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You are here > Home > Job Search Resources > Resume & Cover Letter Preparation > Building a Powerful Resume > Build a Resume that is Compelling and Impressive Build a Resume That's Compelling & Impressive The goal of your resume is to catch the eye of a recruiter or employer in 10 to 30 seconds - and get you an interview. Once you sit down for a face-to-face interview, you'll have an even greater opportunity to sell yourself to get the job. (See our articles about interviewing) But if you never get the interview, you'll never get that chance. So, your resume must be impressive enough to compel the reviewer to call you. A simple chronological listing or your experience achieves nothing. Your work history or education will not speak for itself. Through your resume, you will speak for your work history or education. Think of your resume as an advertisement for yourself. Your intention is to make yourself stand out from among hundreds of other similar resumes. Most of your impressive explanations will be contained in the paragraph under each previous position you have held. (For tips about organizing the sections of your resume, see our article about format) When you describe your prior jobs, carefully consider each and every word you use. Space is limited and you want to have the most impact with the fewest words possible. Avoid meaningless words like "success" or "duties". Avoid the use of pronouns, especially first person pronouns. They just take up space. Instead, use the key terms that are vital to your particular profession. For example, if creating revenue is important to employers, be sure to describe your past involvement with revenue generation. Rather than saying "I was responsible for revenue creation", instead, be more specific with a phrase like, "Attained 20% growth in gross revenue each quarter through targeted customer base expansion and development of new service lines." If risk management is critical to your job, rather than saying "oversight of risk management activities", instead say "increased customer satisfaction by 75% the first fiscal year and reduced all liability claims by 200% by the 2nd fiscal year." (Also see our article about writing concise resumes) You may need to write too much at first and whittle it down selectively. One way to make sure your resume contains the most impact is to write a full page or more of your accomplishments for each of the last three jobs you have held. Then, begin the editing process. Shorten all full sentences to phrases. Strike unnecessary words and redundancies. For example, if you are a manager, it is not necessary to say, "I managed all the personnel for my department". Instead say, "Accountable for 46 employees." Ask yourself if you can be more specific with fewer words. Keep editing until you have your full page reduced to one paragraph, resulting in one paragraph per job. Now, take a hard look at the adjectives and verbs you have used. Can you strengthen some of your words? Strong adjectives include words such as larger, better, profitable, efficient, or significant. Compelling and impressive adjectives would include words such as tremendous, record-breaking, outstanding, cutting-edge, etc. We have listed both strong and compelling verbs for you here:
Our final suggestion about words that you use is - make sure that you use "key words" that are likely to be found in the type of job descriptions you are seeking to fill. Many employers and recruiters now upload scanned paper resumes and digital resumes into their own databases. When they search for candidates, they are likely to use key words directly from their own job descriptions. So, for example, if understanding HIPAA is a prerequisite for the job you are seeking, be sure and use "HIPAA" in your resume. To figure out the key words that you want to include, it might be helpful for you to review advertisements or listings of the jobs similar to what you are hoping to find. What words do they emphasize? Use those same words in your resume. Now that your resume is strong and compelling, succinct, truthful, and congruent with the jobs you are applying for, you are ready to organize your job search! Return to: "Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem." (Henry Kissinger, statesman) |
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