How To Create an Exceptional Resume
1. The Planning stage
The first step to writing an exceptional resume, is to do some research about the company that you are applying to and carefully read through the job description. Pay special attention to the job skills that they are looking for. Make a mental note as to whether you have the skills and qualities mentioned in the job description. Do you have enough experience in the appropriate areas to make you an easy choice for hiring?
How To Create an Exceptional Resume:
After you have a pretty good idea of what the company is looking for, you can do a contemplative exercise that will aid you in matching your background and proficiencies with the job description and necessary skill set. Write one job responsibility or job description at the top of a page, then start thinking about experiences and/or accomplishments that you have had that relate to that qualification.
For instance:
Must have excellent written and verbal communication
Conducted face- to- face sales calls with customers in 6 state region.John P. Normal Company Created and negotiated customer discount agreements that made company the primary supplier for two large Pharmaceutical Companies-John P. Normal Company Prepared biweekly forecast and prospect lists, forecasting new business coming in-Paul Smith, Inc.Looking for a manager to bridge gap between different different company divisions and create a culture of teamwork and accountability Conducted joint sales calls with Analytical and Biotech sales reps from my company to create bundled product offering to customers.John P. Normal Company Won an award for cross sales of company products-John P. Normal Company Promoted to senior field sales position after one year-Paul Smith, Inc.
During the contemplative exercise, it's not important to phrase everything perfectly. The goal of this exercise is to get the thoughts flowing on how to tailor your resume to be the perfect fit for the job opening. This information will serve as the raw material for your manicured resume. Don't forget, it is always acceptable to use experiences from volunteer or extracurricular activities in your resume, too.
Recruiters are looking to hire someone that they know can handle the responsibilities and job requirements of the position that they are hiring for. By utilizing the planning stage, you can make sure that your resume is tailored specifically to the job that you want. If your resume does not reflect the main qualifications that the company is looking for, it will not even get a second look by a recruiter.
2. Keep it short and sweet:
A shorter resume is far better than a really lengthy resume. This is the problem: You have a lot of information to share, but recruiters don't have the time to hear it. If a resume is too long, it is very likely that the recruiter will not even bother to read the whole resume before moving on to the next one.
A resume does not need to tell your entire life story. It is meant to be a way to share enough information about your work experience and background to get you hired. You don't have to, and shouldn't tell them EVERYTHING.
Think about it like a printed advertisement in a magazine or a billboard. The ad tells you the basics, like for Dawn dish detergent, "it's tough on grease but easy on your hands". The advertisements don't tell you when Dawn was created, the different colors or fragrances that it comes in, all of the stores where Dawn can be purchased, etc. The ad is abbreviated and to the point, only sharing the vital information for the situation, space, and time they have to catch your attention.
This is exactly what your resume should do. You may have a lot of accomplishments, but there is only a limited amount of time to present your message to a recruiter. Decide what you want a recruiter to see and know about you in their fifteen-second scan. Typically, this means that you should focus your emphasis on your most recent and relevant experiences.
If you have fifteen to twenty years of work experience, the recruiter probably doesn't need to know all of the details of your assistant manager retail job during college. If one of your past jobs is completely irrelevant to the job that you are applying for, it is not necessary to include any bullet points under the title and position. It is not a rule that you are required to share every detail of every job that you have ever had.
For more mature job seekers, you will want to focus the vast majority of your resume to the last ten to fifteen years, unless there is extremely relevant experience that goes further back. The older jobs should still appear on your resume, they should just not contain any bullet points.
Students and recent graduates should think of their resume as a rolling four-year document. That means that seniors in college should not list work history from high school. If you have been working full-time for two years, you will only want to include college internships from junior and senior years. Of course, the exception to this rule would be very relevant work history that goes longer than four years back.
Do not write your resume in complete sentences. Recruiters like to see an outline format, using bullet points that quickly and concisely show your work history. It is key to keep in mind that recruiters are typically reviewing hundreds of resumes, at one time. They are scanning to see if your resume deserves more than the initial fifteen-second glance.
First person and third person perspectives should never be used in writing a resume. Also, complete, full sentences make the resume seem lengthy, cluttered, and overwhelming. Every bullet point in your list of experiences should start with an action verb, and every verb should be different.
Wrong way: I was in charge of a charity event for my child's elementary school attended by 600 people that was so successful that we raised $10,000.
Right way: Orchestrated elementary school charity event attended by 600 people, raising $10,000.
Clearly the second one (the right way) is not only easier to read, but also sounds more powerful with the first word being an action verb. The second example is much more likely to stand out to the recruiter's quick resume scan.
A resume should never be more than two pages long. However, a curriculum vitae or CV is almost always longer than 2 pages. Curriculum vitae are really only used when applying for scientific or academic positions, when all presentations, publications, and course work have to be listed.
For a resume, this is a good rule to follow: If you have for four years or less, your resume should only consist of one-page. After you have passed the four years of experience, it is acceptable, but no necessary to scale up to a two-page resume. Always remember, short and succinct writing is more powerful than long, explanatory prose.
A resume does not need to tell your entire life story. It is meant to be a way to share enough information about your work experience and background to get you hired. You don't have to, and shouldn't tell them EVERYTHING.
Think about it like a printed advertisement in a magazine or a billboard. The ad tells you the basics, like for Dawn dish detergent, "it's tough on grease but easy on your hands". The advertisements don't tell you when Dawn was created, the different colors or fragrances that it comes in, all of the stores where Dawn can be purchased, etc. The ad is abbreviated and to the point, only sharing the vital information for the situation, space, and time they have to catch your attention.
This is exactly what your resume should do. You may have a lot of accomplishments, but there is only a limited amount of time to present your message to a recruiter. Decide what you want a recruiter to see and know about you in their fifteen-second scan. Typically, this means that you should focus your emphasis on your most recent and relevant experiences.
If you have fifteen to twenty years of work experience, the recruiter probably doesn't need to know all of the details of your assistant manager retail job during college. If one of your past jobs is completely irrelevant to the job that you are applying for, it is not necessary to include any bullet points under the title and position. It is not a rule that you are required to share every detail of every job that you have ever had.
For more mature job seekers, you will want to focus the vast majority of your resume to the last ten to fifteen years, unless there is extremely relevant experience that goes further back. The older jobs should still appear on your resume, they should just not contain any bullet points.
Students and recent graduates should think of their resume as a rolling four-year document. That means that seniors in college should not list work history from high school. If you have been working full-time for two years, you will only want to include college internships from junior and senior years. Of course, the exception to this rule would be very relevant work history that goes longer than four years back.
Do not write your resume in complete sentences. Recruiters like to see an outline format, using bullet points that quickly and concisely show your work history. It is key to keep in mind that recruiters are typically reviewing hundreds of resumes, at one time. They are scanning to see if your resume deserves more than the initial fifteen-second glance.
First person and third person perspectives should never be used in writing a resume. Also, complete, full sentences make the resume seem lengthy, cluttered, and overwhelming. Every bullet point in your list of experiences should start with an action verb, and every verb should be different.
Wrong way: I was in charge of a charity event for my child's elementary school attended by 600 people that was so successful that we raised $10,000.
Right way: Orchestrated elementary school charity event attended by 600 people, raising $10,000.
Clearly the second one (the right way) is not only easier to read, but also sounds more powerful with the first word being an action verb. The second example is much more likely to stand out to the recruiter's quick resume scan.
A resume should never be more than two pages long. However, a curriculum vitae or CV is almost always longer than 2 pages. Curriculum vitae are really only used when applying for scientific or academic positions, when all presentations, publications, and course work have to be listed.
For a resume, this is a good rule to follow: If you have for four years or less, your resume should only consist of one-page. After you have passed the four years of experience, it is acceptable, but no necessary to scale up to a two-page resume. Always remember, short and succinct writing is more powerful than long, explanatory prose.
3. Center around your accomplishments and results:
The biggest mistake made by a very large percentage of job seekers is using their resume as a list of job descriptions. Basically, the mistake is in not describing what they did specifically in that job, but explaining what any person would have done in that position. This is an example to illustrate the point:
Sales Representative, No Name, LLC, State College, PA, 2008-Present
* Sold computer hardware to clients throughout Pennsylvania
* Developed and maintained relationships with customers
* Created a customer call list and scheduled off-site visits
Now, you may not see anything wrong with this. Unfortunately, every sales representative in the history of any company does the exact same things. You want to stand out, and that list of job requirements for a sales rep. does not do the trick.
The key to creating an exceptional resume is to focus on what you in particular accomplished. What did you do in that job that was special, different, or unique? What made you distinctive?
The easiest way to do this is by thinking about successes that you have had. Successes come in two forms: extent and outcome.
Extent
* How often?
* How big?
* How Many?
* How much?
Outcome
* Were you recognized for your success?
* Did you save the company money?
* Did you grow sales?
* Did you create something new?
As you can likely tell from these questions, you get successes through data, numbers, and tangible information. You need to be as specific as possible in everything that you write.
Let's take a look at the right way to have written the last sample. All of the information is based on the same person, with the same job, but a whole lot better resume:
Sales Representative, No Name, LLC, State College, PA, 2008-Present
* Sold $10 million in computer hardware to more than 1500 clients in Pennsylvania
* Ranked first out of 50 national sales representatives
* Personally secured more than 300 new customers through dedicated cold-calling and on-site visits
This sounds a lot better, because this resume focuses on this sales representative's personal successes and achievements in his former job.
It is good to pay yourself accolades for you achievements. A job search is not the place to be modest or downplay your successes. If you are not going to show off your own achievements, no one will. It is important to not come across as arrogant, but you should present yourself as confident and self-assurance in your abilities. If you worked with highly visible clients or big-name accounts, list the names on your resume. Putting the big-names on your resume is likely to catch the recruiter's attention, and cause a more thorough evaluation of your resume.
Keep notes about your job achievements. In a best case scenario, you would update your resume once every six months, or even more often. No one actually does that, especially if they think they are comfortable in their jobs. It is difficult to remember your success stories, when they happened, or the circumstances they happened under, if years go by without updating your resume.
When the next job offer comes along, you really will want to have your resume ready. You never know when you could hear about an opportunity to work at your dream job. If you have to spend a large amount of time updating your resume, you could miss your opportunity.
If you don't want to update your resume frequently, you need to keep notes on your duties, projects, and accomplishments -- with special attention to the numbers. That way, when you need to update your resume or make a job change, you will have your notes for reference, so your resume can be updated quickly.
Sales Representative, No Name, LLC, State College, PA, 2008-Present
* Sold computer hardware to clients throughout Pennsylvania
* Developed and maintained relationships with customers
* Created a customer call list and scheduled off-site visits
Now, you may not see anything wrong with this. Unfortunately, every sales representative in the history of any company does the exact same things. You want to stand out, and that list of job requirements for a sales rep. does not do the trick.
The key to creating an exceptional resume is to focus on what you in particular accomplished. What did you do in that job that was special, different, or unique? What made you distinctive?
The easiest way to do this is by thinking about successes that you have had. Successes come in two forms: extent and outcome.
Extent
* How often?
* How big?
* How Many?
* How much?
Outcome
* Were you recognized for your success?
* Did you save the company money?
* Did you grow sales?
* Did you create something new?
As you can likely tell from these questions, you get successes through data, numbers, and tangible information. You need to be as specific as possible in everything that you write.
Let's take a look at the right way to have written the last sample. All of the information is based on the same person, with the same job, but a whole lot better resume:
Sales Representative, No Name, LLC, State College, PA, 2008-Present
* Sold $10 million in computer hardware to more than 1500 clients in Pennsylvania
* Ranked first out of 50 national sales representatives
* Personally secured more than 300 new customers through dedicated cold-calling and on-site visits
This sounds a lot better, because this resume focuses on this sales representative's personal successes and achievements in his former job.
It is good to pay yourself accolades for you achievements. A job search is not the place to be modest or downplay your successes. If you are not going to show off your own achievements, no one will. It is important to not come across as arrogant, but you should present yourself as confident and self-assurance in your abilities. If you worked with highly visible clients or big-name accounts, list the names on your resume. Putting the big-names on your resume is likely to catch the recruiter's attention, and cause a more thorough evaluation of your resume.
Keep notes about your job achievements. In a best case scenario, you would update your resume once every six months, or even more often. No one actually does that, especially if they think they are comfortable in their jobs. It is difficult to remember your success stories, when they happened, or the circumstances they happened under, if years go by without updating your resume.
When the next job offer comes along, you really will want to have your resume ready. You never know when you could hear about an opportunity to work at your dream job. If you have to spend a large amount of time updating your resume, you could miss your opportunity.
If you don't want to update your resume frequently, you need to keep notes on your duties, projects, and accomplishments -- with special attention to the numbers. That way, when you need to update your resume or make a job change, you will have your notes for reference, so your resume can be updated quickly.
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