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Your Resume as a Job Search Marketability Tool
What makes you remarkable (i.e., what is your personal marketability)? Many job seekers I speak to don’t feel ‘all that special’ about what they do. Or, they feel they are special until they start writing their stories down or talking about them, and then they fear they fall short.
My findings: you ALL are uniquely special. I have never met a job seeker who didn’t possess unique differentiators once we started mining for their career gold. Each one has acquired job search marketability stories that sets them apart from their competitors. It is unearthing those nuances that propels job search momentum.
To recap last month’s article, personal marketabilitiy is creating an awareness—and in some cases a buzz—in the job market of you as a respected “brand name.” To create that buzz, you must be able to articulate your personal marketability, putting yourvalue into words. The resume is a primary vehicle in which to launch your value message.
First, Find Focused and Measurable Themes
Your personal marketability is organic, achieved through incremental career movements. This personal marketability creates a ‘fit’ with target positions. It also is fortified with luck, timing and great mentors, colleagues and friends who boost your confidence and knowledge. Careerthemes materialize (i.e., a ‘change leader,’ a ‘technology guru,’ a ‘sales closer,’ etc.) that comprise your job search marketability message.
Reflecting on your career, what themes do you note? Can you articulate accomplishments stories, nuanced with your leadership, problem-solving, listening skills, and so forth, that illustrate your themes and map to your target audience? Are they measurable?
For example, you may find a common thread in your career is when you act as a team organizer and leader, influencing solidarity and action in groups, propelling projects forward and erasing negativity. This may indicate you are an inspirer and team builder who improves the experience for all and spurs project traction to meet – or even exceed – project time-line goals. This can be quantified as follows, “Achieved ABC project results 10 days ahead of schedule by <insert ‘how you did it’ here>.”
You may market this ‘team leader / inspirer’ attribute as an asset to any organization that needs to turn around attitudes of a disgruntled team affected by layoffs, economic down-turn and other corporate changes that have lowered morale and performance. Bottom-line: your contributions as a motivator and inspirer may multiply project efficiencies, improve productivity, save time and money and grow revenue and profits.
This job search marketability theme is both measurable and impactful in the hiring manager’s eyes. They can envision how your past performance proves you can help achieve their future financial goals.
Further reflection
may indicate you are a big-picture strategist who also corrals and executes the details. This leadership trait that spans both management and front-line action-mapping and delivery is a marketable talent needed by today’s fluctuating and often resource-strapped economy.Your big-picture strategy and execution contributions may impact business in the areas of boosting profits, slashing costs, shepherding change and creating strategy. Articulate this personal marketability message into your resume content (think: Profile / Summary). An example of a Before and After Resume Profile follows, to demonstrate the difference between under-selling one’s value versus a powerful personal marketability message:
Before:
Technology Leader
- Highly-skilled in developing operational strategy and long-term business architecture:
- Expert in launching successful process improvement and architecture organizations:
- Proven track record of implementation and the delivery of substantial improvement results.
After:
Executive: Process Re-Engineer / Business Architect / Consultant
Target: Process Improvement / Transactional Processing / Strategy & Business Transformation Financial Services and Insurance (operations, call center, and data processing environments)
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Bottom-line:
By identifying a theme you have carved out a unique value proposition to headline your resume, helping propel your job search marketability into the job market.This method of unearthing your personal marketability and creating lean, but powerful value proposition and brand messages will help pique the job hiring manager’s interest.
© Copyright Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter, 2009. Used with permission.
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About This Author:
Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter is 1 of only 26 Master Resume Writers in the world and the owner of Career Trend, a boutique career strategy and writing firm serving a global market. Jacqui composes career positioning documents for forward thinking executives and professionals, unearthing and translating their 'value into words.' For more about Jacqui, visit her website at CareerTrend.net or her blog Career Trend's Blog or you may follow her on Twitter at @ValueIntoWords.