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Let's look at one ad that John had found for a position as a Vice President of Marketing. Here are some of the primary criteria or position requirements listed in the ad:
Take a quick glance at the top section of John's resume, below, and see how well it markets his best skills, achievements and experience for the VP of Marketing position:
Reading the resume section above, how quickly were you able to determine if John's skills match the top requirements listed in the ad above? Like many resumes created by executives, John's resume starts off with a broad overview of his vast experience. The temptation is to communicate all areas of experience, but in many ways this backfires because employers and recruiters either don't take the time to wade through such descriptions or they miss the mark because the descriptions don't hit upon specific experience being requested or required. By not customizing and targeting his resume, the description above doesn't hit upon required internet experience mentioned in item 3 of the ad. Now take a glance at the top section of John's new resume shown below. Is it more powerful? Does the opening heading present John's top qualifications at a glance? Which resume does a better job of communicating the full range of John's experience--the broad, general statements listed above or the specific, achievement-oriented ones below? Which is more convincing?
Now that you've compared the before and after examples, which resume do you think will have a greater chance of grabbing the attention of both employers and recruiters? Which one will help John effectively position himself and pave the way to negotiating a top salary? This example drives home the fact that your resume must command attention and match the needs of employers and recruiters. Headlines and subheadings like the ones used in John's after resume do this quite powerfully yet use limited space. Now that we've discussed how to effectively open your resume let's look a few short tips to improve the body. In working with executives, I find they still follow traditional resume formats like the one below which focus attention first on the company and secondly on job titles.
Ted wanted to apply for a variety of positions, some in related industries but many in unrelated industries. One ad was for a VP of Marketing for a pre-launch, start-up company building a new Internet-based business service marketing ISP and telecommunications packages to business travelers and other laptop users. Taking a quick glance at the names of the companies that Ted had worked for, it's easy to assume that Ted managed marketing for firms manufacturing electronics, engineered systems or chemical products. Recruiters and employers doing a quick screen of Ted's resume would be likely to eliminate him before they even read his job titles or the content beneath each of the company names. It's apparent that the industries he has worked in don't relate to the marketing of ISP and telecommunications packages. So to help ensure that Ted's resume does get read it's important that his resume market the transferable experience he has to offer. In a moment, you'll see a wide range of headings and subheadings that Ted can use in his resume that do just that! Another problem that Ted faced was that the second job listed above was a bust. He didn't feel he could list any major accomplishments with this company as it had experienced tremendous problems fulfilling orders or providing quality products. At the end of two years it had been sold. Then the fourth position was so technically oriented that Ted felt it also shouldn't be included in the main body of his resume. To overcome these problems, the less important positions weren't described in the body of the resume and only a short chronological listing of all jobs was included at the end of the resume. This allowed Ted to devote the largest portion of his resume to those jobs that are most important to market and are a strong match to the jobs he wants. Now take a look at the headings and subheadings for two positions Ted wanted to devote the bulk of his resume to. Text describing each of the italicized subheadings isn't included here but would appear in short paragraph form in the actual resume. Do they present a much stronger image of Ted's qualifications? Are they more likely to keep a recruiter or employer reading his resume?
The use of these headings and subheadings caused a dramatic change in the image presented by Ted's after resume. We also improved statements throughout the body of his resume which also elevated his image. Here's an example of a before and after statement from the first job described in Ted's resume:
Ted had found
several positions requiring experience managing revenues of up
to $100 million and this made his experience managing sales of
$40 million seem light weight. Therefore, he was able to position
himself as a hard-hitting achiever by sharing the fact that he
can close individual contracts ranging up to $36 million and
that he works for a multi-national corporation with global sales
of $1.2 billion. Adding these details put Ted's experience in
context for employers--and presents him in a whole new light--versus
managing sales of $40 million. It's important that you provide
such distinctions for employers and recruiters as they can only
judge you by the limited amount of information you provide in
your resume--you can't assume they'll know or realize such information
about you. © Regina Pontow,
Derivative of Proven Resumes & Confidence Builders, 1992-2005 Job
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Contents, Regina Pontow, 1997-2005