You’ve dedicated a
large amount of time and effort to your job, and you’ve
accomplished a great deal. Your friends, family, and co-workers
are aware of your initiative and hard work, but when it comes
to landing a new job, you need to make sure you convey your
credentials to the person making the hiring decision.
With the improved job market and rise
in job recruiting and hiring, it’s not easy to make
your resume stand out. Competition can be fierce when hundreds,
even thousands, of people apply for the same jobs. With so
many candidates, the hiring manager or recruiting director
may only spend about fifteen seconds reading your resume.
Fortunately, if you know how to write
a great resume, and you understand what the organization wants
in an employee, you can move to the interview stage. Your
resume is an advertisement for you; it’s all about understanding
your target and making your message appealing to them.
There are simple tips for expressing your
jobs and activities in a compelling, relevant way that will
help your resume survive the recruiting director’s fifteen
second scan. The most important element of resume writing
is focusing on your specific accomplishments. This is the
area where a vast majority of candidates falter. Most job
seekers write job description resumes. They simply tell the
reader what anyone in that particular position would do, as
opposed to what they specifically accomplished. Here’s
an example:
Account Executive, DDB Worldwide, McDonald’s,
October 2004 - Present
• Managed a variety of integrated
marketing programs for client
• Authored creative briefs that
satisfied brand’s business objectives while maintaining
its strategic positioning
• Perpetuated cash flow profitability
on all jobs by ensuring accurate and timely billing
• Managed creative and production
processes to ensure on-time and within budget delivery
While this may sound decent, it’s
really quite generic. The fact is, ANY account executive in
the history of the advertising industry, whether at DDB or
not, can write this exact same statement. All you’ve
done is tell the reader what an account executive does. And
guess what? The reader probably already knows that! In your
mind, you know what you did and what you accomplished, but
you fail to convey those achievements when you write a generic
job description resume.
If what is written on your resume can
be written by the person who did the job, before, with, or
after you, then you haven’t done yourself justice. Resumes
need to be infused with numbers, data, records, and accomplishments.
These quantifiable and measurable details will dramatically
improve your resume. When listing your accomplishments, think
about the following:
• How was the organization/department
better as a result of YOUR involvement?
• What did YOU specifically accomplish?
• How did YOU do it differently
than the person before, after, or next to you?
• Were YOU ever singled out for
superior work?
• Use facts and figures whenever
possible.
When you’re putting together your
resume, think about the projects and ventures that you undertook
that you are particularly proud of. These are the components
and the essence of a great resume.
Accomplishments can be emphasized on your
resume through two categories: scope and results. Scope covers
the size of what you’ve done. Hiring managers can be
a skeptical lot. The reader can’t appreciate the breadth
of your experience if you utilize vague and indefinable language.
Unfortunately, if a recruiting director doesn’t see
a number, the natural inclination is to assume it was a small
or meaningless accomplishment.
After emphasizing the scope of your experiences,
you need to quantify your results. It’s one thing to
do a job, and it’s quite another to do a job well. Obviously,
a company wants to hire a superior achiever – someone
with a track record of success. Your resume needs to indicate
your successes. Think about the direct results of your actions,
and consider both personal and team achievements.
Ultimately, a resume that focuses on accomplishments
by including both scope and results is incredibly powerful.
The example resume from above is rewritten below. This is
the same exact candidate, doing the same exact job, yet it
reads quite differently.
Account Executive, DDB Worldwide, McDonald’s,
October 2004 - Present
• Launched 1.5MM person direct mail
piece exceeding response rate by more than 20%
• Helped reposition Big Mac s ndwich,
convincing client to change target
• Created new internal budgeting
process, helping keep more than $700,000 worth of production
under budget
• Produced more than 15 separate
direct mail pieces and in excess of 65 POP items
It's apparent that this resume is dramatically
better than the previous version. It’s specific, it’s
tangible, and it paints a clear picture of an accomplished
job candidate. Organizations are looking for the “easy”
hire. They want to bring someone onboard who can make a difference
and contribute from day one. Your resume is your initial sales
tool, and you want to make sure that first impression is appealing.
Very simply, organizations and companies
want to make sure you can do the job and you can do it well.
By writing an “accomplishment” resume and by focusing
on your target audience, you show the organization that you
are the ideal candidate for the job.
Brad Karsh is president
of JobBound, a company specializing in resume writing, interviews,
and job preparation to help students and professionals get
a great job. Author of “Confessions of a Recruiting
Director: The Insider’s Guide to Landing Your Fist Job”
(Prentice Hall Press, April 2006), Brad Karsh is considered
the nation’s leading expert on job searching. He’s
been featured on CNN’s Paula Zahn Now, CNBC, CNNfn,
and quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Fortune,
and many others. For even more job search advice, check out
http://www.jobbound.com
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