PARADE Update: Creating a Rock Star Resume
PARADE Update: Creating a Rock Star Resume
Meghan found a terrific job opening at a socially conscience company where she can leverage her marketing expertise and culinary background.
As I talked about in my book, “Career Smart – 5 Steps to a Powerful Personal Brand,” this is what I know for sure: When you are able to articulate the kinds of responsibilities, the management style and company culture where you want to work in your next career – the universe has a way of sending you those opportunities.
And now the universe is churning out opportunities for Meghan! The next step is for us to create a rock star resume.
Here are my top three tips for creating a resume to help you get noticed, get hired and even get a higher salary!
Showcase key words. Key words are those skills in the job postings that are listed as the “job requirements.” Look closely at the job description and use a highlighter to mark all of the requirements listed. Then, take all of those requirements that you meet and showcase those “key words” towards the top of your resume underneath the “Objective” section. Label this section “Key Strengths” and list those requirements that you meet in bullet format.
Emphasize results. This is the single biggest difference in making your resume stand out from your competition. Don’t talk about responsibilities. That’s boring. Instead, talk about what you have achieved for an organization, or what you’ve helped the organization achieve. For example, don’t just say that you managed a team of 9 people in the sales department. Instead, say that you led a sales team that generated $250,000 a year for the past three years. Quantify each of your career highlights in terms of dollars, numbers or percentages.
Show leadership and teamwork. Hiring managers look for candidates who are strong contributors and strong leaders (or at least demonstrate leadership potential.) Talk about projects or teams that you’ve led – and what the results were. If you haven’t led any projects or teams in your professional life, then highlight any leadership experience you’ve had in professional organizations, sports leagues, church activities or community events.
Meghan’s Assignment this Week:
I gave Meghan one of my exclusive resume templates to showcase her marketing and events-management skills. She will be busy this week converting her resume from being “responsibilities” to “results” focused. That means she’ll be meeting with past managers and business associates to learn the real results of her previous marketing campaigns and big projects. Ideally, she’ll want her resume to state that her marketing campaigns helped gain a certain number of new customers, or that the projects she worked on helped generate new revenue, saved the company money, or created more market share for the organization.
Her homework assignment is not easy, but it will be the icing on the cake to help Meghan’s resume stand out from her competition and land that fabulous job.
3 Tips to Create a Rock Star Resume to get noticed, get hired and even get a higher starting salary
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I want to give you a very simple piece of advice – and that is… if you’re sending out your resume and NOT hearing back from companies – then you need a stronger resume. It’s just that simple. It’s a good problem to have because it’s completely FIXABLE! If you’re going after jobs that you’re qualified for – but not hearing back from hiring managers or HR managers – then your resume stinks!! You need a stronger resume.
Did you know that your resume can do 3 things
- It can get you MORE INTERVIEWS.
- It can get you interviews for those jobs that YOU REALLY WANT. And I’m talking about those jobs that make your heart flutter a little bit.
- It can help you get a HIGHER STARTING SALARY.
I help clients every day by writing their resume and giving them my step-by-step career strategies. The reason my clients are able to successfully reinvent themselves and transition into a new career is because I give them the exact same strategies that I’ve personally used when I reinvented my own career and successfully transitioned into the radio, TV, professional sports and high tech industries.
So here are my top 3 resume tips to help you get noticed, get hired and even get a higher salary!
- Showcase key words. Key words are those skills in the job postings that are listed as the “job requirements”. Key words are different for every job, so you need to look closely at the job description – and what I do is pull out a highlighter and go through the job posting and highlight all of those requirements. And then, I take all of those requirements that I meet – and showcase those KEY WORDS, or those KEY SKILLS right at the top of my resume. Underneath my “Objective” in my resume, I have a section that I call “Key Strengths” and I list in bullet format – those requirements, or key skills, that I have. So that’s #1 – showcasing key words.
- Emphasize results. This is the single biggest difference in making your resume stand out from your competition. Don’t talk about responsibilities. That’s boring. Instead, talk about what you achieved for an organization, or what you’ve helped the organization achieve.
This is how I transitioned into different industries. This is how I got into the Fortune 100 Companies. Because my resume did NOT focus on responsibilities – instead, I focused on results.
For example, don’t just say that you managed a team of 9 people in the sales department. Instead, say that you led a sales team that generated $250,000 a year for the past 3 years! Or say that your marketing campaign helped generate 3-percent of additional annual revenue, or that you helped resolve an average of 6 customer complaints a day for the past two years!
That says that you take your job seriously, and take your career seriously! Quantify each of your career highlights in terms of dollars, numbers or percentages. - Show leadership and teamwork. Hiring managers look for candidates who are strong contributors and strong leaders (or at least leadership potential.) Talk about projects or teams that you’ve led – and what the results were. If you haven’t led any projects or teams in your professional life, then highlight any leadership experience you’ve had in professional organizations, sports leagues, church activities or community events.
Career Reinvention: 5-Step Action Plan for Changing Job Roles, Industries or Professional Goals
Prefer to listen to the podcast version of this post?
You can also subscribe to our Career Coaching 360 podcast RSS feed. Career Coaching 360 podcasts are also available on iTunes.
There are times in everyone’s career that you feel like running away and starting all over again, and I’m here to say that you can do it!
I’ve successfully reinvented my own career four times including being in radio, television, professional sports, high tech, and now a successful entrepreneur and business owner.
Now one of the things I get asked most often is, “Can I reinvent my career without taking a step down in salary?” Every time I’ve reinvented my career, I’ve received between 20 to 45% increase in my salary. So you can move into a NEW career AND INCREASE your salary.
So let me share with you my five step action plan for reinventing your career AND getting a salary increase…
- Find your passion. What gets you excited? What gets you jazzed? The first step in reinventing your career is to identifying where you want to go. In which industry would you like to work? Advertising? Finance? Health Care? When I wanted to stop being a disc jockey, I knew that I wanted to go into television. And after a successful career in television, I then set my sights on getting into Corporate America. I wasn’t sure what kind of job role I wanted (or could get!), but the first step was determining the industry where I wanted to work.
If you’re not sure where you want to go then start reading trade magazines, industry publications, on-line job sites, even classified ads in your local newspaper. The key is to figure out what lights your fire and inspires you. - Identify your transferable skills. These are skills that transition from industry to industry or from job role to job role. Examples include: managing projects, teams, clients or budgets, as well as negotiating contracts, or proposing and implementing ideas that generate money, save money, or help the company be more competitive.
Other transferable skills include personal characteristics such as demonstrating leadership or risk taking, training or mentoring team members, being goal driven, results oriented, a problem solver, or having the ability to influence senior managers. These are great skills to have, and they transfer from industry to industry. All kinds of industries and companies value employees with these types of skills and characteristics. - Matching your transferable skills to job roles. Read job descriptions posted on CareerJournal.com, CareerBuilder.com and Monster.com, as well as the classified ads in industry magazines, trade journals, and local newspapers. If you want to work for a specific company then check out their website’s on-line job postings. Learn the skills and qualifications required for various job roles.
Match your transferable skills to those jobs you want to go after. If there’s a gap between the required skills and the skills that you currently have, then look for ways to gain that experience such as taking on an extended assignment in your current job, freelancing, consulting, or even volunteering.
Also, attend industry conferences, trade shows, business networking events and association meetings. Talk to people who work in the industry to learn about their career path, responsibilities, and advice for how to break into the business. - Blow up your resume. The first thing I always did before I transitioned into a new career was blow up my resume. Trying to piece together a resume that highlighted the skills I used to get my last job with the skills I need to land my next job is like trying to weld together Lexus parts on a BMW. It doesn’t work. You need a brand new resume.
Showcase only those jobs, responsibilities and successes that relate to the job you want. The hiring manager doesn’t care about every job you’ve ever had. They just want to know if you can do their job. You may also want to get a professional resume critique to help you customize your resume and identify your transferable skills. - Attitude is the key ingredient! I’ve found that getting a new job really boils down to two things: confidence and passion. I’ve never walked into an interview having met all of the job requirements. In fact, for the television interview, I lacked the two biggest requirements which were a minimum of two years experience in television, and a tape to show my TV work.
To compensate, I focused on my transferable skills which were being highly creative and a solid copywriter. That got my foot in the door for the interview. But to get the job offer and beat out the other 4 job candidates, I was passionate about the company and the job! I also told the hiring manager that I absolutely knew that I could do the job!
There’s a kind of quiet confidence that we all have down deep inside. A confidence that comes from knowing what we’re capable of doing. When you transition into a new job role or a new company, you need to show the hiring manager that you have confidence in yourself and know that you’ll be successful in the job. When it comes to reinventing your career, it’s not just your talent but your attitude that counts!
PARADE Update: Make Those 20 Seconds Count
PARADE Update: Make Those 20 Seconds Count
Meghan shares the same challenge that many job changers in today’s market are facing. That is, her career history includes such a wide variety of industries, job roles and responsibilities, that she’s not sure how to market (or position) herself to potential employers.
The biggest mistake I see job seekers making is writing their resume and including every job that they’ve ever had and every skill that they’ve ever had. However, most hiring managers don’t care about all the different skills you have and tasks you can perform – they simply want to know – can you successfully perform their job?
So to position Meghan in the best possible light to hiring managers, and help her stand out from competition, I’m working with Meghan on the following –
Step #1 – Creating her personal Career Success Blueprint™. This includes her identifying three (3) primary areas of responsibility she wants to have in her next career. She’s also identifying her “must have” conditions about the company culture, management style and working conditions. These may include a baseline salary, flexible hours, telecommuting, professional training and development, a clear career path, autonomy, growth company, etc.
Step #2 – Assessing the job market. Meghan needs to understand what kind of jobs are available that also align to her personal Career Success Blueprint™. She’ll need to review on-line job boards, industry magazines, company websites, and business periodicals to get a clear understanding of what the “hot jobs” are, and what the requirements are for those jobs.
Step #3 – Customizing a polished and professional looking resume. Hiring managers, on average, only take about 15-20 seconds to review a resume before determining whether or not to interview the job applicant. Therefore, it’s critical that Meghan’s resume showcases her in the best possible light. I’ll teach Meghan how to create a resume that highlights the right key words, and makes her stand out from the competition.
Step #4 – Developing a personalized job search strategy. Now that Meghan will have a keen focus on what she wants in her next career, as well as a top notch professional resume – now she’ll be ready to seek out those job openings. I’ll help her create an on-line and off-line targeted job search strategy, as well as give her my exclusive networking techniques to help her get more referrals, recommendations and job leads.
Is Your Resume Getting Results?
Take a look at your resume. Is it getting you results? Today’s job market is extremely competitive – having a good resume isn’t good enough. Many clients bring me their resumes complaining about not getting interviews and about how there just aren’t enough jobs out there. In reality, millions of people will get new jobs this year. So, why aren’t you one of them? The answer may be because your resume is not sending the right message.
Your resume must prove you are a clear, focused and results-driven individual who can provide the value the company needs. Employers or new clients want to see the value and the results you provided in your last work environment, so state your accomplishments in terms of dollars, percentages and numbers. How have you impacted the bottom line? Highlighting your skills is critical, but stating specific results of your accomplishments will get you the job interview.
To ensure your resume is giving the right message, I encourage you to have it professionally written, or at a minimum, professionally critiqued. The result can not only give you the edge for getting an interview, but it can help you get a higher starting salary. This can mean tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of your career! A resume coach may also provide great insight about the skills and qualifications valued within the industry.
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