Assistant Property Resume Example & Writing Guide

An assistant property manager resume helps you manage your career the way you help manage properties: efficiently and impressively. Your experience is perfect for the job, but only a well-crafted resume can land you the interview that leads to your next job.

How? By knowing just what to highlight and how.

Assistant property managers are all-around workers who can take on almost any task related to running a commercial or residential property. Maybe they don’t fix the plumbing, but they manage the maintenance request and ensure the work gets done well. You’re the property manager’s right hand and that makes finding the right fit all the more important. 

To ensure you get the point across that you can do whatever is needed to keep a facility running smoothly, you need an assistant property manager resume that highlights your organizational talents and your ability to calm angry tenants and quickly solve their problems.

Resume guide for an assistant property manager resume

A little research can go a long way toward creating an application package that sets you above the competition. The 350+ resume guides at Resume.io include embedded resume examples that offer ideas for perfecting your own property manager resume. After you’ve got your text down, our easy-to-use resume builder will help you turn your foundation into a finished product.

Start with this resume guide, along with the corresponding property manager assistant resume example to learn about the following:

• How to write an assistant property manager resume
• Choosing the right resume format for an assistant property manager
• How to add your contact information
• Using summaries to your advantage
• Adding your property management experience
• Listing education and relevant experience
• Picking the right resume design/layout
• The assistant property management market outlook and salary expectations

How to write an assistant property manager resume

The components of your assistant property manager resume form the backbone of your document. Before you begin writing, take stock of what sections a recruiter will expect to see within your application. Your CV should contain the following elements:

• The resume header
• The resume summary (aka profile or personal statement)
• The employment history section
• The resume skills section
• The education section

This is a good time to point out that the standard section headings are your best bet. Getting creative may seem like it will help you distinguish yourself, but it may also serve to confuse recruiters, who will not spend the time to figure out that your “Building Relationships” title means “Employment History.”

The key to excellence in a resume is remembering that you’re selling yourself and your skills. These tips will help lift your resume to the top of the pile:

• Personalize. Take the time to address the needs of each employer by focusing on the skills and attributes they list in each section of your resume. That means personalizing each and every resume.
• Quantify. Create a list of what you’ve accomplished – not what you’ve done. Quantify as much as possible. How many vacant spaces have you filled? How much money have you saved the company?
• Simplify. Take care with your design and layout. Make it professional, but readable. Choose a template that reflects your style.

Choosing the right resume format for an assistant property manager 

Have you mostly been steadily employed since you entered the workforce? Has your career followed a logical path? Even if you have shifted from another type of management or from leasing consultant to property management, your career path has been straightforward enough to stick with a reverse chronological order format.

This format makes recruiters’ lives easier because they are accustomed to it and know how to quickly scan for information they find most relevant. It also makes your life easier because the ATS is designed to scan your resume under the assumption that you have used this format. If you don’t, you will have a lot of reformatting to do once you upload your resume into an online application.

If you answered no to one of the above questions, an alternate format may work better for you.  Our resume builder includes resume examples for the format that best fits your career as well as professional resume layouts that will show the property manager that you know how to stay organized and make a good first impression on prospective tenants. 

Include your contact information 

Do you let prospective tenants out the door without one of your business cards? Absolutely not! You want them to reach out just as the whole point of your resume to get the person with the hiring power to call you about the assistant manager’s job.

To that end, you need to include all your important contact information without making a misstep. Here’s how to ensure that you don’t miss the moment when the recruiter decides you’re interview-worthy: 

• Full name and title. List your first and last name. Use the title of the role you are pursuing.
• Professional email address. Note the word professional. Use a format such as [email protected] or a variation.
• Phone number. List a number where you can be readily contacted, with a professional voicemail greeting.
• Address. List only your city and state. Don’t list your street address or even your zip code. It’s both outdated and unsafe. If you would move for the job, list 'Willing to Relocate' here.
• LinkedIn. If your LinkedIn profile is active, relevant, and shows your real estate network, include it here.

Your contact information should not include:

• Your age or date of birth
• A photo
• Any personal details such as marital status or identifying numbers

Make use of a summary 

The summary section of your assistant property manager resume affords you the opportunity to show off your people skills as well as your property management expertise. Since you will be working closely with tenants and a property manager, these skills are invaluable. 

You can expand upon your style in your cover letter, but your summary will help the property manager understand how you work with others and organize your day. Within this section, also known as a profile, you should summarize your professional experience, highlight your greatest achievement or skills and follow that up with a sentence on either why you want to work at that property or what you can do to help the building run more efficiently.

Each line on your resume is precious, so avoid repeating your employment history. Because of this, you may choose to complete this section last (although it sits at the top of your assistant manager resume) so that you can synthesize your message into these four lines.Use this space to enhance your desirability by explicitly telling the employer how your skills and achievements mesh. Here’s an example sentence: “Vision to increase tenant satisfaction while reducing costs through comprehensive and regular maintenance checks.”

This sentence outline is one organizational structure to consider:

• Sentence 1: Introduce yourself and your work experience.
• Sentence 2-3: Highlight the greatest skills you have that matches what the employer lists as a “must have” in the job description.
• Sentence 4 (if you have space): Explain what drew you to the job.

You can find an adaptable assistant property manager resume example summary below:

Outline your assistant property manager experience: land that job

As you think back through your jobs to compile the employment history section of your property manager assistant resume, go beyond your tasks and recall your accomplishments. Recruiters want to know not that you were responsible for collecting rent, but that you reduced late payments by 5%.

The best resumes present achievements backed by data and details that make a property manager think: “I could use somebody to do that here.” If you are looking to move over from a leasing agent position, focus on your ability to understand what people are looking for and keep your building at a high occupancy rate.

Each of your job listings should include a bulleted list of your accomplishments that begins with a strong action word. Eliminate fillers such as “I was responsible for” or “I was tasked with” and jump right in with sentences such as:

• Increased tenant retention rate by 8% year-over-year
• Revamped online rent collection process, reducing late payments by 5%
• Oversaw remodel of common area that attracted prospective tenants with higher credit ratings
• Sought out and acquired business clients to lease suburban office space after Covid, increasing occupancy by 15%
• Created direct chat channel and responded to all lessee communication within one one hour during business hours
• Reduced time to complete maintenance requests by one day through careful scheduling

Notice that each of the above statements includes as much detail as possible and data whenever it is relevant. As you compile your lists of accomplishments, look back at the job listing and place the ones that match the listing best at the top of each of your previous jobs. That will grab the attention of the property manager.

As an assistant property manager, you also need to take direction and communicate well with the property manager. Make sure you include at least one bullet item that illustrates this ability.

How to write an assistant property manager resume with no experience

It’s unlikely that you are developing a resume for an assistant property manager position if you have absolutely no experience in real estate, but you may be looking to move up from a leasing agent role. Even without experience, a great resume is possible.

But how do you show you can do the work when you haven’t?

Demonstrate transferable skills. Many of these may be soft skills, or the interpersonal and job skills necessary to maintain a steady job. No. 1 for an assistant property manager is communication—with tenants, the property manager, maintenance personnel and anyone else involved in the property. Especially if you have been a leasing agent, you can easily demonstrate this ability as well as time management, sales skills and organization.

In many assistant or entry-level positions, recruiters are simply looking for someone who shows up on time, has a strong work ethic and is eager to learn the role.

Include the relevant key skills that make you a great assistant property manager 

This section may seem redundant since you will detail your skills in your employment history since, but it is far from it. The assistant property manager skills on your resume serve the purpose of telling human resources at a glance that you have what they seek.

Make yourself a list of every skill you have, whether you have used it at work or not. Then, match those to the job listing and choose your top 10 or so. Include learned, or hard, skills such as basic accounting, property inspection, knowledge of real estate regulations and sales ability, but make sure you also list your interpersonal skills. Communication, conflict resolution, organization and time management are all necessary attributes of an excellent assistant property manager.

Here’s what the skills box looks like in our assistant property manager resume template.

If you list a skill in your skills section, demonstrate within your employment history section how you have applied that skill. It’s one thing to list that you are an excellent communicator and it’s another to show your prospective employer what that means and how it appears in the workplace. 

Example: “During daily email updates, kept the property manager informed of all developments including maintenance, tenant disputes, budget and leasing statistics.”

Other skills that are better described than quantified:

• Conflict management. Sometimes, tenants get into disputes with each other or with maintenance personnel. If you have successfully negotiated a solution to an argument, briefly describe how you did it and your style.
• Problem-solving. How do you prioritize limited resources so that major problems are solved but without angering any of your lessees? Illustrate a problem at a property that you managed with aplomb.

Detail your education & relevant property management certifications 

The education section of your assistant property manager resume is a listing of your academic achievements. Assistant property managers may be able to start with a high school diploma or GED, but some companies, especially larger ones, may require an associate’s or even a bachelor’s degree. 

Simply list your diploma and any other certificates or degrees you have in this section. If you are working on a degree, you may list your anticipated date of graduation. 

Here are some relevant details to include here:

• Certifications, such as the one offered by the Institute of Real Estate Management or any other reputable property management or real estate organization
• Any related coursework
• Professional development seminars, associations or publications.

If you have a college degree in an unrelated field, list that degree. The fact that you completed an undergraduate course of study may be the deciding factor.

Pick the right resume layout and design for an assistant property manager resume

As an assistant property manager, you are the face of the company to many tenants. How you present yourself matters. The design of your property management assistant resume is a visual presentation of your professional image.

It’s also the first opportunity a recruiter has to judge your professional style. What do you want to convey to your prospective employer? That you are organized, neat, and communicate well. To do that, ensure that your resume is easy to read by choosing a legible font and making sure the text is 11-12 points and the section titles 14-16 points. 

The header (where your house your contact information) is the main visual element of your resume. It should be attractive and memorable, but steer clear of major flourishes, icons or other images and leave out the photo of yourself.

We know you have a lot to say, but don’t be tempted to make your margins tiny. Unless you really need that extra line or two, stick with 1-inch margins all around and never go smaller than one-half inch. A page filled from edge to edge and top to bottom makes reading tough and may put off someone who’s been staring at resumes all day.

Finally, use color sparingly if at all. If you’re not a designer, use an expertly-designed resume template like the ones from Resume.io that integrate spellcheck and do all the formatting for you.

Assistant property manager text-only resume example

Assistant property manager job market and outlook

If you’re looking to get into property management, or you’re already there and looking for a new post, you’ll have a decent shot at a new opportunity. The need for workers in property, real estate, and community associations is expected to rise 5% from 2022-2032, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts.

Working as an assistant may also help you gain the skills and experience necessary to become a property manager yourself.

What type of salary you can expect as an assistant property manager

In one day at the end of 2023, Glassdoor added 141 new assistant property manager jobs; 784 for the week. That’s a lot of opportunities popping up. The median salary for those positions was $51,706, with bonuses and other pay driving that up to $62,932.

Key takeaways for an assistant property manager resume

1. Assistant property managers take care of all the tasks the property manager isn’t interested in or doesn’t have time to handle.
2. Conflict resolution and problem-solving are important aspects of the job you should consider mentioning in your summary.
3. A carefully considered skills section can boost your chances of getting the interview.
4. Make sure your design represents your professional image.