Today what I thought would be fun to do is give you a checklist.
Kind of a do this, don't do that for your resume.
Just a handy sheet you can use of things to think about before you write your resume and
then as you write your resume, glance at it and then when you're done writing your resume,
look back at this checklist.
It's got eight items on it and say, "Did I do that?
Did I do that?"
So that's what we're going to talk about.
Also in the description there's free giveaways, there's other videos to reference.
My entire social platform is in there.
I love to get connected with you on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and all those other places.
I just love to keep the conversation going wherever you are is where I want to be to
help you.
So let's dive in.
All right so on that checklist that I want to give you, one of the first and most important
items, actually this one might be my favorite.
And I tried to do this is some reasonable order that made sense, but one of my favorite
things to include in the resume that I love to see and you must have it is a summary.
So summarize before you dive into the details and why do you want to do that?
So a lot of people say to me, "Well Andy, you say the resume should only be so long
and I don't want to make it too long and I don't want to include extra information up
at the top and the reader, the reviewer, the hiring official has to go through more stuff
at the beginning of the resume when they can get right into the blood and guts."
Well that's one way of looking at it.
But think about this; wouldn't it be better for you to control the narrative about what
the person sees and when they see it and what they learn about you?
So think about it this way; if I get a resume and it starts right into, "Here's my job."
You know, "Here's my name, here's my city."
And all that good stuff.
"And here's my job."
And then I have to go to the next one and the next one and the next one.
Now you might had less text that I had to go through, but what I now need to do is I
now need to create the summary for you in my mind.
What do I think about this person?
How can I remember who this person is and what they're about and what they've done in
their career?
You've left me to my own devices which may or may not be good.
I might misinterpret.
Instead, if you've got a summary up there, what you're doing is you're controlling what
I see first.
And wouldn't it be better to make sure that I see what you want me to see first?
Wouldn't it be better for you to control the information that's fed to me so that I'm getting
what you want me to get, not what I might be able to pick and choose throughout the
glancing I'm doing around your resume?
Wouldn't that be better to control what I see, how I see it, what you highlight?
I would think that that's way better and actually, it's a lot less work for people who are reviewing
your resume.
So that's one of the best things that you can do up at the top is to control the narrative,
make the reviewer hangout at the top of your page as long as you can.
And here's a great one.
I get this question a lot.
"Hey, you know I'm working 20 years and I spent the first 10 or 15 years in the financial
services industry and then I spent the last five years or so in healthcare, but I really
want to get back to my financial services roots.
But then when somebody sees my resume, they see the healthcare stuff first."
Well that may be, but you could talk to me at the top of your resume about how you are
a seasoned financial services executive with 15 years of your 20 years of experience spent
in that industry.
And highlight the insurance stuff, the banking stuff, those kind of things.
And all that can be pulled up to the top.
So for those of you who are trying to get back to something you used to do or even wanting
to make a career change, that is something that ought to be a focal point.
So much of this discussion probably I'm going to spend more time on that than the rest of
these, but that's a really big honking deal.
You can call it whatever you want.
I call it a career profile.
I've even got a video out there on that.
We did a live office hours last year on how to create that and what to include.
So that's out there.
You can call it a career summary.
You can call it a summary and anything you want.
And one other thing before I go onto the second thing.
For all you college students out there, I know I got a lot of interns and young professionals
out there and they always ask me well say, "Andy, I'm just graduating.
Should my education be at the top?"
It should.
It should be right below your profile and encapsulate what you are as a student, as
a volunteer, as an intern, as a whatever it is.
What is it that you can tell the employers in summary form right up top?
It's going to separate you college students and recent college grads.
So go to do that.
I've also got a video out there called This One Trick Will Make Your College Resume Standout.
Check that out.
All right.
Number two.
I want you to think in terms of what you offer, not what you need.
The resume is about what you offer, not what you need.
So in every sense.
The worst mistake you can make is starting out your resume with an objective statement.
It's important what you want and if I'm going to hire you, that's important to me.
I want to understand that, but I don't want to see that on a resume.
I want to see what value you're going to contribute to my organization.
Your resume is a marketing document of you.
Its sole purpose is to get somebody to want to speak to you live.
Whether that's on the phone, in person, in offices, over coffee, whatever.
The faster you can do that, the more effective the resume is, but what you never want to
do is waste real estate on an objective statement or the types of jobs you're seeking.
You can use the interview for that, you can use your cover letter.
There's many, many ways, but it has no room in the resume.
So think value, don't think objective.
Number three.
Think accomplishments, not activities.
So what do I mean by that?
Well you can have activities that you perform.
So, "I'm responsible for managing this team."
"I'm responsible for improving the business processes, blah, blah, blah."
"I'm responsible for developing software."
"I'm responsible for marketing our company's whatever."
So those are activities and those are the things that you do.
But on a resume, those are very secondary compared to what it is you actually accomplished
as a result of doing those activities.
So you want to make your resume more accomplishments or achievements focused where you're highlighting
the benefits of your activities.
So what it was that you did.
so if you optimized business processes or you streamlined something, what did you save?
What did you save in terms of dollars?
What did you save in terms of time?
If you are an accountant who was chartered with reducing your company's closing process
that took 10 days of 10 people that now takes five days of 10 people, that's the kind of
stuff.
So you reduced the closing time by 50% from 10 days to five days and all the work days
and all the stuff that you saved.
So that's the kind of stuff you want to make sure you're highlighting.
The accomplishments, the benefits, and not just the activities.
If you want to throw the activities in there, that's great.
I taught you how to do this in How to Write the Perfect Resume Bullets.
Check that one out.
What's number four?
Evidence.
Not opinions.
So this is one I think people really struggle with.
Hang on, shot of espresso time.
I'm not naturally like this.
You'd be amazed at how calm I am, but anyway.
Evidence versus opinions.
This is one that drives most recruiters crazy.
And actually it drives most recruiters crazy and it drives them the most crazy.
Think in terms of all those statements that you might find on your resume that say, "I'm
a great leader.
I'm detail oriented.
I'm a self-starter.
I'm entrepreneurial.
I'm disruptive.
I'm those things.
I'm a good time manager.
I'm organized.
I'm a good project manager."
Whatever it is, those are opinions.
And opinions have no place in the resume.
I don't care who told you what, the resume is not the place for your opinion of yourself
because a skilled reviewer of your resume glosses right over that stuff.
What he or she is looking for is why are you a good project manager?
Did you bring your projects in on time and on budget?
If you are a good optimizer, did you actually save the company money by reducing something?
If you are a great leader and you manage people, what did the team accomplish?
So what did you inspire them to do?
What did you teach them to do?
How did you motivate them?
That's the kind of stuff that they're for.
And as a bonus on this evidence item, the more precise your information about the evidence,
the more believable and the more the reviewer enjoys it.
So what do I mean by precision when it comes to evidence?
So if you optimize something, it's better to say, "I reduced it by 50% which was five
days.
From 10 days to five days."
That's precise.
As opposed to what I see a lot in resumes is, "I reduced it several days."
"I managed many accounts."
"I did this for lots."
"It grew substantially."
Those words, you should comb your resume for any of those types of words and do everything
possible to remove them.
They have no room in the resume.
Was it several clients or was it 23?
Or 5?
Or 17?
And if you don't know exactly because you're trying to put a resume together and you haven't
looked for a job in 10 years, then do your darnedest to try to figure out what that number
is or near.
Or say, "More than 20."
Or something of that nature, but lend some specificity and precision to anything that
you claim is a big a honking deal.
All right, what's next?
Let me check.
Memory.
Memorable.
Is your layout memorable?
Do you take advantage of white space or are you using eight point font with .25 margins
on the side and the paragraph spacing between the lines is that big?
If it's very dense, it's very difficult for the reviewer to scan it.
And you want it to be easily scanned.
And memory isn't just about what I can retain.
It's also about, "Can I go back to his or her resume and where was that?
And where can I find that?
I remember reading it and going right to the spot."
That is memorably pleasing and you want to do whatever you can to do it.
So that's number five.
Number six.
Chronology.
Every human being that's ever been born and ever will be, anybody on the face of the earth
thinks in terms of time.
They think in terms of time and the first question that goes to their head when they
open up a resume is, "What are you doing now?"
The second question is, "What did you do before that?"
So where are you working now or where did you work most recently?
Where did you work before that and so on?
They want to be able to see that chronology because that's how they think.
And what they're also looking for is, "Does this person have a nice evolution?
Has this person made more or less good decision based on going from this company to that company
or this position to that position within the company?"
Or whatever.
So they want to be able to formulate that.
The biggest don't and the biggest don't, this actually as I'm teaching you and I'm explaining
this, my hair on my back of my neck is actually standing up.
Do not, under any circumstances put together a functional resume.
So chronology is in terms of time.
Where I am today, where I was before that, and so on.
Functional resume is, "I was a project manager and over here this is all the organizations
that I did that function."
It's very, very difficult for the employer, the reviewer, the recruiter, whoever it is
looking at your resume to actually understand a functional resume.
And by the way, I am not just giving you my opinion.
Obviously I know what I like and I share that with you and sometimes I share that with you
very emphatically and sometimes I share that with you a little bit in a relaxed nature,
but I also think I have a good pulse on the market because I'm constantly surveying recruiters
and HR people.
And as a matter of fact, last November, I did a survey to a bunch of recruiters and
I even called a bunch of recruiters to kind of, "What's the current stuff?
How are you feeling about this?"
I had a bunch of questions for them and one of them was on resume format and I asked them
how they feel about functional resumes.
Over 90% of them said they don't like them and of the 80% of the 90% said they don't
even read them.
So because, here again, going back to the point I was making about the summary, the
summary allows you to format the narrative for me and you're spoon feeding me.
And so you're actually making my life easier when I review your resume.
When you create a functional resume, you are now making me again put the narrative together
because I'm trying to answer the time questions and the evolution questions of you.
And you're making me work harder.
Every time on the resume you make the person work harder, it's not like a linear point
of pain.
So the first time something happens it's like, "Well okay.
That's no big deal."
The second it's not like I'm in twice as much pain, it's like I'm in 10 times as much pain.
And the next time, it's usually third strike you're out and then they pitch the resume.
That's what's actually happening because you're frustrating them.
And I probably surprisingly look at resumes longer, actually I look at them longer than
I used to and I look at them in great detail when I'm reviewing them now, but my function
is different.
As a trainer, I have different activities and different coaching aspects that I want
to teach, but as recruiter or somebody who's reviewing hundreds and hundreds of resumes
every day, their patience is very low and it's not very tolerant for people who are
not spoon feeding them.
So I just, I want to make sure you take my message in stride here.
I'm trying to help you understand what it is that they're going through so you can be
mindful of that as you format your resume.
So think in terms of chronology, don't think in terms of function.
Number seven.
Make it manageable.
Make it manageable in length.
I always get this question every few days I get a question on the YouTube channel or
on my blog, "What's the appropriate length?"
Here's your hard and fast rule.
If you are in the commercial industry and you are putting a professional style resume
together, two pages, no more, no exceptions.
None.
I could get a 30 year career down to 26 words, you can get a 30 year career down to two pages
and if you don't think that you can, then the first place you ought to look at on your
resume is, "Are you trying to list every single thing you've ever done in your life?"
The resume is not a complete work history.
It is a highlight of your work history.
So I want you to think in those terms.
If you are a college student or you're a recent college graduate, you can certainly get away
with one page.
If you've started working a bunch of years, five years, 10 years, you know, you might
start bleeding into two pages or maybe a full two pages.
Depends how much volunteer work you're doing, some extra curriculars and things like that
that you might be doing.
But no one should be beyond two pages.
If you are in the academic arena and CV style resume is the acceptable format where you've
got research, you've got publications, you've got all kinds of additional books and things
like that that you're writing, then it can go longer.
But if you're in the professional, commercial work environment, two pages.
No more.
No exceptions.
All right and last, number eight.
You want to be relevant.
So I see a lot of resumes that take up room at the bottom where they talk about hobbies.
You know, "I'm a marathoner and I volunteer at the pet store."
And all this good stuff.
While that stuff's great and it's wonderful if you want to chit chat and banter back and
forth with the interviewer in the interview, it's just got no room on the resume.
It really doesn't.
Volunteer activities where you are doing something extreme, you're spending a lot of time, you're
gaining leadership qualities as a result of doing volunteer activities and extra curricular
activities is wonderful.
That I do want in the resume.
So I just want to be crystal clear here.
I'm talking about hobbies that are completely unrelated to either work or building skills
that are beneficial in the work environment.
So if you're sitting on a board at some non-for-profit, that's awesome.
I want to hear about that.
But if you're a marathoner, that's great.
Just let me know that.
You'll know that I'm a runner if you come in my office and there's running pictures
around.
You'll pick that up.
I've got friends that are CEOs, that are fisherman and hunters and all kinds of stuff.
And that's great.
And you can share that.
But I just wouldn't put it on the resume.
All right now I want to do this for you just so you can freeze the page just to recap what
I said.
You've got eight of these little beauties.
Oh, sorry.
I must be in the wrong spot.
Oh here we go.
Okay.
I love being live.
All right, here we go.
Here's what the employer wants; summary first, what you offer not what you need, accomplishments
versus activities.
So think in terms of benefits versus daily duties.
Evidence not opinions and the more precise you can get your evidence the better.
You want to have a memorable layout, okay?
As opposed to something that's really thick and dense.
You want it to be in chronological order versus grouping your companies by job type.
You want it to be manageable, two pages or less.
And you want it to be relevant.
So not excessive.
So that's a little recap there.
I will leave that up for a quick second if you want to jot a few notes.