Double the Power Level in Your Resume

When you're job hunting, you're in competition with a lot of people. Your resume has to do a huge amount of heavy lifting for you. A hiring manager is looking for more than a bundle of skills in a human-shaped package. He or she is looking for someone who's self-directed and proactive. There's no better way to get these traits across than in the description of the past jobs in your resume.

Somewhere down the line, we've learned to write our resumes in a passive style. We've learned to write them in a weird "corporate-speak" language in which sentences have no subject.

Where else, outside of a resume, would we ever write, "Results-oriented professional with a bottom-line orientation"? The answer is nowhere!

We're writing about ourselves. We can use "I" in a resume, like this: "I build nimble supply chains for consumer-products makers. I love to forge strong relationships with vendors that give my employers great pricing, great service, and up-to-the-minute information." That two-sentence excerpt from a resume summary is professional, and it's human, too. It puts a picture in the hiring manager's mind--a picture of someone hard at work, strengthening vendor relationships around the world to get the company's products to market faster than its competitors can.

A resume has to have a human voice, and it needs to put your power on the page. When we use our resume bullets merely to list the tasks we performed at past jobs, we're losing our best power-conveying opportunity. Our resume can work harder for us. We need to let a hiring manager know what's in our wake from each of those past jobs. We need to let him or her know what we set out to do in each assignment, and what we got done. Our words have to make it clear that we didn't show up and do the same job that anyone else in the role would have done. We need to show how we put our stamp on the company!

Here's an example. The old version of this resume included a section on a stint at Acme Dynamite:

Acme Dynamite
Pasadena, California
Quality Control Manager
2002-2004

• Managed the Quality Control department of five employees.
• Created Quality Control processes and procedures.
• Led Quality Control task force to improve our dynamite's effectiveness against roadrunners.

This section doesn't help the job seeker. It's more likely to put a reader to sleep than to help anyone get a job. It tells us what's in the job description. We could have guessed at these duties, since they're the typical tasks a person with the Quality Control Manager title performs. We can do better! We can bring more of our power and personality across in our resume. Let's try it again:

Acme Dynamite
Pasadena, California
Quality Control Manager
2002-2004

• I was recruited to join Acme, the world's largest supplier of dynamite to the coyote market, by a colleague of mine who knew Acme's CEO. I was brought on board to build a QA team from scratch and allow Acme to penetrate the lucrative 'toon market.
• Took apart the design-and-release process and rebuilt it with a team of hourly-to-senior-exec peers, taking three months out of the concept-to-ship cycle.
• Reduced manufacturing cost by 30 percent and slashed the defect rate by half.
• Established relationships with our nationwide sales team to get quality issues raised and addressed within 48 hours after they were reported.

How is this resume stronger than the first version? The second take has five advantages over the first one. For starters, it has a human voice. The job-seeker uses "I" only twice in this section, but he uses it to his advantage. He was recruited by a friend of the CEO of the company--of course he wants to tell that story, because it shapes the way we perceive him. Second, this job-seeker tells us a story. He tells us why Acme Dynamite needed him. That's huge. It's clear that he understands the business ramifications of a strong quality program. He isn't a guy who takes a job and just does what he's told. He spots opportunities and problems and dives into 'em. Who doesn't want a guy like that on the team?

Third, this candidate doesn't bore us with his job description. Every bullet in his resume describes an accomplishment he's proud of. He uses numbers to showcase his results. He packs a lot of punch into those short bulleted phrases. Fourth, this job seeker doesn't use abstractions to highlight his skills, such as "I'm a team player." He tells us what he did with a team and lets readers see that he's a team player. Fifth, this fellow uses vernacular like "took apart" and "slashed." He is confident. He uses business slang because he's writing for a fellow business problem-solver, not a bureaucrat. This writing style honors the reader by signaling, "Look, we're both in this game to make things happen. I'm not going to waste your time with corporate-speak gunk like 'Seasoned leader of cross-functional teams' and 'Meets or exceeds expectations.' I assume you don't have time for that. I know for dang sure I don't."

Try a human voice and action-packed resume bullets the next time you revise your resume. If you're job-hunting, try them today!