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The Plan: A Career Search Strategy for the 21st Century - Part 2

Tuesday, 15 February 2005 16:00

Part 2: Writing A Good Resume

The resume is an important tool in your electronic career search toolbox. Like an anti spy-ware program, it must be free of errors and up to date. Bottom line, it must work. The people and corporations you present yourself to will, in many cases, evaluate you solely by what you say about yourself in your resume. Often, it is your one and only shot to achieve success.

A resume is not intended for the use as a historical document. When you apply for a position within a corporation, the HR department has you submit your resume and fill out an application. The application is the historical document, not the resume. The resume is your “marketing tool”. The resumes’ intent is to tell the employer of your value.

So, what is your value? Why would someone what to hire you? What makes you special? What makes you unique amongst the 28,000,000 applicants posting resumes on the web?

Accomplishments set you apart from your fellow candidates. Accomplishments are not your job description but are what you achieve while doing your everyday job.

While employed as (position) you reduced costs by X value by implementing Y.
You improved employee relations by doing X, resulting in reducing hiring expenses by Y.
You implemented A,B,C & D applications improving enterprise wide efficiency by X, Y & Z.
While Program Manager you were able to, E, F & G, saving X regionally and Y nationwide.

Before you begin writing your resume you need to first take inventory of your skill sets and accomplishments. Write down 10 reasons someone should hire you and 20 accomplishments. Yes, this is difficult and it will take considerable time to achieve. But until such time as you truly know who you really are, you cannot communicate your true value to anyone else.

Reasons to hire. (10)
- 25 years experience.
- Solid work ethic.
Accomplishments. (20)
- Have saved employers X dollars.
- Have reduced employee turnover.

Standard Resume Format

Name Address City, State. Zip Phone Number, Email Address
Objective: (Short and broad.)
Experience:
Dates:	XYZ, Inc. (City, State.) Position Accomplishments Accomplishments Accomplishments
Education:	University. City, State. Degree. Date Received. (Yes, put the date in. They can figure out how old you are regardless. And you won’t look like you’re trying to hide something.)
Hardware:	IBM, HP Mainframe Micro Mini Networks
Software:	Java C, C++ JBuilder etc
Hobbies:	Golf, Tennis, Reading, Travel, Ping Pong.
References:	Available upon request

Keep it short. Use Times New Roman 12pt, (NOT Arial). You may not like the look of your resume in this format or font and you may think the type is too big, but you want it to be readable by the people who are receiving it. You want your resume to stand out by what you have done and not how it looks.

The first person who gets to read it is probably going to be someone who sees several or hundreds every day. They are not the hiring authority but a screener. They want it easy to read, without extra reading glasses, and in a format that is familiar to them. Resumes are “typically” used to screen you OUT and not IN. If you don't get past the first screening it wont be read by the person who cares about its content.

Above all, make absolutely certain there in not one single typo in your resume.

Mr. Reid has screened resumes for more than 20 years. If you have more questions about how to format your resume please feel free comment on this article or email him at resume@dmrnet.com

Happy Hunting
Don M. Reid

Don M. Reid has been a Career Coach for over 20 years and teaches Career Search Workshops for executives, managers, project managers, programmers, accountants, pencil pushers and rocket scientists. Mr Reid is President of DMReid & Associates www.dmrnet.com, a national retained services executive search firm headquartered in Brentwood TN. www.dmrnet.com

You can reach Don by email at dmr@dmrnet.com

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