|
|
|
Making Your Resume Stand Out
(by
Brad
Karsh, President of JobBound) |
|
|
|
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 sandwich, 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 (www.jobbound.com),
a company dedicated to helping job seekers with
resume writing, interviewing, and landing that dream
job. Author of Confessions of a Recruiting
Director: The Insider's Guide to Landing Your Fist
Job (Prentice Hall Press), Brad is
considered the nation's leading expert on the job
search. He's been featured on CNN's Paula
Zahn Now, CNN Headline News, and
CNBC and quoted in The Wall Street
Journal, The Washington Post, Fortune, and
many others.
|
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
