After reviewing hundreds of resumes through my consulting work, I've noticed the same recurring mistakes when people describe their in-house marketing experience. Here's what I see most often, and how to fix it.
The biggest one: not telling the full story. A strong resume bullet answers what (what kind of company, what business were you working on), when (compared to what time period), how (specifically what tactics and strategies you used), who (which teams you collaborated with), and why (what was the ultimate business objective). "Optimized email campaigns, achieving a 4% uplift in open rates" sounds fine on the surface — but a hiring manager immediately wonders: how did you optimize it? What's the 4% compared to — last month, last year, last quarter? A much better version: "Increased email open rate by 4% month over month using A/B testing to optimize email templates, subject lines, and copy in collaboration with the creative team." Now we're talking.
Strong marketing resumes lead with the big win and then work backwards. Think of it like an inverted triangle: your first bullet should summarize the most important result you drove, and the bullets below should support it with specifics by channel. Don't scatter five separate bullet points about five different channels with no connective tissue. Instead, say in the first bullet: "Led X campaign driving revenue and lead growth through email, social, and paid channels," and then detail each channel's performance beneath that.
Avoid empty adjectives like "innovative" or "impressive" — they're hollow without evidence. Replace them with specifics: what strategy shift did you make, what insight drove it, and what measurable improvement resulted compared to the prior period or industry benchmark?
© 2026 Rachel Hong · Accelerator Consulting