What is your Resume saying about you?

I was coaching someone who was looking for a Marketing position. Verbally, he had all the skills, but according to the resume it had a feel of a sales person, or an account manager.

I asked, "Where is the marketing skills in this resume?" We found one word that said marketing. Eight words that said sales.

So, from a quick glance the resume reflected a sales person.

Try this exercise. Take 6-10 seconds, and take a look at your resume, you can even have someone else do it. Off of this quick glance what do you see? What stands out? What is your initial reaction? If it is not what you are looking for then you need to change some of the wording you use.

I was mentoring at a local school. As I was thumbing through their resumes, one of the students asked me “Are you looking at our resumes? Because you don’t seem to be spending much time on them." I told them on average I take about five to ten seconds to skim key words and experience on a resume to see if has some of the things I am looking for. Then I might read further.

The class was floored. They thought as recruiters we sit and read each resume all the way through and that we have the time to figure out what they did, how they did it and how it might apply to the position we have available.

So the student that asked me the question wanted to know what feed back I had on their resumes. Most of these students were looking for technology positions. So when I read through their resumes, with a six second glance, I got pictures of warehouse people, stay at home moms, students, carpenters, firefighters. Their resumes were not reflecting what they wanted.

Working with them after to change, not only the focus of the resume, we also changed where the information on the resume went.

Your resume is your marketing material , market your past in a direction that leads to your future.