I have several resumes a day emailed to me for review. Some are just not good. However, I do come across some that aren’t that bad. They need work, but the basic bones of it is there. It just needs some optimizing.
What do I mean?
When writing your resume keep in mind that you are writing for someone else. Someone who does not know what you did at your last job. They don’t know the challenges you faced in the last position, or how you increased productivity or revenue.
Sometimes I get to talking with clients and am awed at what they did during a particularly challenging phase and am shocked it isn’t found on the resume. The best way to optimize your resume is to talk about your accomplishments and be detailed about them.
Don’t just say, “Added $700 million in funding over a 3-year period.”
Instead say, “Secured over $700 million in funding over a 3-year period after thorough analysis and assessment on LAN and WAN connectivity for the nation’s largest telecommunication facility”.
See the difference? Which sounds better to you?
Optimizing your resume really means adding more detail, highlighting your accomplishments, and solidifying your value. Add more detail, talk about what you did, get the reader interested in what you have to say. No one wants to read short little bullet points. Boring. Keep “how did I do this?” in your mind when writing because that is what the reader is thinking, “Hmmm, how did he/she do this?” and then of course, “Can they do this for our company?”.
It may require a little bit of digging into your accomplishments to bring out the little gems of information, but it will be very worth it in the end–when you are called in to interview.
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One more thing to add when improving your resume: it is not about QUANTITY, it is about QUALITY. People think their resume is great because it is 3-4 pages long. Wrong. A shorter resume that is well-written is going to go a lot further than a long resume full of fluff.
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