“It makes the reader sit up straight and say ‘Holy cow, I want to talk to her. “These are main points you want to get across, the powerful stories you want to tell,” she says. Heifetz suggests adding an accomplishments section right after your summary that makes the bridge between your experience and the job requirements. If you’re switching industries, don’t launch into job experience that the hiring manager may not think is relevant. Or you can ask yourself what you’d want someone to say about you if they were making an introduction to the hiring manager. If you’re struggling to write it, ask a friend, former colleague, or mentor what they would say if they were going to recommend you for a job, suggests Lees. You may be tempted to skip this part of the resume, but don’t, advises Heifetz. They are meaningless, obvious, and boring to read. Strategy and business development executive with substantial experience designing, leading, and implementing a broad range of corporate growth and realignment initiatives.Īnd be sure to avoid clichés like “highly motivated professional.” Using platitudes in your summary or anywhere else in the document is “basically like saying, ‘I’m not more valuable than anyone else,’” explains Lees. Healthcare executive with over 25 years of experience leading providers of superior patient care. It should match what they’re looking for. “You need to make it exquisitely clear in the summary that you have what it takes to get the job done.” It should consist of a descriptor or job title like, “Information security specialist who…” “It doesn’t matter if this is the exact job title you’ve held before or not,” says Lees. “It’s a very rich, very brief elevator pitch, that says who you are, why you’re qualified for the job, and why you’re the right person to hire,” says Heifetz. You’ll have the opportunity to expand on your experience further down in your resume and in your cover letter. Start with a brief summary of your expertise. The first 15-20 words of your resume are critically important “because that’s how long you usually have a hiring manager’s attention,” says Lees. He suggests you might change the sequence of the bullet points, for example, or switch up the language in your summary. Each version doesn’t need to be radically different but you should “tweak it for the position, the industry, etc.,” says Lees. This exercise should then inform what you write in your summary, and the experiences and accomplishments you include. Heifetz recommends, as a first step, you carefully read the job description and highlight the five or six most important responsibilities, as well as a few keywords that you can then use in your resume. Of course, you may need to write the first version in a vacuum but for each subsequent one, you need context. “You can have a foundational resume that compellingly articulates the most important information,” says Heifetz, but you have to alter it for each opportunity. Further Readingįocus on why you’re right for the job and how badly you want it.įirst things first: Don’t send the same resume to every job. Here’s how to write a resume that will be sure to win attention. “In a tough market, your CV has to get you remembered and recommended,” he says. You might also send it out to people in your network who can help make introductions. It’s not just hiring managers who are your ideal audience. After all, it’s more than a resume “it’s a marketing document,” says John Lees, a UK-based career strategist and author of Knockout CV. “You have to think carefully about what to say and how to say it so the hiring manager thinks, ‘This person can do what I need done,’” she says. Don’t think you’re going to sit down and hammer it out in an hour. “There’s nothing quick or easy about crafting an effective resume,” says Jane Heifetz, a resume expert and founder of Right Resumes. Should you keep it to one page? Do you put a summary up top? Do you include personal interests and volunteer gigs? And how do you make it stand out, especially when you know the hiring manager is receiving tons of applications? This may be your best chance to make a good first impression, so you’ve got to get it right. The resume: there are so many conflicting recommendations out there.
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