Retire Your Resume – TheLadders.com Article

I was just sent a great article by Mark Cenedella at TheLadders.com. Provides great insight in how different a resume can promote and marketing your core skills.

Last week I told you about the biggest mistake people make in their job hunt: writing their resume from their point of view.

This week, I’d like to share with you two “before” and “after” resumes to show you what I mean:

Take a look at Robert Jetté from Pleasanton, California. He’s kept on the move over nearly 30 years in business. Great jobs, big achievements…but the resume he brought us didn’t have any of that energy.

The first thing we needed to do was fix the tired language: his old resume started, “Accomplished senior executive with a strong track record of successful…” Yawn.

Now he’s a “Driven, analytical, astute and business savvy executive level financial strategist with 28+ years experience in investment management, wealth management and trust services.” Which Robert Jetté would you want to talk to?

Robert Before
Robert After

Then there’s Ben Prozinski, an IT star who didn’t give hiring managers a clue about why they should care. His resume began midsentence – he had nothing above his work experience but his name and contact information!

And Ben’s job descriptions, the meat and potatoes of a resume, were more a series of thoughts strung together that did not tie-in to one another at all. He “executed and lead onshore and offshore projects,” “drove integration and performance management” and “Facilitated successful exchange between leadership, business and technical stakeholders.” This was nearly all he explained about his most recent job! That who-cares stuff will not get you calls, folks.

Now Ben’s resume not only paints a clear picture of what he did, but also lists the value that he added and gives the reader a reason to pick up the phone and call him for an interview.

Ben Before
Ben After

Well, Readers, I hope that gives you some insight into the difference between writing your resume like a product manual or having a professional write it for you like a great advertisement.