I’ve been working in this sector for 12 years and in those 12 years I’ve seen thousands of resumes and curriculum vitae. They have arrived in my inbox and have consisted of anything from crudely crafted paragraphs of what could be politely described as ‘dribble,’ to more sophisticated attempts, which I would consider half decent.
Of course, all of those documents I’ve been able to significantly improve upon. Some of been total transformations, others I’ve raised the ‘bar’ and taken it up several notches, so the focus is tight and represents my client in the most effective and positive way. However, whether ‘dribble’ or ‘half decent’ I’ve noticed over the ensuing years, some of the prevailing mistakes that most job seekers make.
So in this article, to prevent you from creating ‘dribble’ and hopefully raising the bar on those half decent attempts out there, I’m highlighting three key bloopers most job seekers make when writing their own resume.
Failure to put experience into context for the employer and recruiter
The first thing I look at in a resume is whether it is going to capture the audience’s attention. Employers are inundated with resumes, so it is essential to get their attention and create interest. One-way to create attention, interest and desire is ‘story telling’ (or rather putting your experience into context).
Most job seekers simply state what the job title was, they don’t tell the story behind the job title. They fail to talk about the challenges, the stresses, the battles and the sweat, blood and tears. They also don’t talk about the scope of the job, the nature of the organisation, or the size of budgets or staff supervised.
By putting your experience into context for the reader, you can highlight what those challenges were and how you overcame those challenges. You can also paint a picture for the potential employer on the scope, size and complexity of the job. Then when you have painted the picture for the reader, you can describe how you solved these problems, or overcame these challenges.
So for example, some challenges or nature of the job you could emphasise:
- The financial disarray of an organisation when you arrived and how you fixed this.
- Staff resistance to change and how you overcame this.
- The fact that while you did not directly supervise staff – you ended up being the key mentor in the office.
- You controlled a large and complex budget of several million.
- You were confronted by poor management systems, which you successfully resolved by creating new procedures and policy.
- The staff you inherited were poor performers, which you rectified by confronting individual performance issues and implementing new staff training.
I’m sure you get my drift! By putting your experience into context for the reader it makes a massive difference to your resume.
Failure to write for a specific target
Don’t you get really irritated with most cold callers? I know I do. The reason we find cold callers irritating is quite frankly 9 times out of 10, they are trying to sell you something you don’t want, need, or care about.
So when you send through a ‘generic-one-fits-all’ type of resume and it is not obvious to the employer, exactly what you offer them, than quite frankly they don’t want, need or care about you either.
To become the ‘must have’ candidate, you need to get VERY specific in your job target and then write a resume that targets that specific job and sector. That way the employer can make a natural connection between what you offer and what they require. So avoid ‘generic’ and get ‘specific’.
Duties and Responsibilities Dribble
Every resume that comes in my inbox includes long lists of duties and responsibilities. By the time I’ve finished revamping a client’s resume, I’ve got duties and responsibilities down to a couple of lines – if that (literally). So what do I replace this information with?
LOTS and lots of meaty detail putting my clients experience into context and talking about what they accomplished and achieved.
You see, when you have a long list of duties and responsibilities, all you are doing is stating what you were supposed to do. Nothing about the value you offer, why the employer needs you, how you can satisfy their needs and proving your superiority compared to others in fulfilling their needs.
Achievements on the other hand, tell a story of why and how you can help the employer, above and beyond that duties list.
Conclusion
By just putting your experience into context, writing for a specific job target and replacing long duty lists with your achievements, you will have just avoided the resume writing mistakes that 99% of job seekers make.
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