in a CV. Nevertheless, Darshinee explains that at times a summary can be more beneficial, “As a professional summary highlights an applicant’s skills, and proves how they’ve applied these skills to achieve results in a workplace setting.” On the whole, include these where appropriate and according to available document space.