Résumé Help: Be Strategic About Your Content
When you review the sample below, you may think I am too rough on today’s candidate. Like too many candidates, Eric is not sharing the more compelling details of his career history. This is a classic undersell. No worries! We can help Eric create a new résumé strategy. Eric will be smiling all the way to his next job interview. You can be smiling too, if you learn from his mistakes.
The current (or more recent) job is the one that potential employers find most interesting and relevant. So, we need to come out swinging. First, Eric’s opening job summary should be longer than one line. It should be approximately three to five lines. It should give a brief overview of major responsibilities. Eric could strengthen his résumé by showing the scope of the network, size of his budget, and functions reporting to him. After that we select the top five to seven accomplishments. These should include examples of problems solved, improvements initiated, projects led, and other ways that Eric contributed to profit, quality, and efficiency gains. Measured results have even great impact. One of my questions for Eric is why he used 50% of the space for the current job to talk about a training initiative. Perhaps if we know the scope, those items will seem worthy of the space. Or, perhaps we will determine that content should be overhauled. Another question for Eric is, where are the achievements to support his claim at the top of the résumé that he has has expertise in quality assurance and project management?
The bottom line is that Eric should spend some time reflecting on his responsibilities and career accomplishments. After that he should strategically select the items to include on his new résumé. For more résumé help, you may wish to read these blog entries.
Résumé Help: Uncovering Achievements
Average Résumés Don’t Get Job Offers
To see additional résumé suggestions that will help you as you create your own résumé, please click on the image below.
If you would like a résumé critique, please contact Debra Wheatman at debra@careersdonewrite.com or visit us at http://careersdonewrite.com. The Résumé Help blog appears weekly on Mondays.
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