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Tips for writing professional resumes.

How to Create an Effective Resume

As a professional resume writer, I hear all the time from clients that, “I’ll start my job search as soon as I have my resume written.” That sounds like a great way to do things, right? I mean, you need to have a resume in order to apply for jobs when you find them, so it seems logical to write the resume before beginning the job search. But, how do you write a resume that says, “Hire me, I am the perfect fit for the position at your company!” if you don’t know what position or company you are aiming for? What ultimately ends up happening in this situation is that you end up with a generic resume that doesn’t really stand out to anyone. Then, you wonder why you’re never getting called back for any interviews, and you quickly get discouraged in your job search, wondering why no one is impressed with you.

Job Search

So, should you not even bother thinking about your resume until after you have found positions that you are interested in? Not exactly. It is a good idea to create a generic resume before beginning your job search. Why? Because it helps you identify your skills and interests and can help guide your job search. But, that generic resume should not be the one you actually send out after you find the position you want.

After Your Job Search, Identify Your Strengths

After you find a position, go back to that generic resume and tailor it to the specific job posting. How do you do that? First, go through the job posting and making a list of keywords that describe the job duties and requirements of the position. Then make a list of specific experience that you have related to each of those duties and requirements. While you might not have specific experience related to every single keyword on your list, it is important to make sure that you have experience in more than half of them. If you demonstrate your qualifications, then it will be hard to convince a hiring manager that you are actually qualified for the job.

Leave Off Details That Are Not Relevant

Now go back to your generic resume. Begin with the Experience section. For each job in that section, make sure that the duties/responsibilities that most closely match the keywords on your list are the first bullet points listed. If you have several bullet points that describe duties or responsibilities that are not on your keyword list, consider leaving many of them off — hiring managers are most interested in how you can meet the specific role that you are applying for, and having a lot of information on your resume that does not relate to the position can be seen as a waste of their time.

Quantify Your Experience

After adding bullet points related to the job posting wherever possible in your Experience section, take another look at these bullet points. For each bullet point, try to answer the questions, “How many?” “How much?” “How often?” to quantify your experience. Also ask yourself, “how did this benefit the company? What value did I bring to the company?” Answering these questions will help you write bullet points that show how valuable you are as an employee, giving hiring managers a reason to invest in you.

Highlight Your Qualifications in Your Career Summary

The Experience section of your resume is your opportunity to show that you have the experience the hiring manager is looking for, but it is not the only part of your resume that needs to be tailored to the specific job position. The Career Summary at the top of your resume is also a great place to highlight your value. From the job posting, what appears to be most important to this company? Which skills and experience do they stress most? Those things should be included in your Career Summary section. Directly below your Career Summary, include a Core Competency section using words from your keyword list. This helps applicant tracking systems see that you have the necessary experience for the job.

If you take the time to tweak your resume specifically for each job position you are interested in, it shows hiring managers that you are serious about wanting THIS job. Hiring managers don’t want someone who is applying to everything under the sun. They want someone who is excited about their company. Show that you truly want this job. This will help you get the interviews and job offer you are hoping for.

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What Went Wrong on Izetta’s Resume?

Izetta had 15 years of experience as a chief executive officer in the healthcare field, which should have made it easy for her to get the interview for the position, but her resume landed in the trash instead. What went wrong? Isn’t it enough to have the right experience in the right field? Having the right experience is critical, but that experience doesn’t do you much good unless you clearly show the hiring manager your experience and the VALUE you can bring to the company. Izetta listed her experience and briefly described some of her job duties in her last position, but she failed to show the true benefits of the work she had done in the past. Just showing up for work every day and performing your basic job duties isn’t enough to convince anyone that you would be a valuable asset to their team. When a company hires an employee, they are making an investment (there is a salary that the employee will earn, in addition to the time and money spent on hiring and training), and before making a hiring decision, they want to have some idea of what they can expect from the employee in terms of return-on-investment (ROI). The best way to gauge the expected ROI is by looking at the contributions the employee has made in previous positions.

So, what can you do to help a hiring manager see you as a wise investment? Make sure that your value and contributions show up clearly on your resume. Begin by asking questions like this: How did the last company you worked for benefit from having you as an employee? What contributions did you make? Did you increase profits? Did you save money? Did you improve day-to-day operations? (If so, how did you do it and what impact did it have?) Be as specific as possible. It’s not enough just to say, “I saved the company money.” Try to quantify your contributions whenever possible by describing how you improved things and by how much. For example, a statement such as, “Improved employee retention” does not show as much value as, “Implemented an employee incentive program, increasing employee retention by 5%.” The first statement implies that you benefitted the company in some way, while the second statement shows that you are able to identify areas of need, take action to address that need, and the results are a measurable improvement.

Izetta’s biggest problem on her resume was her lack of quantifiable accomplishments or contributions, but her resume fell short overall because it was not an executive-level resume. It did nothing to show her professionalism or the level of seniority that is expected from someone applying for a C-level executive position. If you want to be taken seriously as an executive (or, at any level, really) your resume needs to be professional.

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What Went Wrong on Katerina’s Resume?

Writing a resume can be tricky business. Sometimes it can be difficult to know what to include and what to leave out. In Katerina’s case, she didn’t know what to leave out and how damaging some things could be. She was under the impression that you should always include your full job history on your resume, but there are times when leaving information off from your resume is far more helpful than including it. In her case, she needed to omit the job that she had back in the 1980’s for several reasons. First, it is ideal to limit your job history to the most recent 10 years. Most of the time, this is going to be the most relevant experience that you have, so you want to keep the focus on it, rather than less relevant experience from your past. If you have significant gaps in your job history, as Katerina does, this isn’t something that you want to brag about to a hiring manager, so leaving off prior jobs is prudent (or, if you feel they need to be listed, list them at the end of the employment history without dates attached to them).

Katerina also listed her college experience, which is generally a good idea, but how she approached it was problematic. Including the dates when she attended college gave the hiring manager a reference point to determine her age, and listing college experience that did not result in a degree, when combined with the gaps in her job history, made it appear as though she has a habit of not following through with things, which is often sends up red flags for hiring managers. She would have been better off omitting the dates she attended college.

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What Went Wrong on Astroth Varnham’s Resume?

Poor Astroth! His resume is saying all kinds of awful things about him and it lands his resume in the trash without a chance for an interview. Fortunately, there are things that can be done to fix the problems with Astroth’s resume. First of all, his job hopping makes him look like a poor job candidate, and while there’s nothing we can do to change his job history, we can minimize how noticeable it is by removing the months from the dates listed. By listing only the years, it is no longer obvious that he went sat unemployed for months at a time, or that he only stayed with some of those jobs for a few months. By making this small change, his resume no longer screams, “I’m not a loyal employee! Don’t hire me!”

Next, it is imperative to highlight any experience that he has related to the job for which he is applying, starting by removing unrelated job duties (like operating a jet bridge…a hiring manager looking for a customer service rep doesn’t care whether or not he knows how to operate a jet bridge). Providing more details about the duties he has had that are related to customer service would also help his resume say, “I have the experience you’re looking for!” rather than, “I’m completely unqualified for this position!”

Finally, if Astroth has any relevant computer skills, then they should be clearly listed, but if basic knowledge of Microsoft Office is the extent of his technology experience, then it is better to leave it off completely because, in this day and age, it is assumed that everyone has basic knowledge of Office.

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