So That's What You Do!

As you may or may not know, I'm a HUGE advocate of hiring a professional to write your resume. 

It only makes sense, considering the fact that your resume is one of the most important documents you'll ever own (somewhere between winning lottery ticket and driver's license).

Most savvy business professionals already know this; yet week after week I still get asked, "Why should I spend $500 - $1,500 for something I can do myself?  Hell, I just re-shingled my own roof last weekend!"

For the level of candidates that I work with the total cost of having a resume professionally written is 1%, maybe 2%, of their annual income expectation--and that's just for the first year.  If a well-constructed resume opens up an opportunity for you that pays $100k a year and you stay on that job for 3 years, the ROI is ridiculously huge.  It's a no-brainer.

I'm almost to the point to where I will NOT consider a candidate for a position if it's blatantly obvious they've written their own resume (the exception is when I come across a candidate that's been at the same job for a number of years and is not actively looking).

Scott M. from my Career Makeover Series is an Information Technology Manager who worked for one company from 2001 until July of this year.  When he got word that he was being downsized, he dusted off his old resume from 2000 and went about updating it to reflect his responsibilities from the previous 7 years.  He wrote the following summary paragraph for his most recent position:

Entrepreneurial team player for this start up company built on a patented product that utilizes bar code scanning and digital imaging to recognize, monitor and document the administration of injected drugs while concurrently creating a digital anesthesia record. During the first six years I was tasked in building the technical services division which consisted of Software QA, Customer Services, Technical Support, and Information Systems. In addition I performed the duties of Project Manager, Project Manager Software Developer, BETA release manager, and Technical Sales Engineer.

He also included a handful of bullet points such as:

• Hired, trained and managed a team of support engineers, software engineers, customer service representatives, and IT staff
• Continually developed avenues to support, mentor and improve each individual
• Worked with account managers to provide high level customer services to ensure client satisfaction

...and so on...

Having gotten to know Scott over the past couple weeks, I can assure you he is a knowledgeable, capable, and dedicated professional; but you'd never know it based on his current resume.

As an exercise, I asked Scott to provide me with a list of his most significant professional accomplishments from the previous 2 years.  This is an excerpt of what he came up with:

• We moved our offices 3 times in the past 9 months. I was responsible for the move of our data network and phone system to each new facility. This included wireless infrastructure and recovery planning for co-location to a local CLEC. The data network was successfully moved each time with limited down time.
• VOIP implementation. I managed the migration of our phone system from an older digital system to a VOIP in order to reduce costs, increase integration with our computer systems, and allow for expansion. Overall monthly savings were $800 - $1,000.
• Microsoft CRM installation and implementation.  I was responsible for the conversion from our existing sales and support systems to an enterprise customer relationship management system that the sales, support and implementations departments could utilize without maintaining separate systems.
• Establishing our company as a Microsoft Certified Partner. This partnership was of great benefit to our Marketing, Development, and IT departments. Marketing benefited from the addition exposure gained by being a Microsoft partner, Development was able to garner additional support/consulting time with Microsoft, and IT was able to access the latest software to test and work with, resulting in an annual savings of approximately $25,000.

Hey, now this is the resume of a guy that knows how to get stuff done!

By documenting his accomplishments as opposed to generic descriptions of his positions, Scott's resume now projects a significantly more favorable impression of him as a professional.  In addition, it helps open up specific dialogs once he's able to secure an interview with a potential employer ("So, tell me about this phone migration you did. We've been thinking about doing that for the past year or so.")

Employers generally evaluate management-level candidates based on their perceived abilities to accomplish certain objectives. If you leave them wondering as to what you're capable of when they read your resume, you'll never get the opportunity to show them  what you can do. 

Comments

[Carolyn]

For senior managers or executive resumes, your points are well taken.

HOWEVER, as a technical recruiter, we can always spot the professionally written resumes --- they are the 'sterile' resumes with a mention of the technologies.

Professional resume writers who strip technical resumes of all technical terms do a tremendous disservice to everyone involved.

We recruit for technical people who have spent 5+ years in a specific technical area. Reading a resume that says Experienced Systems Engineer or Software engineer without mentioning the details is worthless.

Most technical managers would prefer to read a technically dense accurate resume with less polish than a polished sterile professional resume.

[savemyresume]

Carolyn makes a great point.

I'd like to reassure her and your other readers that a bonafide professional resume writer would NEVER put format before content.

His or her first inclination should be to:

1.) Assess the client's situation
2.) Help him/her establish goals
3.) Identify positions of interest
4.) Identify meaningful, relevant skills and achievements

Format should always be a secondary consideration.

[Michelle Dumas]

Great post!

There are so-called "professional" resume writers who crank out the sterile resumes that Carolyn hates. But true professionals know how to balance the technical details with the concise "success stories" that illustrate the proven ROI that a candidate offers.

At the core, every job is about solving a problem, saving money, making money, or increasing efficiency. The best resumes are results-focused, include accomplishments that prove impact, and leave the reader with no doubt that this is the perfect candidate for the job. The best resume writers know how to draw this information out from candidates and know how to articulate it in a way that also includes the technical details Carolyn is looking for.