From Peter Newfield
By Peter Newfield
President of Career-Resumes.com®
When presenting a resume to a prospective employer, whether on
paper or on-line, you have approximately 15-30 seconds to get past
the “gatekeeper” whose job it is to screen resumes out,
not in. Putting your best effort out there is critical in making
that all important first impression.
From a content standpoint, a resume should start off with a “Summary
of Qualifications” which is a 3 - 8 sentence overview of your
career experience. Unless you have recently graduated from college
or you are completely changing fields, an “Objective”
is not appropriate to start off the resume. In your “Summary
of Qualifications” you can hit the highlights right up front
-- “twenty years of product marketing experience”--
“skilled in building strong sales teams” or “fluent
in Mandarin and Cantonese”.
Next, you need to define your “Areas of Strength” and
briefly list the keywords as if you were going to put the resume
on the Internet. Many companies scan for keywords and need to see
your particular buzzwords -- “Sales management” “Cost
controls” “Financial reporting” or “Distribution”
-- you get the idea.
When you list your job experience under the heading of “Professional
Experience”, you need to identify and describe your skills
and responsibilities. Skills are what you do and how you do it in
regards to each position held from most current to ten years ago.
Prospective employers are most interested in what your skills and
experiences have been over the past 10-12 years. You can list previous
jobs if they are related to your field, but please don’t give
a three page laundry list going back to that after-school job in
high school.
What will ultimately set you apart from everyone else with similar
work experience is, of course, “Accomplishments”. Your
accomplishments under each job title or position must be quantified.
By quantified, I mean how did you make your company money, save
the company money, increase department efficiency, and/or reduce
operating costs. Be specific with numbers and percentages, if possible.
Some specific examples of “Accomplishments” are: “Reduced
operating costs by 13% within first year in this position”
-- “Negotiated the company’s first global marketing
contract for entire product line” or “Named to President’s
Circle three consecutive years”.
After your job responsibilities and accomplishments have been clearly
presented, the next category on the resume should be “Education”.
List degrees earned, name of college/university, and city/state.
A general rule of resume writing is to include the years of graduation
only if you have graduated within the past three years. Please do
not “fudge” the subject area you majored in, your GPA
or the type of degree earned. If you attended college for three
years but did not graduate, don’t list BA. If a background
check is carried out, you will be immediately disqualified for consideration
if even one “white lie” is caught by the personnel department.
Having addressed the issue of content, the final piece of the resume
to focus on is “format” or visual presentation. If the
format is weak, regardless of the content, it just won’t work.
Visual presentation is almost as critical as content. If the typeface
is too small, there is not enough white space on the page, or the
print is smudged or too light to read easily, you are just wasting
your time and postage in sending it out. Again, the “gatekeeper”
is the first roadblock that your resume encounters and it must get
past that person on the first attempt.
Please understand that a resume’s function is not to get
you a job. A resume’s function is to get you a phone call
inviting you in for an interview. If that is accomplished, the resume
has done its job; the rest is up to you.
For a free critique/price quote, email Career Resumes® at Peter@career-resumes.com.
Peter Newfield is President of Career-Resumes.com®,
one of the premier resume writing services in the United States.
He is The Resume Expert for BlueSteps.com, ExecutiveRegistry.com,
NETSHARE.com, DirectEmployer.com and the former Resume Expert for
Monster.com, Spencer Stuart Talent Network and the Career Center on AOL. View samples at: www.career-resumes.com
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