Does Your Resume Pass the Hiring Manager's 30 Second Test (Part 2)

THE CREATIVE WRITING TEST Strategies for Showcasing Your Personal Brand

Create a professional identity

A professional identity is not the same as a job title. The professional identify conveys your personal brand and the scope of your responsibilities through a few targeted words. When placed in bold near the top of your resume, your identity calls attention to your candidacy much the same way that a catchy headline on the front page of a newspaper grabs the attention of the reader.

Offer a mission statement or personal quote

What are your goals and dreams and how successful have you been at attaining these objectives in different business environments? Share your value proposition with your reader to build rapport and establish a connection between your successes and the goals of the company.

Discuss business environments

Have you worked in particular business environments that have helped shape your brand? Were your achievements focused in a turnaround, high-growth, or international environment? Have you worked across several businesses or across multiple industries? This may very well be part of your value add and it is certainly information that will gain your reader’s attention and encourage them to read on.

Name drop

As a hiring manager scans your resume, he will be quickly looking at the companies you have worked for. If you have worked for several Fortune 1,000 or fast-growing start-ups and your association with these firms is part of your brand, add the company names to your headline to build credibility and interest in your candidacy. If you have worked for lesser known companies, but held account responsibilities for well-known firms, showcase the names of your clients if this is not considered proprietary information.

Add a testimonial

One great way to build authenticity into your profile is to showcase a quote from a senior executive or customer. Content for these testimonials can be found through a variety of sources including performance reviews, 360 assessments, and customer satisfaction surveys.

Part 3 will be posted tomorrow!

Does Your Resume Pass the Hiring Manager's 30 Second Test? Part I

The average hiring manager spends less than 30 seconds reviewing a resume. With so little time and so much at stake, applicants must strive to create a self-marketing tool that passes the hiring manager’s initial screening test. Hiring managers scan resumes to quickly see what “pops” or sparks their interest in a candidate. Their first glance at the document often focuses on the text within the top third of the page. This makes it imperative for candidates to create a career summary at the top of the document to quickly communicate competency, scope, fit, and value add. Here is the first of the three “tests’ hiring managers use to screen candidates .

THE COMPETENCY TEST Strategies for Showcasing Your Skills

First, the hiring manager looks for your competencies to determine if you have the experience and scope necessary to perform the job. When writing a resume, make sure that your areas of knowledge and expertise are communicated clearly within the top third of the first page of your resume. Don’t hide the competencies within your profile summary; instead create a separate section in the resume called core competencies, areas of expertise, or areas of knowledge to call direct attention to your qualifications. Make sure your competencies section discusses specific rather than general job expertise. Try to match your competencies to the words and phrases that are most commonly used in your industry. Review job postings and job descriptions for positions in your field that are similar to the ones you will be targeting in your search to create a clear match between your competencies and those necessary for the position.

Check back tomorrow to learn about the second hiring manager test.

Career Solvers Nominated for 5 Toast of the Resume Industry Awards

I'm pleased to announce that Career Solvers was nominated for 5 TORI (Toast of the Resume Industry Awards) for 2007. This international competition is like the Oscars for resume writers and this year Career Solvers was nominated in the following categories:

Best Executive Resume
Best Professional Resume
Best Technical Resume
Best Return to Work Resume
Best Creative Resume

So What Does That Recruiter Really Think of Your Resume?

Jason Alba of Jibber Jobber is hosting a "resume critique extravaganza" over on the Jibber Jobber blog and the invited guests are recruiters and resume experts. Each "judge" is weighing in and offering opinions on one anonymous job seeker's resume content and design. OK, it's not exactly American Idol, but there are several "Simon Cowell-esque" comments to view and lots of great resume writing advice. The recruiters and resume writers are clearly on the same page as evidenced by the consistency in their comments. All agree that a strong resume needs to showcase accomplishments over tasks, clearly communicate the candidate's core brand and value add, and have a neat, clean, and eye-catching visual design. If you would like to have your own resume critiqued, without having the content on full view to everyone, email me for a free resume assessment (my style is much more like Paula Abdul and I will tell you what is working in your current resume as well as what can be improved).

Sudden Death From Too Many Resume Bullets

Bulleted lists are often used on resumes to highlight specific talking points and areas of achievement. But too frequently bullets are misused and they end up diminishing the impact of the talking points rather than enhancing them. Here are a few common mistakes candidates make when using bullet points on their resume.

Too Many Bullets
When job seekers create a list of more than five bullets in a row, nothing stands out and the text starts to look like one big paragraph. A better strategy is to create functional headings such as Business Development, Marketing, Financial Analysis, etc. This allows you to group your bullet points in sub-sections and quickly differentiate the types of value-add statements you are including in the resume.

Mixed Purpose Bullets
Frequently job seekers mix information about job tasks with information regarding accomplishments. This waters down the value of the accomplishment statement and makes it harder to spot amongst a sea of task-oriented statements. A better strategy is to report job tasks in a brief paragraph format and identify accomplishments in a bulleted list to differentiate the two and make it easier for the reader to quickly spot the accomplishments.

Unique Bullets
Sometimes candidates use unusual symbols for their bullets that can be quite distracting for the reader. It's better to stick with traditional circles and squares when creating bullet points. You want your resume to be memorable based on its accomplishments, rather than unusual formatting.