Get out of your own way in your resume

The power of hiding ourselves from one another is mercifully given, for men are wild beasts, and would devour one another but for this protection. (Henry Ward Beecher)

Get out of your own way in your resume

My employee won $4,000,000 in the lottery a few years back. Dave quit his second job. A year later he decided to buy a very fast car. All his research pointed to a BMW Roadster, Corvette or Porsche Boxer. He didn't like the looks of the Porsche. The Roadster he wanted was not on the dealer's lot yet. It was too new and too hot. He read reviews and tried a Corvette. The deciding review compared all three cars. The authors said, "The Corvette has the most power but suffers from one flaw, it can't get out from in front of itself. It weighs too much and just can't accelerate or take curves the way the other two can." Dave bought the BMW Roadster.

Resumes? That was about cars! Yes and no.

Does your resume make an undismissable point? Some people put so much in their resumes, that they hide their most important qualities. I've seen it happen in a one page resume or a six page resume. Length is not the real problem.

The engineers at BMW figured out that speed and handling are what Dave wanted from a powerful car. They cut weight everywhere including the engine. That gave the car its power and handling. Speed and handling sold the car, not tires, horsepower and color.

Here are two descriptions of the same person at the same job:

Saved $100,000 each year in overhead expenses
Salvaged 3 major customers in the last 2 years producing $800,000 in revenue
Brought 4 projects in on time and under budget, each over 2000 man hours

Managed the department budget
Monitored customer satisfaction
Managed a staff of 4 people

The same person at the same job. Everyone puts the second set of descriptions in their resume and it gets ignored. The people who put the accomplishments from the first one get hired.

Put power in your resume. Put bullets with real accomplishments right at the top. Show the hiring manager what you can accomplish, not just what you were assigned to do. Get out of your own way.

Something to do today

Look at your resume. Change your list of responsibilities into a list of accomplishments.

--------------------------

Tomorrow: The attention business

------------------------

My job journal blog is www.reallygreatjob.com . What I am working on.

My newsletter blog is www.howtoreallygetagreatjob.com/blog/

Archived articles are available at http://www.getresponse.com/archive/dailyjobhunter

Thank you for joining my (usually) daily job search newsletter. It will have an attitude and ideas to help you in your job search every day. I'll tell you things I have learned in over a decade of Connecting the Best People, With the Best Companies. Feel free to send it off unchanged to anyone you would like. Or send them the link they need to start receiving their own copy: All they have to do is go to www.agicc.com/lists.htm .

Copyright 2005 thru 2007 by Bryan Dilts. "How to REALLY get a GREAT JOB" and "REALLY get a GREAT" are trademarks of Bryan Dilts. Connecting the Best People, With the Best Companies is a trademark of AGI. All rights reserved.

Share and Enjoy:

Message Added: December 6th, 2007 at 4:59 am