The Secrets of Writing Executive-Level Resumes
by Douglas B. Richardson
(This article is reprinted by permission from CareerJournal.com.)
Can we talk...before you write your resume, that
great magnum opus that lauds your life, bowls me over
with your accomplishments and tells me that you're
unique?
Assume I'm a prototypical resume reader: a headhunter,
recruitment coordinator, ad screener, human-resources
assistant and hiring manager rolled into one. You'll save a lot of grief by understanding the basic
principles of how I process your resume.
How I Think
I'm not a bad person, and I try to do my job
responsibly. However, I won't abandon my human nature
and treat you with saintly objectivity. If you annoy
me and I retaliate by discarding your resume, there's
no appeal. No one double-checks my judgment or
rummages through the trash and pleads, "Please! Save
this resume!" You're gone, pal.
Discarded resumes usually fall into two categories: those that try my patience
and those that tax my credulity. Resumes in the first category usually don't
receive enough attention to merit entry into the second group. So let's be clear
from the outset. If you fail to respect my time, make me impatient, try to con
me, exaggerate or misrepresent, your resume is history, and so are your chances
of employment with my company.
The First Great Principle
Look, I'm busy - always. So please, all you resume writers, give me a break. Our
ad pulled 258 other responses, all of which have to be screened by Monday. I
received resumes that are eight pages long with tiny margins, hand-lettered with
Olde Englishe calligraphy, printed on bright purple paper or bound in simulated
leather. I received 26 replies from "bottom-line oriented, shirt-sleeves
go-getters," and 14 from candidates who want "a challenging position
in a progressive company that will allow me to utilize my skills and experience,
grow
in my career and (oh, yes!) contribute to the goals of the company." I have
to read them all. Some fun.
The harsh reality is that no matter how much time and effort you put into
writing your resume, it won't get a thorough reading the first time through.
Initially, I'll scan it for 25 seconds. On the basis of that cursory review,
I'll determine whether yours should hit the round file or merit more thoughtful reading - perhaps three minutes' worth. Scanning is tougher
for me if your
resume is hard to read, poorly organized or weighs more than a pound. I like
wide margins, clean type (at least 10 or 12 point), clear headings, a logical format, bold
and italic typeface that helps guide my eye, and selective
use of bullets calling attention to important points. (Remember, a bullet is an
aggressive visual stunt which says, "Look here! Now!" Twenty bullets
in a row dilute the effect.)
Many experts believe a resume shouldn't exceed two pages. Some candidates use
this rule as an excuse to load up the two pages like a rush-hour subway train.
They resort to minuscule margins, and apply a Moby Dick narrative style to sweep
into a detailed personal history ("I was born at an early age, and from
that day forth I had a dream…"), replete with adjectives, adverbs and
polysyllabic words. This makes for hard reading.
Where's the Beef?
If, when reading a resume, my eyes can fly down the page, stopping naturally on
highlighted information, a little voice in my head says. "Thank you for
understanding my job and how bored I get scanning all these resumes." By
understanding my needs, you've kindled a little warmth in me. It can't hurt.
The most readable format isn't a substitute for content that doesn't deliver.
It's not my job to be charitable. It's to be suspicious, cynical and
conservative. This is to prevent us from hiring a pig in a poke. We're
professional risk reducers! We look at everything in terms of risk: Who trusted
you before? Was their judgment trustworthy? What did they trust you with? How long did they trust you? What responsibilities did they give
you? Did you do anything with those duties? (I can make you responsible for
flying to the moon, but did you get there?)
We resume readers live in fear that a glossy presentation may mask real problems
with performance, personality or potential. We've been lied to in every
conceivable way. One candidate claimed to be "a marketing representative
for a major multinational transportation goods and services company." In
reality, he sold snow tires at the Harrisburg, Pa., Goodyear tire outlet. We
know you're trying to put your best foot forward, and we respect honest attempts
to polish your apple. But we fear that underneath it all lies a rotten apple -
or worse, no apple at all.
So don't take our ritual joust personally. You can brag as effectively as
possible, but I'll try to poke holes in your claims. I'll look for excuses to
screen you out, not in. If you survive the first pass, I'm pleased. I'm not out
to get you. I'm out to reduce that stack of 258 resumes to five.
Make it to the second round, and I'll get out the fine-toothed comb and the BS
meter. Does your sequence of employment, advancement and accomplishments make
sense? Do I detect a note of defensiveness in an abstract phrase like,
"Left after 14 years to seek new career challenges"? Did you make too
many changes? On the plus side, did you consistently seek responsibility and new
challenges? Did you stay for the right amount of time in each position? If you
survive this round, you win our joust and go to the castle to meet the princess.
A Clear Direction
What I'm looking for most is a clear-cut sense of career direction and momentum
- or at least valid reasons why you made your job choices and changes. Don't
assume, therefore, that if you dump a bunch of unorganized data on my desk, I'll
fill in the gaps to make sense out of your past. That's your job.
Start by asking if you're spending too much time describing what you want,
not what the company wants. Consider the time-honored practice of writing an
objective. Who cares about your objective? For instance, "Objective: Growth-oriented position in an innovative, friendly environment leading to
management responsibility." We're looking for attributes that define you as
a product capable of meeting the company's needs and priorities. Do you really
think this abstract mush helps me understand what you're
good for? What kind of "environment"? Manufacturing?
Non profit? Sales? Management of what? Human resources? Community affairs?
C'mon, help me out here! Saying "My objective is..." is the same as
saying, "I want." Since I'm more interested in what you offer than
what you want, describing the product - you - in terms of a Profile or Summary
of Qualifications makes more sense. Within the first few seconds, I want to know
five things:
- Your current level. Level is generally measured in terms of years of
experience, title or other responsibility, which may tell me how flat or
steep your learning curve is and how much I'll have to pay you.
- The roles and functions you can perform.
- Settings you've performed them in. If they're similar to ours, I'm likely
to believe you can repeat your previous triumphs with my company. Your past
settings also say a lot about the kind of places in which you want to work.
- Past experience. That is, what have you done?
- Current expertise. What do you know?
To provide this information, a concise synthesis will do nicely: PROFILE: 15 years of diverse general management,
operations and
marketing experience with regional and national real-estate firms and a
multinational electronics manufacturer. Wharton M.B.A. with particular expertise
in: Real-estate asset, property and turnaround management, leasing, marketing
and operations. Financial planning, capital investment budgeting and pricing.
Strategic planning, business development and market analysis. Recruiting, training and management of interdisciplinary work teams.
This profile serves as an executive summary of the claims you promise to
support with specific information in your resume. It tells me what to look for
and teaches me, in effect, how to read your resume. It's not pushy or overblown;
it has a nice objective ring to it. I like that because my defenses relax (slightly).
The Elements of Style
The impression you make in the body of the resume depends on the words and
music. That is, I look both at what you claim and how you claim it. Like a
diving or gymnastics judge, I deduct points for anything that jars my
sensibilities, either in content or presentation. You can blow it through a
single, humongous gaffe (misspelling your name at the top of page two, or
claiming "Ten years of management experience" when you've only worked
seven years), or through the cumulative effect of several small negatives. This
piece of truly lousy writing would be sufficient: Progressive experience
in contribution to success of aggressively initiated cutting-edge marketing
initiatives through numerous constituent interactions and innovative
research-oriented planning interfaces.
Whew! Score: 1.2 from the Russian judge. More syllables do not greater
credibility make. This is pompous, verbose, turgid, self-important and
grandiose. (For the record, it's "progressively responsible," not
progressive, which was a political party based in Wisconsin in the early 1900s.)
If you want to earn my respect, skip the varnish and adornments and let your
accomplishments speak for themselves. Pretend you get $1,000 for every adjective
and adverb you leave out. Many are "merely invisible words" that don't
provide real information. They don't register with us. We don't even see them,
much less believe them. Typical examples include: "results-oriented,"
"highly motivated," "significantly,” and "dynamic."
If you must use an adjective, make sure it's quantitative, or at least objective
(all, first, new, biggest, profitable, complete). Don't use qualitative or
subjective terms: impressive, creative, excellent, major, significant,
motivated. Anyone can claim these qualities. Since I have no way of knowing if
they're true, I discount them by at least90%. The same holds true with such adverbs as proactively, aggressively,
innovatively, uniquely, amazingly, incredibly,
universally, cosmically and astonishingly.
I also knock off points for wimpy verbs: aided,
participated in, involved with, joined, helped bring
about. These don't tell me what you did, merely that
you were there. Start thinking and writing in past-tense transitive verbs: wrote
report, negotiated lease, managed sales force, conducted primary research,
extinguished fire, won gold medal. I like past-tense verbs because they refer to
events that happened and are therefore verifiable. Knowing this keeps you honest.
I also love numbers, mainly because they're objectively measurable. We can argue
all day about what constitutes a "significant improvement" in sales.
But if you write that you "increased new-territory customer sales by 23% in
seven months," I can draw a conclusion about whether that's significant.
Second, numbers are inherently credible because they can be checked. And very
large numbers make a lasting impression even if I forget what they refer to. For
instance, I might not remember what that $55 million transaction was all about or what you did, but I'll remain impressed by $55
million of anything.
For instance, instead of saying "press secretary of a large state
agency" (yawn), say "Director of Communications for the Pennsylvania
Department of Public Welfare, a geographically diverse $4.6 billion agency with
more than 39,000employees." Even though a press secretary might only talk
with 150 of those employees, those numbers sure stick, don't they? And this
shows that I also respect titles since they suggest that someone else thought
enough of you to make you responsible for something. Names of certain companies also carry more clout than others. (Would DuPont's
demanding hiring
process allow a complete turkey to work there for eight years?) If you've got
it, flaunt it. Resumes are no place for false modesty.
If you can't mention an employer's name for some reason, describe it fully,
as in "world's largest producer of high-technology fasteners" or
"Fortune 50 pharmaceutical manufacturer." Knowing who previously
employed you can affect how I perceive you and the quality of your achievements.
As a typical resume reader, I prefer tight, matter-of-fact documents. It's
also gratifying when the information is well-organized, so that each item hits
my brain just when my mental organizing apparatus signals a need for it. This is
a pleasant sensation, akin to the one I get when I pass the resume writer
through the initial hiring screen and set up a job interview.
*Mr. Richardson, a CareerJournal.com
columnist, heads
the Richardson Group, an executive and career-development consulting firm in
Narberth, Pa. He can be reached at richardsongroup@home.com.
