What makes you buy things? Features and benefits are all well and good, but typically it's the advertisement that gets you in the store, right? Well, if we can all acknowledge that we have been sucked in by advertising at least once in our lives, can you tell me why people still insist on writing resumes like owners manuals and not ads?
Ok, let me get off the resume soapbox and define what I mean here for a moment:
Style A: Owners Manual Resume
My pertinent details
A cold recitation of hard skills
Dates of employment
Job descriptions that I cut and pasted from the corporate job postings
And now let's look at...
Style B: Sales Ad Resume
My pertinent details
A summary statement that makes my skills and desires clear without extra language
Strong examples of past performance with appropriate metrics
And finally, the best of both worlds...the brief infomercial...
Style C: Infomercial Resume
My pertinent details
A summary statement that makes my skills and desires clear without extra language
Dates of employment
Job descriptions statements backed up by strong examples of past performance with appropriate metrics
See-the best type is the one that accomplishes both a features AND benefits explanation. If you hire me, here are the features you get...but based on my past performance, chances are these are the benefits you will receive as well.
Having reviewed a whole lot of resumes in my time, I'm going to assume that everyone knows how to write the job descriptions part, but let me give you a little hint on how to add in the examples of past performance. Think of yourself as a STAR..That's:
S: situation
T: task
A: action
R: result
This model is also very effective in answering interview questions, but that's a blog for another day. Try and come up with at least 3-5 performance examples that demonstrate not just what you did, but how well you did it. Don't feel bad if this feels tough-I personally think that resume writing is one of the toughest parts of the job search process. And yeah yeah, a professional resume writer can help you with this...but as someone who is a professional resume writer, I can tell you that we still can't create the examples-the info has to come from you. So, think about connecting with an old boss or co-worker who might help you think of some examples. Ask the HR department of your old employer if you can get copies of performance reviews (laws governing release of this info vary from state to state-just fyi). Just start simple-think about the example itself without making it "resume ready"...pull your data together, and then polish, polish, polish! And if you are still stuck and not able to craft these stories...then think about getting help whether it's from your friends, family, church, or a paid professional.
Bottom line is this: I know what you are thinking...give me a break...is it as simple as that? In a word, YES! This is a highly competitive market where you are lucky when a real, live human even takes a look at your resume. Do you want your resume to read like a piece of dry, wheat toast....or like a croissant slathered in butter that also promises to make your morning a little more pleasant? Croissant Croissant!!! Seriously though-take the time to create a resume that is deserving of your hard work. If all you are doing is cut and paste from a job description, I promise you-it will look like it.
Michelle currently serves as a Job Search coach helping professionals make the leap from looking to landed. In addition to her time spent coaching individuals, she delivers a variety of training sessions from Social Networking, Working with Recruiters, Online Resume Posting, and Interview Prep.
Michelle possesses over 15 years of diverse experience in functional areas such as recruiting, human resources, coaching, training, organizational development, staffing, sales, sales management, retail, and banking/finance.
Prior to working as a job search coach, Michelle made her career in the Placement industry working most recently for the 2nd largest Staffing Company in the World. For this multi-national organization, Michelle served as an Agency Recruiter, Corporate Recruiter, Senior HR Manager, and Area Vice President. During her tenure with this organization, Michelle was also tasked with various Organizational Development programs including the creation of a company wide Career Progression Program. Michelle also served on the three person team that introduced a new “Gen Y” based hiring model that included a greater emphasis on college recruiting/branding and internships. As a result of this experience, Michelle considers her greatest strengths to be talent identification/retention, talent development, and coaching for performance improvement.
In addition to these areas of expertise, Michelle is rapidly growing her knowledge base around Social Media and Web 2.0 as it relates to the work world. She writes a regular blog on job searching that can be found at: http://hireme.typepad.com/michellemorettini/. Want to connect to Michelle?
Send her an invitation on LinkedIn at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/michellemorettini.
Follow her on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/mmorettini.
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