Every company and industry needs a person who can interact with customers, answer questions of guests on telephones and in-person, guide visitors, communicate with vendors, and manage other types of outward-facing aspects to support its operation. That's why they hire receptionists. These receptionists are the first persons whom guests and visitors meet when entering an office. As such, they are also considered as the face of the organization. For this reason, they have to be well-groomed and fluent in communication since based on their attire, etiquettes, and professionalism, visitors draw a mental image of the organization. No wonder recruiters expect a receptionist resume to be highly professional.
Duties of a Receptionist
Receptionists may not be involved directly in the operations of a company, but the support they provide helps the company a lot in managing clerical and administrative tasks. The space they work may be small, but the number of activities they handle make them a multitasker.
Here are the common duties, they do at an office or a hotel's reception desk.
This list of duties may vary depending on the company and industry. Nevertheless, a person willing to work as a receptionist must be aware of things she has to do. If you're ready for the job, read these receptionist resume writing tips:
Contact Information
To help the hiring manager identify the applicant, your contact information is vital. Otherwise, the resume would appear like written by a ghost. So don't forget to include them. Just provide your name, residential address, city and state along with the zip code, phone number, and email address. If you're lucky, the hiring manager will use this information to get in touch with you.
Professional Summary
Providing an overview of your skills, abilities, knowledge, experience, and achievements helps the hiring manager in visualizing your personality. It also provides a snapshot of your eligibility and overall qualifications for the job. As such, the professional summary must provide a brief introduction, showcase relevant skills, area of expertise, and major achievements like this example.
Energetic, enthusiastic, and efficient receptionist with 7 years of experience managing clerical and administrative functions for employers. Possess strong skills in handling telephone calls, any request from staff, vendors, guests, and visitors. Adept at supporting in any type of initiatives taken by the company and giving 100% percent efforts. Helped the company in cutting costs by 10% for front-office operations.
Key Skills
Receptionists may not be expected to hold a strong technical skill, but you need to proficient in using computers and advanced office equipment. How you demonstrate your skills and abilities will mean a lot in securing a place for an interview. That's why any receptionist resume must have these common skills and abilities.
Technical: Though the receptionist job is not technical, having basic knowledge of how to use a computer, printer, copier, scanner, shredder, and telephonic system is must for the job.
Typing skills: As the job needs you to type letters and emails, typing skills are must.
Communication: Your ability to converse with guests and visitors in fluent English is must for the job. If you know any additional language other than English, include as well.
Multitasking: Receptionists have to handle several tasks simultaneously. Including this skill will definitely create an impression.
Organization: Front-desk is such a place where several activities go on throughout the day. That's why your ability to prioritize and organize each task is important.
Experience Section
When constructing the experience section, think of the ways that can make it impressive. One way to do that is by including achievements. If you include job duties, that would make the resume generic. So avoid that. Instead, use bullet points and demonstrate your achievements. Many candidates believe that there is nothing to achieve in a receptionist job. That's why they simply list their job duties. If you want to be different from them, review what you have done, or are doing on the job. There must be something that you invariably contributed to such as a nagging problem that helped employers to refine a process, or save time and costs. Or, it could be the travel and hotel accommodation arrangements you made for company executives that reduced the expenses by some margin.
Some of the key achievements that you list on the receptionist resume could be the following:
Education:
As a receptionist, you must consider yourself lucky since the job doesn't require a high education. But this doesn't mean you must ignore adding it on the receptionist resume. Even if you've completed a high school diploma, that would suffice for the job.
We hope that our tips must have instilled some confidence in you. To further strengthen it, we have also provided receptionist resume samples for different industries which you can access by clicking the links below. Select the most appropriate one, and make your job search a pleasing experience.
List of receptionist resume examples: