Drafting a GREAT Resume
The second (of three) keys to effective career transition is the basis of this "chart".
Always communicate yourself in a positive, future-oriented manner. Put your best foot forward !!! Remember, you will be screened for experience, but hired for your potential.
A traditional resume communicates what you have already done... sort of a historical epitaph of your past. This chart encourages you to communicate what you are capable of and motivated to do in the future, using your past as supportive evidence.
Its easy to make a resume look and read well... but does YOUR resume truly "FIT" your career objectives? A "GREAT" Resume is a dynamic documentation of your communication strategy, the vital epicenter of your Personal Market Plan. It is the most used of your written collaterals. It can be kept current throughout your career with annual (or more frequent) Career "FITness Tests.
Time for a reality check:
Selling yourself in the marketplace is a consultative process within which you
1) Determine needs of your marketplace...
2) Position your product, YOU, to meet those needs. Finally...
3) Implement a well thought out Personal Market Plan by communicating the benefits of employing you! Your Personal Market Plan represents a strong commitment on your part, but has the tangible result of "making the deal", assuring a terrific "fit" between your career objectives and your next employment opportunity.
STARTING POINT: Your Unique Career FIT
At the core of your drafting efforts is your communication strategy, those keywords that uniquely define YOU.
A GREAT resume makes effective use of the actual words and phrases you use to define the FIT between your motivated competencies and the market's need for services and solutions. Selection of those keywords comes from your assessment and awareness of those characteristics by which you are measured by others. Your characteristics should be viewed in both hard and soft measurements. They are so much more than the "the right buzz words," or "keywords" as used in technology driven job banks (or the mirrored resume bank queries)... they are the building blocks of your message.
Most of us learned these lessons back in grade school.
-
Word selection... Your choice of words can convey very different meanings. For example, as a manager, do you direct the activity of your subordinates... coordinate the efforts of multi-level, interactive teams or peer groups... or actually do certain functions to achieve results?
-
Effective phraseology... Often, the soft measure words used to describe what sort of a worker you are or how you perform your work, are discarded as self-serving "fluff." However, when built in to powerful, high impact phrases, they serve to differentiate you from others capable of doing the same work. For example, being a "problem solver" doesn't make you better than your professional competitors... but describing yourself as a tenacious (an adjective) problem solver, or one who solves problems professionally (an adverb), begins to personalize your strengths.
-
Whole sentence structure... Build accomplishment statements that demonstrate and prove your abilities and experience. While resumes utilize a truncated syntax that eliminates the repetitive use of the noun "I", correspondence and conversation dictate the more narrative use of nouns. Use action verbs to convey actual behavior, words and phrases to describe the object being acted upon, and, when possible, state actual results of the activity. Constructed effectively, a good accomplishment can trigger all the right questions about your strengths. >>MORE
-
Focused, behavior-laden paragraphs... to provide examples and offer proof of your strengths and experience. A typical resume format doesn't allow for much of this proof, but a well constructed message should trigger the questions that allow you to expand a conversation from your actual experiences. Thus your resume and correspondence can create the dialog of your phone calls, personal conversations and, ultimately, actual employment interviews.
Yes, its worth your practice time to focus on words. They can create high impact and convey powerful "word pictures."
Remember... FIT HAPPENS ! An effective resume will help you assure a good fit with your next employment.Waypoints...
Understanding Career FIT | Creating a GREAT Resume | Components of an effective resume
Preparation: awareness and assessment | Resume Drafting
For MORE INFO e-mail your thoughts and questions to the careerpilot.
Bob Maher, CMF... The Careerpilot
Bob created his online presence, www.careerpilot.com, in 1994. He has over twenty years of successful experience in Corporate Recruitment, performance management and Career Management Services. He is an entrepreneur and innovator in the use of information technology in the recruitment and employment process. On the Founder's Council of the Association of Career Professionals - International and quite active in their Professional Development, Technology and Chapter Growth initiatives--a frequent speaker at industry conferences and seminars. Received The Association's prestigious LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD in 2006.