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Too Much Information in Your Resume?
Many job seekers express concern that if they tell too much on the resume, they will not leave anything to be discussed at the interview. Pshaw!
Clearly, a 5, 10 or 15+ year career is not going to be thoroughly articulated in a 2-3 page resume document. Each day of your career could fill a new page, and unless you submit a 10-pound resume with thousands of chronicled career stories, you will NOT risk giving away the store.
Over and over, job seekers report that resumes carved with a compelling, content-rich, story-telling knife not only gain attention, but prompt the reader (recruiter, hiring decision-maker, board member, etc.) to feel they MUST contact them.
As such, what are some methods to brainstorm your persuasive word stories and move from reticent career chronicling to bold job search marketability messaging?
- Think along the lines of Challenge/Action/Results/Talent Applied
- Challenge: What was the roadblock that stopped the business, process, communication, teamwork, etc. traffic from flowing?
- Action: What specific movements or action steps did you and/or your team make to work around or remove the roadblock?
- As a Result, what did you achieve? – increased revenue, boosted client base, expanded market share, shortened time to market, reduced number of process steps, increased client retention?
- Talent Applied: Did you apply your abilities in vision: seeing a picture beyond the immediate snapshot; talent in creative thinking; influence skills; ability to cull complex data into digestible bites?
- Virtually thumb through the thesaurus and dictionary, repeatedly. Interject interesting and nuanced verbiage.
- Tap into sample target position descriptions (use LinkUp.com, as a starting point). Find positions that you wish to attract, cull key language (keywords) and then wrap a tight, pithy and results-laced message around those words.
- Research companies: Find resources to conduct employer research that enable you to better customize your resume in Job-Hunt's Standing Out from the Crowd article.
- Read careers blogs, like the Career Collective, that are lively and inspiring; peruse corporate websites and company marketing collateral where their marketing department’s writing shines and sings, research companies using sites like ZoomInfo; just read whatever stirs you and invigorates your writing. This will fuel your resume message.
- Spill your guts, write with abandon, then circle back to edit, reshape, reword, cut, trim, add to. The creative resume process is an opportunity to be both introspective and quiet, and to be voluminous and braggadocious. Continually through that process, take your word knitting needle, and knit the reader’s needs throughout; as long as the threads of their needs unite with the threads of your message, you will achieve a harmonious and captivating result.
Bear in mind that the resume story you weave is focused on "them"
- the company you are targeting and the individual ‘interviewers’ with whom you are communicating. What are THEIR pain points, and how can you shape a story that drapes nicely over those needs?That said, while intently focusing on your target audience’s needs, you ultimately steer the resume ship and can choose to showcase specifically unique, often subtle traits that only YOU possess to lift projects, sway customer or internal stakeholder opinions, boost quality initiatives and so forth. You are captain of the job search marketability message being framed and presented. While focusing on the company, bear in mind what attributes set you apart from other candidates ‘similarly matched’ to the job, and ensure attributes shimmer.
Bottom Line:
Be bold, content-rich and resonating with your resume words. Beware of skim-milk resumes devoid of the word calories and rich flavor that satisfies the resume reader’s needs, urging them to call you!© Copyright Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter, 2010. Used with permission.
---------------------------------------------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.