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When applying for a position as a property manager, you must ensure that your resume adequately reflects your skills, accomplishments and future goals. To better understand how to frame a professional resume for a property manager, we have created a guide and attached relevant examples with it.
Choose from our array of free templates or dive into job-specific examples designed to write your resume with top-quality professionalism.
We recommend that you review this example of a property manager resume to understand how to appropriately and correctly format your resume and what information should be included in each section.
Every resume should ideally include:
Blocks
Great Experience
Drafting your resume without adequate preparation can become overwhelming. To help you prepare, we have compiled a few efficient tips and instructions to help you create a resume that stands out.
When you are prepared to begin drafting your resume, the first thing you need to do is decide on your resume format. Based on your work history and skill set, you will have to choose between three popular formats: chronological, functional and combination. Choosing the right resume format will ensure that your strengths are highlighted and your weaknesses downplayed.
Candidates with an extensive work history should opt for the chronological resume format as it highlights their work history and experience.
Entry-level candidates and applicants who have a gap in their employment can choose the functional resume format as it would highlight their skills and make up for the limited work experience.
Candidates looking to change careers or applying for promotions at their current workplace can pick the combination resume format, which provides a balanced outlook with equal emphasis on the skills and the work history section.
Please check out our resume formats guide for further information on constructing each of the three resume formats mentioned above.
Chronological
Functional
Combination
We have formulated a step-by-step guide to help you draft an effective property manager resume. These resume-writing tips and instructions, coupled with our practical examples, will aid you in preparing a resume that will make you stand out from the crowd and help land your dream job.
1. Be honest and direct on your opening statement.
There are a couple of effective strategies you could use for your resume's opening statement: a summary statement or a career objective. A summary statement is a brief overview of your work experience as a property manager. If you have a lot of work experience, you should opt for a summary statement.
Conversely, if you are just starting out in this line of work, after school or college, are changing professions or have decided to reenter the workforce, using a career objective in your resume could be your best strategy. A well-drafted career objective highlights your ambition and skill set making up for your experience.
Let's have a look at good and bad examples of career objectives:
Poor example of a career objective:
“University graduate with phenomenal negotiation skills and strong ability to identify properties that meet the client’s expectations.”
Here, the candidate does not illustrate any skills by showing real-life, practical training or internships.
Good example of a career objective:
“University graduate eager to learn negotiation skills. Established and maintained a highly successful resident retention program as a class assignment for three semesters as a junior and a senior. Looking to gain experience in customer service roles to become a manager at the Walter Property Management Group.”
In this case, the candidate smartly makes up for his inexperience by listing skills they acquired through the class assignment and clearly states their future goals.
To make the most of your summary statement, ensure you add these tips:
Refer to this example:
“Certified commercial property manager with over eight years of experience. Looking to exceed the closing rate for Walter Property Management Group. Increased physical occupancy by 92% and financial occupancy by 95% at Dolby Properties. Supervised over 1.8 million square feet of retail, office and industrial real estate throughout the United States.”
2. Add a section for your skills and neatly categorize them.
Your resume must contain a section to highlight your skills, add at least six to eight skills in bulleted form. You can showcase additional skills in other areas of your resume, like in the professional summary and work history sections. In a chronological resume format, skills are listed below the work history but if you want to expand on your skills further opt for a functional resume format.
In the functional resume format, you can mention up to three skills and then use informative bullet points to illustrate your expertise in the highlighted skill.
This example will give you a clearer understanding:
Skills
Management
Avoid repeating the skills you have already mentioned in other sections of your resume. Distribute them by categorizing them into three separate sections consisting of your soft, hard and technical skills.
Soft skills are nontechnical, personal attributes that demonstrate how a person functions and interacts with their colleagues. For a property manager, valuable soft skills may include:
Hard skills are learned skills obtained and perfected through education, training and practice. These are skills that are more specific to the job. Valuable hard skills for a property manager are:
Technical skills refer to the expertise or understanding while handling specific digital tools and technologies to perform various tasks. Valuable technical skills for a property manager may include:
For more information on job-specific skills for property managers, check out our Resume Builder. You can finish drafting your resume quicker using our resume-writing tool, as it automatically suggests prewritten content and skills for your chosen industry.
Your work history section must include a list of all your previous jobs. The entries should be in reverse-chronological order. Start by mentioning your current or latest position first and work your way backward. Include the job title, company name, location and a timeline of all your employment tenures. Add three to four bullet points highlighting your most impressive achievements and most important tasks.
Let us compare a couple of poor and good examples of a work history to help you understand how to draft an impressive work history section:
Poor example:
Work History
This work history does not explain in detail the tasks and achievements of the candidate. No quantifiable data is presented to substantiate the claims made by the candidate, making the work history vague and unimpressive.
Good example:
Work History
This work history brilliantly illustrates an in-depth analysis of the candidate’s achievements and provides quantifiable data to substantiate their claims.
To further strengthen your work history section, follow these effective tips:
Mention your degrees and diplomas in the education section of your resume. Always include the institution from where you completed your degree/diploma, its location and the graduation dates. It is common for property managers to have a real estate licensing degree or be trained as a Certified Apartment Manager.
If you have degrees and certifications like these, you can skip mentioning your high school diploma. Only include the relevant degrees and certificates specific to the position you are applying for.
You may include an additional section for all the certifications and licenses you have acquired.
Certifications a property manager should ideally possess are:
Certified Professional Property Administrator
This certification is for candidates who have at least three years of work experience in property management and have worked in at least seven recognized functional areas related to property management.
Certified Professional Property Manager
This is an advanced level certification for candidates with a CPPA certification having at least six years of work experience in property management and having been a property manager for at least four years.
Managing Maintenance & Budgeting Track Certification Course
The candidate receives extensive training in property operations. Topics covered in this course include property budgeting, financial reports, property maintenance and risk management.
Marketing and Leasing Strategies for Retail Properties Certification Course
This course will help you learn market analysis and brand-building through crucial marketing strategies. Other subjects covered include broker commissions, renewals and concessions.
During this course of your career in real estate, you may also consider completing these courses:
In your contact information section, mention your full name, current address, including the city and state, phone number and email address.
Explore our range of free, downloadable property manager resume templates. Once downloaded, you can replace the sample text with your content and format it according to your needs on your preferred word processor.
Different positions or roles would require a different skill set from a property manager. It is determined by the nature of the job and the responsibilities that come with it. Every property manager should possess strong communication skills, good organizational skills and have sufficient knowledge of state property laws and regulations depending where they are licensed.
For a property manager to stand out, they must be available and dependable. They must have excellent knowledge of the rental properties under their supervision and they must have an impactful property management marketing plan.
A good objective statement for a property manager clearly illustrates the candidate’s ambition and drive. In addition to that, the objective statement must show how the candidate will benefit the company and a brief description of how the candidate wishes to accomplish their goal.
A good example of a property manager’s objective statement:
“College graduate seeking a property manager position at Cairns Property Management Group. Successfully supervised resident retention as a part of a college class project. Aiming to increase company profits and become one of Cairns Group's top managers by applying exceptional forecasting skills and property evaluation knowledge.”
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