Is Your Resume Missing These 5 Must Haves?
By Mary Elizabeth Bradford
Making sure your résumé is a powerful marketing
document is a wise investment in your career. It can set you apart
from your competition, maximize the amount of interviews you land
and ultimately play into how much a company offers you.
After all, you are negotiating with potential employers
from the moment you connect with them to the time the offer is
made. So everything that happens in that window of time plays into
your offer…including how well targeted, well designed and
compelling your resume is.
Here are five elements you will want to make sure your resume
has:
Number one: Targeted format
Your resume must be compelling for the type of position you
are focusing on. If you are a sales executive of course you are
going to want to quantify your sales skills in terms of territory
development, revenue generation, and types of skills associated
with sales and secondary support skills such as client management
customer service, public relations and marketing.
Number two: Value proposition statement
Under the heading of your resume you should have a value
proposition statement. An example of a value proposition statement
is a 3 to 4 sentence overview of your focus and your strengths.
Here’s an example of a VP Statement for a technology
executive:
Innovative & highly competent business and technology
leader with 15+ years experience developing creative technology
solutions that enhance performance, effect change, drive profits
and growth. Proven reputation to:
Note: A value proposition
statement is different from a personal objective statement. A
personal objective statement is not the best to start out with on a
resume simply because it’s a statement about what YOU want.
Rather, share with your potential employer what skills and
strengths you have to offer THEM.
Number three: Quantifiable
achievements
This is one of the most important components to your resume.
You need to communicate in your resume not just what you do, but
what HAPPENDS when you do what you do! This technique also helps
employers envision you working with them, helping them with similar
challenges and issues.
Number four: Key-word rich content
Key words organized in a group called something like
“core competencies” for instance, will do two things
for you. It serves to potentially qualify you for more interviews,
assuming those companies you are submitting your resume to use key
word scanners. Second, key words. i.e., your strengths that stand
alone allow the reader to view your competencies independent of any
past company associated with it. This has a positive psychological
affect as again, it enhances the reader’s ability to picture
YOU in the position they are working to fill.
Number five: Two resume versions
You are going to want two versions of your resume. One in
ASCII text format and one clean word version. Your ASCII text
version is one you will use for all your electronic submissions.
This plain text format will hold it formatting and thus look much
cleaner on the receiving end. Once you save a copy of your resume
in this format, you will want to go in and clean up all the symbols
and spacing so it’s readable. Your word version is your clean
word copy you can both print out as a hard copy or attach as a word
document in an e mail.
