The Goal of the Resume

The goal of the resume is to win interviews. The goal of the interview is to win a job offer. The more job offers you have, the more leverage you have in the marketplace.

1) Entice and Excite the Hiring Authority to Call?
Every recruiter or hiring authority has their own agenda to serve. They have supervisors, stockholders, customers, employees and more to answer to. What can you discern your hiring authority needs? What will make them look good to their boss? Do they need a sales performer, someone stable, a specific skill.

2) Capture the Readers Attention Quickly?
Got something good to say? Don’t bury it deep in the job descriptions, say it loud, proud and fast. Get to the point so the reader will be want to know about you. Use a summary to highlight important areas of your background first.

3) Set Yourself Up For Good Interview Questions?
Your resume has the seeds of future interview questions. What you put on our resume dictates the tone and content of many of the questions that will come back to you in upcoming interviews. Share stories, anecdotes and illustrations that you like to about, and can expand upon at great length.

4) Tell the “So What” of your Abilities and Accomplishments?
So What!? Great, you got employee of the month…so what!? Oh, you put in an employee training and scheduling plan that reduced payroll by 10% and increased productivity and profit by 8% earning the employer an additional $150,000 per month. Make the hiring authority think, what if he/she could do that here! Subsantiate your work with clear illustrations.

5) Make Vague, Ambiguous and Uninspired Claims?
Improved customer service; helped sales team; work well with people…That all sounds nice, but everybody will make the same or similar claim. Show some enthusiasm for your work. Share some detail!

6) Use Proper Language, Etiquette and Grammar?
Well, this seems obvious, but most don’t do this. Resumes are written in 3rd person. (Don’t use “I” or “my”). Start sentences with an Active verb. “Motivated,” “Led,” “Sold”… Use present tense verbs if the statements still applies like a current job. Use past tense if it applies to something you did in the past.

7) Have a Defined, Clear Message and Objective?
What do you want? What is your goal? Show passion, dedication and commitment to your chosen career path. If you try to be everything to everybody, you will dilute yourself and come across weaker than your competition.

Work for Resume Scanning/Searching Databases?
Resume scanning and searching is about Keywords. Use the critical industry lingo or accomplishment phrases clearly and specifically. When possible use them more than once.

9) Be Formatted Properly for Emailing?
Virtually 100% of all resumes under any sort of serious consideration will be emailed. Submit your resume in MS Word 2004 or under version (.doc) This is the most universally accepted format as virtually all programs open MS Word.doc files. Fact: No matter what you do some formatting will be lost. Defer to more simple layouts and formatting options. The more complex the format, the more likely it will not be viewed as intended on the other side. The best format for email only is pdf, but that is not a searchable file format.

10) Oversell or Share Too Much?
The job of the resume is to get an interview. Thats it. Nothing more. If you get an interview you’ve most likely beaten out 95% of your competition. Share just enough information on your resume to get the interview. Share too much, and they might make a decision on you based on overly thorough resume. You want them to call you. Save something for the interview!