Resume Tips - Part 2!

CAREERS – Updated Your Resume Lately?

Since the last issue was usurped by the piece on the economy, this will get us back on schedule. In recent weeks, I’ve been asked to assist several clients in preparing or updating their resumes. Can’t tell you why the traffic in this area has increased, but it suggests that the readership might benefit from a discussion of the subject.

When I began working with John Crystal in the career field in 1974, the approach was to urge clients NOT to prepare a resume at all. Instead, to help them develop entire career-planning strategies. That’s changed somewhat in the intervening twenty years plus. Today, you have vast internet based resume bins, extremely sophisticated sorting mechanisms, and tons more people in the job market. Even though unemployment is low, turnover in many industries is high—an indicator perhaps of the decline in organizational loyalty and the take-charge attitudes that many have been forced to develop.

So, today, in most situations, you need a resume … but, how it is developed and subsequently used is critical. Here are ten guidelines you may want to consider:

1. Where possible, avoid sending your resume to Personnel. Their role is to exclude rather than include. They get hundreds of resumes for many positions, and their task is to winnow the huge numbers down to meaningful size. Some use computer scanning/sorting for a first cut, many rely on largely invisible sorting criteria to weed out those who are unacceptable, and some (only a few, we hope) are motivated by their desire to submit only those applicants who, they feel, will make them look good. (I should say that there are organizations where the HR/personnel types don’t fit this description but, in my experience, they are definitely in the minority)

2. Treat your resume as a leave-behind rather than a send-before. Believe it or not, YOU are more important than your resume, so it only makes sense that the prospective employer meet you first, not your resume. (How you accomplish this miraculous feat is what strategy is all about)

3. Write your resume with one thought in mind: the reader (prospective employer) has little time and very specific interest. Every word should be carefully orchestrated accordingly. Example: the first and only thing at the top of your resume (center heading) should be your name, not your address and phone. Think about it. When will the interviewer call or write you? Only when he or she has made a decision to follow up, and that’s not when you walk in the door. Your contact information is the next-to-last item on your resume.

4. After your name, the most important item is your Objective, typically set-off as a minor side head (initial caps only) followed two-spaces below with a sentence that begins: To … Your objective should be specific to the type of work and position you are applying for, and it should focus on the benefits to the employer (e.g.- your objective is NOT to develop your skills on the employer’s time!)

5. Once you’ve stated your objective, everything else follows directly from that objective. Does this mean that you may have a different resume and objective for each employment prospect? YES! The objective is to make your campaign rifle-like in its specificity.

6. Following your objective, the next minor side heading should be:

Relevant Experience. The word, relevant, is critical here, because it enables you to get away from the current-employment-first listing requirement. What you write under this heading (typically as bulleted paragraphs) is ordered in relation to your objective, not according to history. That is, the first item—phrased in terms of measurable results where possible—should be the most important contribution you can offer towards reaching your objective. The second item should be the next most important, and so on. Now, the reason for the word, Relevant, is that it enables you to list these items in order of their importance rather than their chronology. This is critical, because you may have worked in a job that does not contribute to your objective, so you want to avoid highlighting it.

7. Your next heading (minor side) would be something like: Education & Extracurricular, or Education & Military. Here you would list your degrees, highest first according to: type of degree, concentration, college, and year. (e.g., MBA, Finance, Cornell University, 1991). You would also list military experience and any activities that help describe you as the kind of person who could/would accomplish your stated objective.

8. Now we pay homage to chronological order. This is your Chronology section in which you list the organizations (and positions, if you like, though it’s often unnecessary and unwieldy if you’ve held a number of different positions in a single organization), and inclusive dates (years only, e.g.,1992-94). This section protects you from being accused of having left anything out. The word, Relevant, allows you be be selective in the most important section.

9. Publications. If you’ve written books or articles that are relevant to your objective or that tell much about you as a person, list them here (title, publisher and date of publication plus any co-authorship). If you’re applying for work in an academic, scientific, or technical environment, you may want to be fairly inclusive here. The key measure is: is this item pertinent in relation to my objective and experience?

10. Contact information. This is the next-to-last item and, as per above, it includes your address, phone, fax, e-mail, etc. The last item is a single statement, set off as a separate line: References available on request.

Now, let’s say you’ve followed the outline above, prepared your resume with proper fonts and sizing. How do you use it? Well, for starters, you try to use it as an item that you present to the interviewer AFTER he/she has had a chance to meet and talk with you. With personnel types, this is hard, but with an operating manager/executive—if you set it up right—it’s much easier. The key point here is that the most important impression is YOU, not your resume. And incidentally, while the precise figures vary, there seems to be general agreement that you have about two minutes to make a favorable impression. Longer than that and it’s an up hill battle.

A second point regarding use of the resume. Use it as a checklist for spotting weaknesses or gaps in your experience, strengths, job history, etc. As in the old sales maxim: meet the objection head-on, you want to think ahead about any or problems your resume might reveal. For example, if you are applying for an accounting position and, somewhere between your accounting degree and your present position, you sold cars, have an explanation for the discrepancy! Don’t expect that it won’t be noticed, because it will. Don’t initiate discussion about it, but if questioned or challenged, be ready to respond in a way that seems reasonable to the interviewer.

Finally, use your Relevant Experience section as the basis for developing talking papers. These are papers you write, one for each item, which you virtually memorize so that you can talk without them fluently and with apparent spontaneity. In these talking papers, you focus on your accomplishments, the challenges you faced, the growth you experienced, and the insights you gained. This last item is extremely important, because it’s your way of demonstrating—in the give-and-take interview discussion—your capability.

I hope I haven’t discouraged you, but a resume is (or should be) more than just a nicely formatted personal history. In a way, it’s the evidence on which the impressions you create are based. It’s also (with your talking papers which the interviewer never sees) your script.

One final note. Even if you aren’t looking for a job, preparing a resume, a la the above can help focus your interests and effort. Have fun!

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