Administrator Resume Examples

If you’re an administrator preparing to write your resume, you already understand, by virtue of your position in your industry, the value of research prior to action. In this endeavor, closely examining administrator resume samples will provide you with an idea of format, what information to include, and common mistakes to avoid. You’ll also be able to compare skills of the various administrator sectors, like healthcare, computer and network, business, or education, and identify those that are transferable.

As you read further, you’ll find additional guidance for writing critical sections of your resume, including your resume summary, work experience, and achievements, and by harnessing your writing and organization skills, you should be able to craft a resume that will draw in a potential employer.

Since the broad job category of administrator includes so many sectors, you’ll likely find versions of administrator resume samples that focus on everything from technical knowledge and certifications to business acumen and an in-depth understanding of healthcare operations. While there are certainly differences based on specific sectors, there are attributes that are common to each.

More specifically, there are generally five recommended sections in the most common type of resume, known as the chronological style, which is also the most familiar to hiring managers. In this format, your work history, which includes sub-headings for each job identifying the employer, period of employment, and job title, is listed in reverse chronological order.

Each job should include 3-6 bullet points highlighting your measurable accomplishments. The chronological format works best for applicants with no employment gaps and who are progressing in their career along a traditional path. The sections for this style are:

• Contact info (name/phone/email)
• Resume summary
• Work experience
• Skills
• Education

If, however, you have a significant employment gap or you’re considering a career change, you should give some serious thought to using the functional style. The functional differs from the chronological in the presentation of work experience and achievements. Rather than focusing on a list of previous jobs and what you did at each one, the functional resume has an additional section called “Accomplishments,” which focuses on all of your achievements, rather than listing them by employer.

In this new section, you would list 6-8 bullet points that highlight and quantify your achievements. As a result of putting so much detail in the accomplishments section, the work experience section will end up being a simple list of previous employers, period of employment, and job title. Recommended sections for a functional style resume are:

• Contact info (name/phone/email)
• Resume summary
• Accomplishments (new section)
• Work experience
• Skills
• Education

You can refer to administrator resume samples of each format to help decide which is best for your situation.

As the first part of your resume a hiring manager will read, your summary statement should be concise (2-3 sentences), achievement-focused, and compelling. You want to create an image of the ideal candidate, so before you begin to describe yourself, refer to the job description to see how they describe what they’re looking for.

A well-crafted resume summary will encourage the potential employer not only to read further but also hopefully invite you for an interview. It’s a brief but critical paragraph.

Take a look at a few administrator resume samples and notice that the good summaries focus on results attained. Following are two samples of well-written administrator summaries from different industry sectors:

• Healthcare administrator with 15 years of experience in both the public and private sector. Generated policies and procedures for staff that resulted in better scores in both inspections for regulatory compliance and financial audits. While not working directly with patients, shaped policy that served them better and supported fund-raising initiatives for healthcare organization.
• Postsecondary education admissions administrator with experience at a state university with enrollment over 64,000 and a private college with 3,000 students. Prepared promotional materials, determined the number of available spaces, reviewed applications, and met with prospective students. Worked with financial aid department to create packages for students who might not otherwise be able to attend college.

Depending on the type of administrator position you’re looking for, some will require at least a bachelor’s in business, and many may prefer an MBA. In the computer sciences field, technical knowledge and degrees in computer science are critical but don’t discount the importance of business courses. More and more, network and systems administrators are expected to have business savvy as well as technical know-how.

A hiring manager will scan your education section for the requirements they’ve identified, so once again, go back to the job description to make sure you meet their stated requisite education.

Look at the administrator resume samples, and you’ll see that the format for this information is basic, easy to read, and contingent on relevance. Your most important degree should be listed first. All the employer needs to see is the school attended, the location of the school, and the degree obtained.

A sub-heading called Certifications will provide the opportunity to highlight specialized training in addition to your degree studies. As a network administrator, if you’ve received certification from various product vendors and software firms, be sure to include that information. There are a number of well-respected certifications in the healthcare industry as well. If you’re aware of certification programs but haven’t pursued them, maybe now is the time. In that case, you can list it on your resume as in progress.

If you haven’t yet decided which resume style- chronological or functional- will work best for you, now’s the time. Go back and look at the administrator resume samples again, specifically looking for those two types. Which one would present you in the best light?

If you’ve had steady employment and your career has progressed along your intended path, the chronological style seems a reasonable choice. Each sub-heading should include the name of the employer, location, period of employment, and job title. Beneath each, write 3-6 bullet points describing your accomplishments.

If you’ve got an employment gap, or you’re shifting careers, consider the functional style. By listing your achievements separately under accomplishments, you won’t have to link them to a specific job or company. This could be helpful if you’re shifting careers and don’t want to be tied to your old jobs. You can focus the potential employer’s attention on the details of your accomplishments, resulting in your work experience section being a simple list of previous jobs.

No matter which style you decide on, use action verbs to present your accomplishments. You may do your job sitting at your desk for most of the day, but you can still make yourself an action figure by using this kind of language. Once you get into the flow of beginning sentences with an action verb, you’ll be able to see yourself through the hiring manager’s eyes, and if you’ve done a good job, they’ll like what they see.

Action verbs create an image of you doing your job, and if you’ve studied the job description carefully, you know what abilities the potential employer is looking for. As you describe your work experience, translate their needs into your experience. Following are some examples of action verbs that apply to administrator positions:

• Establish
• Direct
• Oversee
• Manage
• Innovate
• Consult
• Negotiate
• Approve
• Appoint
• Identify
• Formulate
• Plan
• Assign
• Identify
• Test
• Install
• Train
• Review
• Analyze
• Determine

You’ll find more action verbs as you review administrator resume samples.

Your two best resources for writing an impressive skills section are administrator resume samples and the actual job description. You want to choose a format that’s easy for a hiring manager to scan, and you want to mirror the skills from the job description. If you have other skills, that’s great, but list the employer’s requirements first. It’s all about what they’re looking for.

If there’s a need for sub-headings, like computer skills, or management skills, go ahead- anything to make it easier on the resume-weary hiring manager.

Clearly, administrators in technical positions will have quite a list of computer languages, software, coding, LAN/WAN, and intranet skills, so to avoid taking up valuable resume space with a long, narrow list of languages and software, you could show them like this:

Computer Languages: SQL, APL, C, C#, Delphi…
Software:

Don’t forget your soft skills. For many administrator positions, management skills and dealing with people come before technical skills; and even those in clearly technical administrator positions have to know how to communicate with both management and staff.

As you’ve done your research by looking at administrator resume samples, have you seen any with references included in the resume? No, you haven’t. There are many good reasons to simply indicate that references are available upon request. Here are a few:

• By not including your references, you save valuable resume space, and you’ll be able to keep it to the recommended 1-2 pages.
• When the potential employer requests your references, you’ll know for sure they’re interested in you.
• You can give your references a heads-up to expect a call and ask them to let you know when they’ve been contacted. When they do, you can find out what questions were asked.

When it comes to who should be a reference, you want people that can vouch for your professionalism. Ask former managers or supervisors, department heads with whom you worked well, and even vendors who might give you a good recommendation. Obviously, don’t put anyone on the list without gaining their approval, and don’t tell an employer they’re available upon request if you don’t actually have them.

• No matter what kind of administrator you are, your written communication skills should be reflected in the crafting of your resume. It’s a show don’t tell thing.
• Make use of the keywords used in the job description. Many companies use applicant tracking systems that look for those keywords, and if they aren’t in your resume, it may never make its way to the hiring manager’s desk.
• Don’t talk about proprietary information from previous companies where you worked. It tells the potential employer you’ll be careless with their confidential information, and your resume could end up in the reject pile.
• The importance of proofreading cannot be stressed enough. If you can, let your resume marinate at least overnight, and then ask someone else to proofread it. When you proofread your own work, you tend to see what you think you wrote, but typos almost jump off the page for someone reading it for the first time, like a hiring manager.

• Healthcare DBAs are expected to be in high demand with the increase in electronic medical records with a projected growth of 43 percent.
• Cloud computing firms will depend heavily on DBAs, and this specific industry is projected to grow at 48 percent.

Employment of network and computer systems administrators will be close to the average of 11 percent, but growth will be considerably higher, at 35 percent, in industries providing cloud computing. A bachelor’s degree in computer science and current cloud computing technology courses will increase job opportunities.

The projected growth rate in the postsecondary education administrator sector is expected to be 15 percent for the same time period. The factors leading to this increase in employment include more people entering colleges and universities, and with greater enrollment in online colleges and universities, there will be an increased demand for administrators in these types of schools as well. Countering these growth factors, however, are potential layoffs resulting from state and local government budget deficits.