How to Make the Leap from Entrepreneur to Executive on Your Resume
By Laura Smith-Proulx
Skilled executive leaders have often heard the siren call of
business ownership, with many walking away from the corporate world
to start their own companies.
If you’ve been bitten by the entrepreneurial bug,
you’ve no doubt been attracted by the freedom to make
top-level business decisions or follow your own strategic
vision.
However, in these uncertain times, many entrepreneurs have
found that the economy has affected either their clients or their
own businesses. Still others have sold their operations or simply
missed the pace of the corporate world.
Whatever the reason, if you’re facing an
executive job search in today’s market after a stint as an
entrepreneur, you’ll have a hurdle to overcome when writing
your executive resume.
How do you make the leap from business owner to employee on
paper? Better yet, what’s the best way to show
employers that you’re serious about this
move—and that you truly deserve that top executive
spot?
Like any complex change, you’ll find that the outcome of
your entrepreneur-to-executive job search will depend upon the
strategy that you’ve put in place—as well as the way
you present your leadership experience on your resume.
The challenge is to look at the skills that you’ve used
as a business owner, and then translate these qualifications in a
way that resonates with employers’ needs.
Here are some key points to follow for your transition:
1 – Develop tunnel vision—to a
point.
Most business owners have trouble quantifying exactly what it
is that they do well, especially since they wear many hats to run
their operations.
Here’s a case where it’s important to focus
intently on what qualifies you for a single role, while using the
rest of your competencies as backup. You can always create another
version of your executive resume if you decide to focus on a
different leadership goal.
For example, if you’ve developed a history of marketing
success and plan to pursue a job as Marketing Director,
you’ll need to pull out quantifiable data from your career
that focuses on campaign development, promotions, and the
like.
Then, using the following suggestions as a guide, maintain the
emphasis on this same set of skills within your resume.
2 – Give your resume a meaningful
title.
If your goal is a position as Executive Director of Sales, for
example, the best resume strategy is to spell out your goal, using
a resume title or heading that appears at the beginning of the
document.
In this case, you could add titles such as Sales Executive,
Sales Director, or even Sales Leader (which allows more latitude)
to the resume. By adding this heading, you are demonstrating a
clear focus on a single job goal, which is essential for hiring
authorities to see on your executive resume.
Don’t skip out on this step and expect employers to
figure it out for you!
3 – Keep the connection alive.
Continue to add relevant information to your resume in a way
that shows you know what you’re doing.
Using the previous example, you could provide a section on the
first page of your executive resume entitled “Sales
Leadership Highlights” that contains a sampling of the
results you’ve achieved in your business.
In this section, I recommend adding quantifiable
accomplishments that demonstrate your fitness as a sales leader,
including any sales management duties that you assumed, in addition
to sales force training or other related data.
These achievements don’t have to be internally focused!
You may have developed sales teams for your clients, and can point
to this expertise as proof of your proficiency.
4 - Look at your role with fresh eyes.
While many business owners are proud to take the title of
Founder and President, these terms can cast your experience in a
different light and make it difficult for employers to see the
relationship to their needs.
If your goal is a position as Chief Operating Officer, for
example, the best way to do this is to show that your position as
company principal was a combination of operations leader and
business owner.
I recommend carefully examining your role to determine if you
can add a descriptive title to the resume for your entrepreneurial
“job” that closely resembles the role you seek.
Be careful to add, NOT replace your original title! In these
examples, your business ownership role would appear as Principal
and Marketing Manager, or President / COO.
If you decide to use this strategy, just be sure that you can
back up your title with concrete examples of your
contributions.
5 – Don’t forget the
keywords.
You’ll need to mine your career for expertise that
demonstrates the kind of fit needed for the job you want.
Examine job descriptions for your desired executive role,
taking note of the commonalities between different job postings for
the skills (which are keywords) that are required for at least
several different executive jobs.
Next, insert these skills into a table or list in your
executive resume to reinforce the point that you possess adequate
qualifications for the role you seek.
In summary, these steps are the crucial ones to make
on paper before you can make your case in person.
Use these resume strategies to paint a clear picture of
yourself as an executive and potential employee—giving
employers a true picture of your value proposition and fit for
their company.
