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Typically second in command to the company’s CEO, the COO is a human resources C-level executive. Unlike the CEO, who serves as the public-facing leader of a company, the COO is focused on internal affairs, including payroll, training, recruitment, and legal services. To land a COO position, you’ll need the ability to take charge, to understand the company’s bottom line, and to communicate business needs to other departments.
Soft skills like leadership and communication are essential for executive-level positions, but they don’t belong on your skills list. Instead, demonstrate those qualities through your bullet points by including accomplishments like leading a team or overseeing a marketing campaign. If you can point to specific ways your leadership helped the company’s bottom line, even better.
If you have achievements that you can quantify, do so. This is especially true for C-suite positions that are expected to directly influence company outcomes. An accomplishment like “drove 150+ employees in a consumer company to grow revenue from $150M to $450M over 5 years” is far more impressive than a vague “led a large team to drive revenue.”
As a COO, you’ll need to demonstrate your ability to lead first and foremost. You’ll be tasked with ensuring the company’s administrative and operational functions run smoothly, which requires strong leadership, management, communication, and analytical skills. Your resume should also include essential hard skills, including accounting and finance expertise, change management, and business and marketing strategy.
If you’re at the top of your career, you’re likely to have more than a few accomplishments you’re genuinely proud of. That doesn’t mean you need to include them all — when it comes to your resume, more isn’t necessarily better. Try to narrow it down to 3-5 bullet points from your most recent positions and 1-2 from older ones. You can and should leave out your less relevant positions to keep your resume to 2-3 pages.
The old adage “less is more” applies to your skills section, too. Don’t be tempted to include every skill you have, or even every skill you think you might possibly need on the job — that’s a lot! Instead, identify the top skills named in the job description and opt for those.
Here are examples of popular skills from Chief Operating Officer (COO) - 1 job descriptions that you can include on your resume.
This word cloud highlights the important keywords that appear on Chief Operating Officer (COO) - 1 job descriptions and resumes. The bigger the word, the more frequently it appears on job postings, and the more likely you should include it in your resume.
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