A campaign manager is an integral part of any elected official’s team. The campaign manager uses a mix of sales, marketing, and community engagement skills to boost the candidate's public image and secure more voters. They may have a variety of responsibilities, including increasing the public’s awareness of the candidate via digital and traditional marketing, orchestrating fundraising events, organizing community engagement opportunities, and more.
If you want to land a role as a campaign manager, you’ll need to showcase specific skills. Previous experience in political campaigning, fundraising, or community outreach will be especially helpful to land this role. You’ll also want to showcase your experience with the core job duties, such as marketing, effective outreach, and creating a positive public image.
Jump to a resource:
Get advice on each section of your resume:
The campaign manager is in charge of ensuring the campaign for candidates' electoral race is sharp, creative, and effective. In this role, you must know how to effectively communicate with the public and media agencies. Furthermore, it’s important that the campaign manager knows how to collaborate within circles of politicians to form positive partnerships and endorsements. Essentially, the campaign manager will have strong background knowledge in politics, but also a knack for effective marketing and public relations.
For this role, hiring managers will be looking for a candidate with a bachelor's degree in political science, government, or a similar field. Hiring managers will also want to see previous experience in similar roles, such as a prior job as a fundraiser. To land this role, it’s important to showcase you have the background knowledge and desirable soft skills to execute a successful campaign.
Whether you’re new to the political campaign scene or have experience working on them, earning a certification shows hiring managers you have extensive knowledge of the field. You can earn a certificate in strategic campaigning or political campaign management. Adding these certifications to your resume will help you stand out and bolster your resume.
When it comes down to it, hiring managers will be looking for someone who can produce results. Political campaigns are competitive races and politicians will want a campaign manager who has a track record of success. If you’ve had similar roles previously, such as being a fundraiser or outreach coordinator, it’s important to outline (with data and numbers) exactly how much you were able to boost civic engagement, boost voter participation, or improve a candidate's public approval rate.
The political campaign manager is responsible for overseeing all day-to-day operations of a political campaign. They will work closely with the politician to devise a plan for outreach, marketing, and fundraising. In addition, they manage junior-level campaign staff, ensuring everyone is on the right page to execute the campaign agenda.
The campaign manager has a myriad of duties, including but not limited to researching the voter population, identifying potential supporters, developing a campaign agenda, drafting speeches for the candidate, and more. Hiring managers will be looking for someone with a bachelor's degree in political science, government, or another related field. They will look for a candidate with previous experience in government or campaigning roles. Most importantly, they will look for candidates with strong government knowledge, who also possess great leadership and management skills.
The political campaign manager oversees all facets of the campaign strategy. This means political campaign managers need to understand what makes their voter base tick. Previous experience in public relations or persuasive writing is valuable for this role. Any educational or professional experience delivering persuasive ideas and messages should be highlighted on your resume.
To run an effective political campaign, the campaign manager will need to understand how to use marketing tools to reach the public. This means using everything from direct mail, to email campaigns, to social media like Facebook. Showcasing previous instances where you used marketing channels to an effective end will make your resume stand out.
If you are freshly graduated and looking to break into the world of government, a role as a campaign volunteer is a great place to start. The campaign volunteer supports the campaign manager in executing marketing and outreach duties. They may be responsible for tasks like calling constituents and asking for their vote, distributing campaign flyers or sending direct mail, local canvassing, and more.
To land this role, you’ll need a genuine interest in politics, and an educational background to match. Hiring managers will look for someone with a bachelor's degree in political science, government, PR, or another related field. Since this is an entry-level role, it is acceptable to have minimal professional experience. However, to have the best chance at landing this role, you should highlight relevant clubs, activities, and volunteer work you have completed.
Given that this is an entry level role, do not worry if you don’t have years of professional experience under your belt. What hiring managers will be looking for is someone who has familiarity with political roles. For example, previous volunteer experience as a poll agent or campus voting ambassador will be important to highlight. This shows you have initiative to learn and have already familiarized yourself with governmental roles.
Certifications can help bolster your resume in lieu of professional experience. You can get certified in policy and campaigning, Google AdWords, and other related specialities to stand out. These certifications are easy to acquire through online programs and show impressive background knowledge to hiring managers.
As a hiring manager who has recruited campaign managers at top companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon, I know what it takes to create a winning resume in this field. To help you land your dream job, I've put together a list of essential tips that will make your resume stand out from the competition. These tips are based on years of experience reviewing resumes and hiring the best candidates for the job.
When describing your campaign experience, always use specific metrics to showcase your achievements:
Avoid vague statements that don't provide concrete evidence of your skills:
A resume summary for a Campaign Manager position is optional, but can be a valuable addition if you have extensive experience to highlight or are making a career change. It should provide context and additional details that complement the rest of your resume, rather than repeating information already included.
When crafting your summary, focus on your most relevant qualifications and accomplishments that align with the Campaign Manager role. Avoid using generic buzzwords or soft skills, and instead, showcase your unique value proposition. Keep it concise, ideally no more than a short paragraph.
The work experience section is the heart of your campaign manager resume. It's where you show the impact you've made in your previous roles. Highlight your most relevant experiences that align with the job description. Focus on your achievements and the skills you used to drive results.
Here are some key tips to make your work experience section stand out:
When writing a resume, you want to use action verbs to describe previous experiences, achievements, and skills. The action verb should start your sentence, followed by the skill or achievement you want to detail. Campaign managers have a variety of skills, many of which hinge on them having fabulous communication, research, and collaboration skills. So, you may start your resume bullet points with “coordinated” or “initiated”.
Below, you’ll find several examples of action verbs that relate to the core functions of the campaign manager role. You should always use these verbs at the beginning of a bullet point and avoid overusing the same verb too many times.
For a full list of effective resume action verbs, visit Resume Action Verbs.
When applying for a campaign manager role, you need to showcase you possess the specific skills hiring managers are looking for. You’ll need your resume to get past applicant tracking software to get the eyes of a hiring manager. To do this, your resume must include key skills and traits that are relevant to the job description. You should list your skills on your resume or work them into your previous job role descriptions. To find what skills hiring managers are looking for, take note of the skills listed in the job posting, and work them into your resume. You should also take a look at the list of popular campaign manager skills below.
This word cloud highlights the important keywords that appear on Campaign Manager job descriptions and resumes. The bigger the word, the more frequently it appears on job postings, and the more 'important' it is.
Thank you for the checklist! I realized I was making so many mistakes on my resume that I've now fixed. I'm much more confident in my resume now.
