A Resume Is For Who?

Congratulations, you are officially the editor of your career! 

Why are you an editor? Well, a resume, cover letter, and even a LinkedIn profile are effective when written for the reader and omitting irrelevant career information. While you may have vast experience that is all yours, the reader does not want to know everything. Hiring managers are reading and evaluating resume content as it relates to fulfilling a job need.

A resume encompassing all career details is typically not effective in a corporate job market. A resume is not a job obituary. Especially if you have ten or more years of experience or if you are changing your career focus.

Of course, there are a few exceptions like if your career goals are to work for a higher education institution or with the Federal government. In those situations, you may not need to edit much of your career experience, and a longer resume is usually the norm.

Positive impact

A targeted resume is a professional’s marketing document, highlighting contributions, talents, and skills as they align with a job need. That means the resume experience content is not a list of job requirements. 

Focus less on what your job required and instead focus on the results you achieved and why your efforts were beneficial to the team or the organization.

For example, 

A job requirement may be to “develop new business opportunities.” 

Your achievement could be “Secured $500,000 in revenue during 1st quarter by cold calling, establishing relationships, and winning bids for 3 new accounts.”

OR

A job requirement may be to “create processes.”

Maybe you “Improved efficiency by updating and writing standard operating procedures for AC product line manufacturing, resulting in saved part costs.

A powerful resume quickly showcases a professional’s value, contributions, and abilities. 

If writing a resume is painful, then sometimes a little help can do wonders and hiring a certified resume writer can be a good investment.

If you would like to explore career services, like resume writing, contact me.