Resume Content: Does It Sell You to an Employer?

Strength and Quantities Prove Your Worth

Copyright 2003-2010 G. A. Puleo

Take a good critical look at your resume.  Do the achievements in your past employment experiences create a clear focus and direction to your career history?  Are your strengths and key competencies highlighted so that an employer is sufficiently intrigued to invite you to interview? 

If your resume doesn't immediately prove your potential worth to an employer, then it's time to extensively edit and sharpen your resume's focus.  But where do you start? 

This article will help you make the changes that can transform your resume from 'ho hum' to dynamic. 

Know What You Want

Before you can begin editing your resume, you have to step back and succinctly answer the question:  What do I want?  The more concise and compelling your answer, the better able you can focus your resume's content to market yourself for these related opportunities. 

Too often, job candidates believe that recruiters are career consultants.  They're not.  A recruiter's job is to find the best candidate who meets their corporate client's needs.  In contrast, career consultants and coaches help you determine whether a prospective company is good fit with your career goals.  While coaches can help, it is up to you to make the final decision. 

Critically evaluate your professional history.  What trends emerge?  Are there certain tasks or areas in which you excell -- or even overshadow your peers?  How can these skills help you to contribute to a potential employer's bottom line? 

Highlight those accomplishments that reflect these trends.  When editing your resume, offer proof that you will be an active player on the company's team.  Professionals understand and can articulate how their career history influences their career goals -- these people are focused and better able to 'hit the ground running.' 

Use Strong Verbs

NEVER use passive, nondescript verbs!  A resume is not a high school essay that monotonously recants your previous jobs.  A dynamic resume uses strong, active verbs to emphasize the nuances of your duties, responsibilities and accomplishments. 

In the following pairs, which are more compellling and descriptive? 

• Did reports vs. Designed spreadsheets, organized data and analyzed results
  
• Managed staff vs. Motivated and mentored staff
  

Did you perceive these tasks differently simply through a change in verbs? 

Strong verbs have specific meanings and are loaded with powerful connotations that enable readers to understand not only what you did, but how you did it.  "Did reports" is vague and ambiguous compared to "designed spreadsheets, organized data and analyzed results."  "Motivated and mentored staff" not only indicates that you managed them, but also your approach to management. 

Strong verbs can immediately change your resume from dull to dynamic -- so choose your verbs wisely. 

Quantify, Quantify, Quantify

Anybody can say that they did a great job, but quantifying your accomplishments proves that you did a great job.  Quantifying provides the scope of your achievements and transforms them from vague to specific. 

Which is more compelling:  "presented corporate seminars" or "presented 100 full-day corporate seminars annually?"  The first statement merely states that you have presented seminars in the past:  the scope, breadth and time frame are ignored.  The second statement provides these details and creates a 'jumping off' point for a recruiter or hiring manager to probe for even more details. 

There are several ways to quantify duties, tasks, responsibilities and accomplishments.  Use rankings, percentages or dollar amounts -- the choice is based on whichever method has a stronger impact. 

BEWARE:  don't say "Number One Sales Representative" in a sales force of one!  You want to 'spin' the information to put it in the best light, but don't go overboard.  Instead of "Number One," try comparing your present sales over past years by percentage ("increased sales by 90% in 8 months").  If you handled a large territory, use dollar amounts ("increased sales by $1 million in 8 months").  Since both quantities represent the same result, it is your choice as to which would be more enticing to an employer. 

Click here for 5 Tips to a Dynamic Resume -- our 1-hour webinar for tips to automatically improve the quality of your resume.