“How can I make my resume unique and as the highest standard?”

Posted by on Sep 7, 2011 in Articles

The title of this blog happens to come from a LinkedIn inquiry, where someone asked, “How can I make my resume unique and highest standard?”

Answer –

You want your resume to be Creative, Unique and Memorable. You want to make sure that yours is the standard by which all others are measured. In other words, you want to set the bar for others to worry about jumping over – You don’t want to worry about jumping over a bar that someone else has set.

Keep in mind that your competition probably is not the person who is unemployed, it’s most likely the person who has this specific job in another company. Having said this, you really need to step-up your resume, and write it in a way that translates into a solid value proposition to the Hiring Manager.

In being “Creative” –

Your resume should include a solid “Brand” and the hiring manager should not have to read it to figure out what it is that you do. Proper branding is critical to a successful resume. Formatting should be consistent throughout the entire resume. There is nothing more frustrating than to see a resume with 5 different font types in the first 7 lines of the resume! Remember that the resume should be written for a human, not a scanner.  I know that in many cases you need to apply with a TXT version of your resume, and that’s OK as you need to play the game. However, of all the people that I work with, very few have actually gotten a job because of a keyword on their resume.

Don’t write an “Objective.” You would probably write an Objective to tell the Hiring Manager that you are looking for a job – They already know this. It’s possible that your “Objective” will say something like, “To join a fast paced company where I can utilize my skills blah blah blah blah.” All “Objectives” are the same and this does not make yours stand-out!

In being “Unique” –

In stead of an Objective, write a “Profile” statement that will serve as an introductory statement about your background and vertical markets that you have worked in.

List your “Key Strengths” – These are traits that you have that demonstrate value to your next employer. To them, value translates into increased production, productivity and revenue.

Identify at least 3 “Selected Achievements” on your resume that demonstrate your capacity to drive results and to show that you are a team player, contributing to the success of the company.

In being “Memorable” –

You want to show “quantifiable results” – Don’t write your resume to look like a job description. At the end of each point, ask yourself, “So what? How did this benefit my department or the company in general?” It almost doesn’t matter what role you had because nearly every job has an impact systems, people or revenue.

Make sure your resume is “fact based,” not “claims based.” Everyone can claim to do one thing or another, but it’s relatively meaningless to the Hiring Manager unless you can tie that task to a specific result that you contributed to.

In the meantime, feel free to review my website and take our simple assessment here: http://deantracy.com/resume-makeover

Having said all of this, I am confident that if you take these simple steps to writing & crafting a world-class resume, you will increase your odds of visibility and attention in your quest to finding and engaging with the job of your dreams!

Go Get’em and Good Luck!

 

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