An excellent Realtor resume puts all your sales skills to work to impress. Get your marketing savvy going to find your dream home -- your next real estate agency -- by creating a resume that covers all the items on your prospective employer’s wish list.
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This resume guide, along with the corresponding resume example will cover the following topics:
- What does a Realtor do?
- How to write a Realtor resume (tips and tricks)
- The best format for a Realtor resume
- Advice on each section of your resume (summary, work history, education, skills)
- Professional resume layout and design hints.
What does a Realtor do?
Realtors are a subset of licensed real estate professionals who are members of the National Association of Realtors. Realtors buy and sell residential or commercial property, but the designator “Realtor” may also apply to property managers or appraisers, according to Investopedia.
Within transactions, Realtors may represent the buyer, seller, or, in some cases, both parties. They gain property listings by selling their ability to sell property. They also help those in the market to buy by showing them homes or commercial properties that meet their needs. Realtors may point out both the good and bad aspects of a property and advice clients on the value of the property.
Realtors may be involved in transactions worth millions of dollars. But even if they are dealing with much smaller amounts, they have fiduciary responsibility. These are:
- Loyalty: Realtors are charged with protecting the needs and interests of clients.
- Confidentiality: The Realtor is trusted with sensitive financial information and must not disclose it.
- Obedience: This means Realtors must follow the directions of their clients.
- Candor/disclosure: Realtors may not withhold information from their clients that may go against the clients’ best interests.
- Competency, care, diligence: Realtors must remember at all times they are acting in their clients’ best interests and they must do so with these attributes.
- Accounting: Realtors must disclose how your money is use.
Source: Money Crashers
Realtor job market and outlook
Pandemic conditions have shaken up the real estate market. The inventory of unsold homes dropped 43.1% in the year ending in July 2021. That means fewer houses to sell. Prices, however, were up 12.7%, according to Realtor.com.In the commercial real estate market, CBRE Research predicts that office vacancy rates will remain high.
These facts translate into a sluggish demand for Realtors. In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a mere 2% increase in jobs from 2019-2029.
How much do Realtors earn?
Realtors work mostly on commission, so their earnings may vary greatly from year to year and are dependent on market conditions.
The median annual income for Realtors is $53,877 a year, Payscale reports. The top 10% of agents earned more than $147,000 and the bottom 10% earned less than $22,000, but keep in mind that agents can work as much or as little as they choose.
Writing a thoughtful realtor resume can open new doors. Get more ideas on how to create a realtor resume by viewing our related resumes examples:
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How to write a Realtor resume
The structure of most resumes remains stable. Before you begin compiling your realtor resume, you should know that these elements are a must:
- The resume header
- The resume summary (aka profile or personal statement)
- The employment history section
- The resume skills section
- The education section
The job of a great resume sample is to tell a cohesive story about your sales career. That means maintaining a consistent tone, style and message to your prospective employer.
To that end, learn about the agency or client you are addressing. Find out as much as you can about the working environment and the company culture so you can match the tone and style of the firm and aim your resume directly at the target. Ask for the name of the hiring manager and check out their background on the company website if possible. This will help you address that person directly.
A gem of a resume will propel your bid for the job to the top of the pile. Make sure you apply these strategies:
- Use your sales skills to adapt your message to each specific employer.
- Pay attention to the facade, or design, of your resume since it gives the first visual impression of your professional personality.
- Take Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) into account when you apply online and personalize to target each job listing.
Optimize for the ATS
You know how target your sales efforts to your clients. You can apply those same strategies to elevate your resume’s ranking in the ATS. Before a human being ever has a chance of seeing the resume sample you worked so hard on, a software algorithm is judging whether your document contains the right information to get a second look. You can increase your chances by using the skills you already have.
Just as you analyze the competition and the needs of your clients, you should analyze the job description and take careful note of what skills and attributes are listed. Try to use the exact words or phrases (if they are applicable) in your resume to cue the ATS that you have what your prospective agency is looking for.
Choosing the best resume format for a Realtor
Most resumes samples should stick to the tried-and-true reverse chronological order format. This plays out mostly in your employment history section, where you will list your most recent job first and work backward.
If you want to focus, instead, on your real estate deals, you may consider the other resume formats suggest as chronological alternatives or hybrids. These may also be useful to entry-level or more mature workers.
Since recruiters prefer the reverse chronological order format, we suggest you use that unless you have compelling reasons not to.
Resume summary example: Location, location, location
Your summary occupies the prime real estate at the top of your Realtor resume. While it may not be the first section hiring managers read, they will definitely pay attention to it after you impress them with your experience. Liken this section to the brief but compelling description you write for the properties you sell. You need to grab the attention of hiring managers, but also sell, sell, sell,
Give yourself a sentence or two to shine a spotlight on your great sales numbers. Throw in some complimentary adjectives to define your professional style and personality. Then, take a sentence to speak directly to the needs of the agency and explain how you will fill those needs.
The summary is also known as a profile, so be sure you let hiring managers know who you are. You may say something like, “Expert at tuning into the needs and desires of first-time homebuyers.”
This section should not repeat the details in your employment history nor should it overstate your skills or abilities. Give yourself a pat on the back, but acknowledge other people’s contributions to your successes when a group effort was involved. You want to be seen as a go-getter who stops short of being a lone wolf.
See the resume example text below for summary ideas.
Dynamic and enthusiastic Realtor with a proven track record of providing outstanding customer service to clients. Extremely knowledgeable about real estate procedures, laws, and markets. Committed to remaining up-to-date about the latest listings and trends. Bringing forth an energetic attitude and a mindset dedicated to helping others realize their dreams.
Employment history sample: ground floor up
The employment history section of your Realtor resume consists of bullet items detailing your career highlights. It tells the story of your career and how you’ve grow as a salesperson. Each terse line should illustrate a positive outcome, sale or client interaction.
You want hiring managers to know that you are expert at the documentation and financial requirements of your job, but the proof is in your sales numbers, so keep them in the forefront. Be specific and show you are a mover and shaker by using strong action words.
Pump up the action: “Guided 45 new clients in their first real estate purchases worth more than $16 million.”
Waste space on vague statements with static verbs such as “Responsible for initial client interactions.”
Ask yourself what strategies you used to sell, how you gained new listings and how you dealt with problem listings or difficult clients. Include these answers in the form of problems, actions and positive outcomes.
See resume example content below for ideas on your employment history.
- Worked with clients to understand needs and wishes prior to planning.
- Educated myself on neighborhoods and market trends.
- Produced marketing content and worked with real estate contracts AIR and CAR.
- Educated sellers and buyers on legal procedures and disclosures.
- Worked to ensure that all transactions were carried out in a timely manner.
CV skills example: must-see attributes
You’re a Realtor, so of course you are skilled at selling. But what are the other skills you need to be successful in the real estate business? These are the attributes you should enumerate in this brief element of your Realtor CV.
Soft skills, or those that make you an excellent people-person, may be the first things that come to mind, but you also need technical know-how and have to stay up-to-date on real estate regulations and procedures. These are the hard skills you have learned as you studied for your license and practiced your sales craft.
See the resume example for a skills section below.
- Real Estate Procedures
- Marketing Techniques
- Knowledge of Office Equipment
- Quickbooks
- Project Management Skills
- Motivated Attitude
Realtor resume education example
Your education section is the simplest to compile. It consists of your academic experience. Since you do not need any advanced degrees to be a Realtor, you may list your high school diploma and any post-high school degrees you have.
The most important credential you have as a Realtor is your real estate broker or agent license. As such, you may choose to create a separate section to highlight your licenses and any sales awards or honors you have earned. You may call this section Credentials and Accolades, Licensing and Awards or something similar.
See the resume example text below for formatting.
- 2004-2008 ASU, Associate of Communications Phoenix, AZ
- 2000-2004 Dominican Academy, High School Diploma NY, NY
Resume layout and design: curb appeal
When you drive a client up to a property, what happens? They make instant judgments about it before they open the front door. The same is true of your Realtor resume sample. You may be the most accomplished office space salesperson out there, but if your resume looks like a fixer-upper the hiring manager may not even start reading.
Here are some tips for making a great first impression:
- Keep it neat and clean. Cluttered houses are a harder sell and so are cluttered resumes. You may be tempted to add design flourishes, but recruiters are much more impressed with a legible resume clean of distracting colors, fonts, or graphic elements.
- What’s most important in sales? The ability to contact you! Make sure your contact information stands out, as this is one of the first elements recruiters look for.
- In the same principle as floor plan flow, create a good flow for your resume. Use the "E" or "F" patterns, which follow the way the eye moves when reading, to place your text. This means that the top-left corner of any screen or document is the one that gets the most attention. As you move diagonally towards the bottom right, the readers’ focus will drop more and more.
- Use accents to break up the space in the form of bold titles and bulleted lists of accomplishments. Large blocks of type are hard to read.
Consider using one of our expert-tested resume templates to eliminate the time-consuming job of formatting.
Key takeaways for a Realtor resume
- Realtors know how to find exactly what each client wants and to sell, so use those skills in your own job hunt.
- Both the home and commercial real estate markets are tight, so you’ll have to be a real go-getter to grow your career.
- Target your message to your prospective employer and insert keywords and phrases that will boost your ranking with the ATS.
- Resume.io’s online resume maker will smooth the path to your next great job!
