What about your résumé is going to win you interviews? Your content. Strong content showcases your unique value to a prospective employer. A good rule of thumb is that your résumé should only apply to you. If you could replace your name up top with a colleague’s or that of someone who performs the same function in another company, then your content is not strong or specific enough.
Does your own résumé content:
1. Tell a compelling story about your experiences that keeps the reader’s attention? This is the key to a résumé being an effective marketing document, not simply a work history, otherwise known as an “obituary résumé.”
2. Make your value immediately visible – ideally in the top 1/3 of the résumé?
3. Clearly convey what position or kind of position you are targeting – without using the passé practice of including an objective statement?
4. Effectively communicate your value to a prospective employer in one or more of the following ways:
– Can you make them money or expand their business?
– Can you help them build relationships or be more competitive?
– Can you attract new customers or help them retain existing customers?
– Can you make work easier or solve a specific problem?
– Can you save them time or money?
5. Increase the reader’s interest and stimulate a request for a job interview with powerful, concise, accomplishment-oriented writing?
6. Speak the reader’s language with industry-specific language and relevant key words?
7. Sell your qualifications as the best candidate with persuasive, high-impact statements?
8. Provide information appropriate to your targeted job, with enough detail to substantiate your desired position and salary?
9. Include specific, quantifiable accomplishments that highlight a problem/challenge, action taken, and result that quantify things like: how much, how many, how big, percentages, dollar amounts?
10. Highlight accomplishments that support your career goals?
Incorporating these top ten content strategies can be challenging when writing your own resume. The goal is to showcase your unique value to an employer so you stand out from your competition. Call on Sterling Career Concepts, a professional resume writing firm to help you and expedite your job search.