How many of you can honestly say you know exactly what you want to be when you grow up? Maybe you already have it figured out, and maybe you are already living and working it. If so, does your resume know?
Every day, I work with clients, and every week, I speak to hundreds of job seekers — all of whom have no idea what they want to do in their professional lives. And when I ask them about their aspirations, I receive the blanket, “I just need to feed my family,” or “I just need a job – I don’t care what it is.”
I understand the current market and economy, but, folks, having no direction or focus for your career and job search is going to get you nowhere fast. In the first three seconds of looking at your resume, I need to know who you are, what you do and why you’re good at it.
-I cannot learn the answers those three questions from an objective.
-I cannot find that information in a generic and vague career summary.
-I will not spend my time searching through an entire resume or reading all the way down to the work experience section before I can finally see what you did in your last job. Might I also add that what you did in your last job does not necessarily tell me what you want to do in your next job.
Here are some practical tips to ensure your resume is focused:
1. Ask yourself what you want to do. When you answer that question, look at the first third of your resume, and ask yourself, “Can I tell what I want to do by what I’m reading?” If you can’t, you need to make some changes.
2. Spell it out for the hiring manager. Make it BIG, BOLD, and EASY TO READ. A title and a one-liner works great. By doing so, you are nailing the three big questions in two sentences at the very top: who you are, what you do and what you are good at.
3. Brand it! Make your personal brand (you know, that thing you are really good at) permeate throughout your resume. SHOW the employer exactly how you’ve done that great thing for which you’re known in each and every position you’ve held.
4. Make everything in your resume revolve around the position for which you apply. Generic will get you nowhere fast. A customized, focused resume shows the employer you really want the job, you are qualified and you are focused.
If you have really great expertise in more than one area, THERE IS NO LAW THAT SAYS YOU CAN HAVE ONLY ONE RESUME. Create more than one resume, and have each focused on a different area of expertise. For each area, communicate the value you bring, for what you are known and how you excel.
Hiring managers weed out generic resumes and go straight for the focused ones built around their open position. So, you can either spend a little more time customizing each resume before you send it to a potential employer, or you can spend more time in your job search because you’re blasting out generic resumes. Personally, I’d rather show the employer I’m interested and that I go the extra mile.
There is too much competition right now to be skating by on a generic resume.
As CEO of Great Resumes Fast, Jessica Holbrook enjoys collaborating with forward-thinking professionals and executives, identifying their personal brand and value proposition and leveraging their unique talent, passion, and vision to position them as a leader in their industry. Her passion is helping professionals and executives uncover what makes them stand out in the crowd.
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Last updated on July 30th, 2010 at 05:47 pm
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