Chapter 9

Creating Your Best Resume

In This Chapter

Selling your value to people you want to work for

Focusing your resume like a high-powered laser

Selecting the format that flatters your image

Comparing the good and the bad for each format

Sampling superb but uncommon formats

How much are you worth to employers? Are you a top pick, a maybe pick, or . . . gulp, a no-hire pick? Your resume inspires their first best guess, so make sure it’s a compelling portrait of how your strengths and skills benefit the enterprise that you’re hoping will write your next paycheck.

No matter the platform, you need to show your value via a well-constructed resume. Construct a crisp and shorter new version for the smaller screens of smartphones, e-readers, and tablets, as well as the larger screens of desktop computers, laptops, and paper. The principles are the same: It’s not the size of the stage on which your resume appears that counts; it’s how much of your value it communicates.

Begin any resume construction by making foundation decisions about how to best present your value. That is, determine to use a persuasive messaging voice and a strong focus, housed in your most favorable format. This chapter reveals the nuts and bolts of how to mount a successful marketing campaign when the product is you.

“Telling It” Mutes; “Selling It” Sings

Pretend you’re in the market for replacement windows in your home. Which of the following two messages would better pique your interest in taking a closer look at the company?

The Turner Group has been in existence replacing windows for 30+ years at the same easy-to-find showroom. We offer 25 different models and window sizes — a choice to fit every home and budget.

The Turner Group has been assisting homeowners to protect their home values with 25 models of high-quality replacement windows at discount prices — and in all sizes — since the mid-1970s.

The first statement is an example of telling it; the message is “look at us!” The second statement is an example of selling it, and its message is “here’s what we can do for you.”

OnTarget resumes don’t tell it — they sell it! Dry, dull descriptions of what you did on a job are as boring as video of a friend’s childhood birthday party.

Instill excitement! List your background facts but make sure you position them as end-user (employer) benefits.

One way to sell your value and your benefits to an employer who has the power to hire you is to get specific. Communicate the importance of what you’ve done by using details — numbers, names, achievements, outcomes, volume of sales or savings, and size of contracts, for example.

Remember, when you sell it, you breathe life into a rigid, dreary, boring, and generally coma-inducing document. Here are several examples of the sell-it strategy for resumes.

Tell it	Sell it
Supervisor of HR generalist and recruiting functions for 10 years at company headquarters.	Supervisor with 10 years’ successful management of 6 HR generalists and 3 recruiters for regional company with 3 administrative offices and 8 manufacturing plants.
Worked as network administrator with responsibility for administration and troubleshooting.	As network administrator, created in excess of 750 user scripts, installed 16 workstations, administered security codes to 350 clients, supervised installation of company-wide Microsoft XP Pro, and regularly solved stress-causing malfunctions in operating system and software.
Leading sales rep for new homes in prestigious development in year when housing market began to cool.	In a cooling housing market (off 11% from previous year), became number-one sales rep, selling $7,800,000 in 12 months — 13 homes at $600,000 floor.

For really tiny screens suitable only for 10-year-old eyes, consider preserving your sell-it statements with a hyperlink to a free resume-hosting site, such as Yola.com (www.yola.com). One click allows small-screen readers to see your entire resume.

Help employers see not only what you were responsible for but how well you did it — and why it mattered.

Focus Your Resume

Too many jobs in your background threaten your focus. Unfocused is an ugly word in job-search circles, one that indicates you lack commitment, that you’re perpetually at a fork in the road. It’s a reason not to hire you.

When your resume looks as though it will collapse under the weight of a mishmash of jobs unconnected to your present target, eliminate previous trivial pursuits. Group the consequential jobs under a heading that says Relevant Work Experience Summary. What if this approach solves one problem — the busy resume — but creates another, such as a huge, gaping hole where you removed inconsequential jobs? Create a second work history section that covers those gaps, labeling it Other Experience. Figure 9-1 shows an example.

Dealing with an unfocused career pattern is easier when it’s under the banner of a temporary service company. The treatment in this case lists the temporary services company as the employer. You choose one job title that covers most of your assignments. Under that umbrella title, identify specific assignments. Give the dates in years next to the temporary services firm, skipping dates for each assignment. Figure 9-2 shows an example.

What if you work for several temporary services at the same time? The simple answer is that you use the same technique of dating your work history for the temporary service firms, not for the individual assignments. This dating technique is a statement of fact; you legally are an employee of the temporary services firm, not of the company that pays for your temporary services.

Figure 9-1: Solving the gap problem in a jobs-impacted resume by creating a focus plus a second work history section.

Figure 9-2: Listing your temporary job assignments without looking unfocused.

Resume Formats Make a Difference

Resume format refers not to the design or look of your resume but to how you organize and emphasize your information. Different format styles flatter different histories.

At root, formats come in three family trees:

The reverse chronological lists all employment and education, beginning with the most recent and working backward.

The skills-based functional shouts what you can do instead of relaying what you’ve done and where you did it.

The hybrid or combination is a marriage of both formats.

The narrative format is an outdated chronological format that starts with the oldest facts and works forward to the newest facts. A pretentious variation of the narrative format uses the third person as though you were writing a biography. I strongly suggest that you don’t use either of these formats.

These basic styles have spawned a variety of other formats, each of which I discuss in this chapter. The best-known formats are these:

Professional

Academic curriculum vitae

International curriculum vitae

Subcategories of formats, which I also discuss later in this chapter, include accomplishment, linear, and keyword resumes.

Table 9-1 gives you a breakdown of which of the above formats enhances your personal curb appeal.

Table 9-1 Your Best Resume Formats at a Glance
Your Situation	Suggested Formats
Perfect career pattern	Reverse Chronological
Rookie or ex-military	Functional, Hybrid
Seasoned ace	Functional, Hybrid
Business	Reverse Chronological, Hybrid
Technical	Reverse Chronological, Hybrid
Professional	Professional, Academic Curriculum Vitae, Portfolio
Government	Reverse Chronological, Professional, Hybrid
Arts/teaching	Professional, Portfolio, Academic Curriculum Vitae
Job history gaps	Functional, Hybrid
Multitrack job history	Functional, Hybrid
Career change	Functional
International job seeker	International Curriculum Vitae
Special issues	Functional, Hybrid

The following sections explore each type of resume format so that you can choose the style best for you and your skills.

Reverse Chronological Format

The reverse chronological (RC) format, shown in Figure 9-3, is straightforward: It cites your employments from the most recent back, showing dates as well as employers and educational institutions (college, vocational-technical schools, and career-oriented programs and courses). You accent a steady work history with a clear pattern of upward or lateral mobility.

Strengths and weaknesses

Check to see whether the reverse chronological resume’s strengths work for you:

This upfront format is by far the most popular with employers and recruiters because it is so, well, upfront.

RC links employment dates, underscoring continuity. The weight of your experience confirms that you’re a specialist in a specific career field (social service or technology, for example).

RC positions you for the next upward career step.

As the most traditional of formats, RC is a good fit for traditional industries (such as banking, education, and accounting).

Take the weaknesses of the reverse chronological format into account:

When your previous job titles are substantially different from your target position, this format doesn’t support your objective. Without careful management, the RC reveals everything, including inconsequential jobs and negative factors.

RC can spotlight periods of unemployment or brief job tenure.

Without careful management, RC reveals your age.

Without careful management, RC may suggest that you hit a plateau but stayed in a job too long.

Figure 9-3: The tried-and-true, basic reverse chronological format.

Who should use this format and who should think twice

Use the reverse chronological if you fall into any of these categories:

You have a steady school and work record reflecting constant growth or lateral movement.

Your most recent employer is a respected name in the industry, and the name may ease your entry into a new position.

Your most recent job titles are impressive stepping stones.

You’re a savvy writer who knows how to manage potential negative factors, such as inconsequential jobs, too few jobs, too many temporary jobs, too many years at the same job, or too many years of age.

Think twice about using the RC under these circumstances:

You have a lean employment history. Listing a stray student job or two is not persuasive, even when you open with superb educational credentials enhanced with internships and co-op experiences.

With careful attention, you can do a credible job on an RC by extracting from your extracurricular activities every shred of skills, which you present as abilities to do work with extraordinary commitment and a head for quick learning.

You have work-history or employability problems — gaps, demotions, stagnation in a single position, job hopping (four jobs in three years, for example), reentering the workforce after a break to raise a family.

Exercise very careful management to truthfully modify stark realities. However, you may find that other formats can serve you better.

Creating a reverse chronological resume

To create an OnTarget RC resume, remember to focus on areas of specific relevance to your target position. List all pertinent places you’ve worked. Include for each the name of the employer and the city in which you worked, the years you were there, your title, your key responsibilities, and your measurable accomplishments.

To handle problems such as unrelated experience, you can group unrelated jobs in a second work history section under a heading of Other Experience, Previous Experience, or Related Experience. I tell you more about handling a variety of special circumstances in Chapter 13.

Functional Format

The functional format (see Figure 9-4) is a resume of ability-focused topics — portable skills or functional areas. It ignores chronological order. In its purest form, the functional style omits dates, employers, and job titles. But employers don’t like it when you leave out the particulars, so contemporary functional resumes list employers, job titles, and sometimes even dates — but still downplay this information by briefly listing it at the bottom of the resume.

The functional format is oriented toward what the job seeker can do for the employer, instead of narrating history.

Strengths and weaknesses

The following are the strengths of the functional format:

A functional resume directs a reader’s eyes to what you want him or her to notice. It helps a reader visualize what you can do instead of when and where you learned to do it. Functional resumes salute the future rather than embalm the past.

The functional format — written after researching the target company — serves up the precise functions or skills that the employer wants. It’s like saying, “You want budget control and turnaround skills — I offer budget control and turnaround skills.” The skills sell is a magnet to reader eyes!

It uses unpaid and nonwork experience to your best advantage.

The functional format allows you to eliminate or subordinate work history that doesn’t support your current objective.

The weaknesses of the functional format include the following:

Recruiters and employers are more accustomed to RC formats than other types. Departing from the norm may raise suspicion that you’re not the cream of the crop of applicants. Readers may assume that you’re trying to hide inadequate experience, educational deficits, or who knows what.

Functional styles may leave unclear which skills grew from which jobs or experiences.

This format doesn’t make a clear career path obvious.

Figure 9-4: No experience? Use the functional resume format.

Who should use this format and who should think twice

The functional resume is heaven-sent for career changers, contract workers, new graduates, ex-military personnel, seasoned aces, and individuals with multitrack job histories, work-history gaps, or special-issue problems.

Job seekers with blue-ribbon backgrounds and managers and professionals who are often tapped by executive recruiters should avoid this format.

Creating a functional resume

Choose areas of expertise acquired during the course of your career, including education and unpaid activities. These areas become skill, competency, and functional headings, which vary by the target position or career field. Note accomplishments below each heading. A few examples of headings are: Management, Sales, Budget Control, Cost Cutting, Project Implementation, and Turnaround Successes.

List the headings in the order of importance and follow each heading with a series of short statements of your skills. Turn your statements into power hitters with measurable achievements.

Hybrid Format

The hybrid, a combination of reverse chronological and functional formats, satisfies demands for timelines as well as showcases your marketable skills and impressive accomplishments. Many people find the hybrid to be the most attractive of all formats.

Essentially, in a hybrid, a functional summary tops a reverse chronological presentation of dates, employers, and capsules of each position’s duties. Figure 9-5 gives you a template for this format.

The hybrid style is similar to the contemporary functional format — so much so that making a case for distinction is sometimes difficult.

Figure 9-5: The hybrid format — the best of both worlds.

Strengths and weaknesses

Hybrid resumes appear to be rapidly gaining in popularity. A hybrid format combines the strengths of both the reverse chronological and functional formats, so check out those earlier sections. Its weakness is that, like a functional resume, it departs from the straightforward reverse chronological format that a very conservative employer may prefer.

Who should use this format and who should think twice

The hybrid is a wise choice for rookies, ex-military personnel, seasoned aces, those with job history gaps or a multitrack job history, and individuals with special-issue problems. Additionally, job seekers who want to highlight their flexible qualifications for a variety of positions benefit with this format. Seekers of jobs requiring a security clearance or the handling of large sums of money should stick to the straightforward reverse chronological format.

Creating a hybrid resume

Build a functional format of ability-focused topics and add employment documentation — employers, locations, dates, and role duties.

Professional Format

A professional format, also called a professional vitae or professional CV, is slightly long winded (say, three to five pages), but factual. It emphasizes professional qualifications and activities. This format, shown in Figure 9-6, is essentially a shortened academic curriculum vitae.

Strengths and weaknesses

The professional resume is mandatory for certain kinds of positions; your choice is whether to send this type, or go all the way and send an academic curriculum vitae.

Figure 9-6: The long but effective professional format is perfect for certain careers.

But be aware that professional resumes are reviewed under a microscope; every deficiency stands out. Adding a portfolio that shows your experience-based work skills may compensate for missing chunks of formal requirements. Just make sure that any unsolicited samples you send are high quality and need no explanation.

Who should use this format and who should think twice

Professionals in medicine, science, and law should use this format. Also use it when common sense or convention makes it the logical choice, as when you’re applying for a leadership civil service appointment in government.

For most nonprofessionals, especially managers, the professional format is tedious.

Creating a professional resume

Begin with education, professional training, and an objective. Follow with a summary of the main points you want the reader to absorb. Follow that information with details of your professional experience and accomplishments.

Follow the template in Figure 9-6, paying attention to accomplishments. Just because you present yourself in a low-key, authoritative manner doesn’t mean that you can forget to say how good you are.

Academic Curriculum Vitae

The academic curriculum vitae (CV) is a comprehensive biographical statement, typically three to ten pages, emphasizing professional qualifications and activities. A CV of six to eight pages, ten at the most, is recommended for a veteran professional; two to four pages is appropriate for a young professional just starting out (see the “Professional Format” section earlier in this chapter).

If your CV is more than four pages long, show mercy and save eyesight by attaching an executive summary page to the top. An executive summary gives a brief overview of your qualifications and experience.

Among various possible organizations, the template in Figure 9-7 (a variation of the hybrid format but with exhaustive coverage) illustrates a lineup of your contact information, objective, qualifications summary, skills summary, and professional background.

Figure 9-7: Brevity definitely isn’t a feature of the academic CV.

Strengths and weaknesses

A CV presents all the best of you, which is good, but for people with aging eyes, a CV may be too reading-intensive. More important, weaknesses in any area of your professional credentials are relatively easy to spot.

Who should use this format and who should think twice

Anyone working in a PhD-driven environment, such as higher education, think tanks, science, and elite research and development groups needs to use this format.

Anyone who can avoid using it should do so.

Creating an academic curriculum vitae

Create a comprehensive summary of your professional employment and accomplishments: education, positions, affiliations, honors, memberships, credentials, dissertation title, fields in which comprehensive examinations were passed, full citations of publications and presentations, awards, discoveries, inventions, patents, seminar leadership, foreign languages, courses taught — whatever is valued in your field.

International Curriculum Vitae Format

The international CV is not the same document as an academic CV. Think of an international CV as a six- to eight-page excruciatingly detailed resume (Figure 9-8 gives you a template). Although it solicits private information that’s outlawed in the United States, such as your health status, the international CV is favored in some nations as a kind of global ticket to employment.

Figure 9-8: The international CV is an option when applying for jobs outside your home country.

The international CV is usually a reverse chronological format that includes your contact information, qualifications summary, professional background, education, and personal information. Some European countries prefer the chronological format, which lists education and work experience from the farthest back to the present.

Americans should remember that when working overseas for a native employer, they are not protected by Equal Employment Opportunity laws.

Strengths and weaknesses

International employment experts say that if you don’t use this format, foreign recruiters may think you’re hiding something. But keep in mind that the international CV format intrudes into private areas of your life.

Who should use this format and who should think twice

Use this format if you’re seeking an overseas job and don’t object to revealing information that may subject you to discriminatory hiring practices.

Individuals who feel strongly about invasions of privacy or fear identity theft, or who aren’t willing to be rejected out of hand because of gender, religion, race, age, or marital status should avoid this format.

Of course, if you want an overseas job and you don’t use this format, you may be out of luck unless you’re working through an American recruiter. The recruiter can interpret your concerns and negotiate for a bare minimum of personal information. Nationals of countries other than the United States can also use this technique.

Creating an international curriculum vitae

Formality prevails with the international CV. England has a suggested CV form, which is more like the American resume than not.

If you’re applying in a non-English-speaking country, have your CV translated into the appropriate foreign language. Send employers and recruiters both the English and the native-language version.

Unless it’s untrue, mention in the personal section that you have excellent health.

Suggest by appropriate hobbies and personal interests that you’ll easily adapt to an overseas environment.

In the unlikely case that you’re submitting your international CV on paper, handwrite the cover letter that goes with it — Europeans use handwriting analysis as a screening device. If your handwriting is iffy, enclose a word-processed version as well. If you want to send hand-written e-mail, search online for technical tips about how to do it.

In addition, make sure that your cover letter shows a sincere desire to be in the country of choice.

Other Resume Presentations

A few adventuresome job seekers are using innovative resume formats. Here’s a quick look at two possibilities that can’t be classified as mainstream methods but may be just the vehicle you need to find the job that seems beyond your grasp.

Resume letters

In a targeted postal mailing campaign, a resume letter attracts attention because it reads more like a story than a document. The resume letter is a combination of cover letter and resume; often it is two pages. It typically opens with a variation of the question: “Are you looking for a professional who can leap high buildings in a single bound?” A resume letter opening might look a little something like this:

Should you be in the market for an accomplished, congenial senior human resources specialist who has earned an excellent reputation for successful HR technology acquisition analysis and management, this letter will be of interest to you.

The resume letter continues to give a basic overview of a job seeker’s strengths, including previous employers, achievements, skills and competencies, as they would apply to the recipient company.

Take extra care to discover the key qualifications most often required for the position you seek. Targeting is a no-lose strategy even for cold mailings.

Your strengths message may be in paragraph form or in bulleted statements. The resume letter format can be especially useful for a professional with an abundance of experience. But don’t substitute a resume letter when you’re responding to a job advertisement that asks for a resume. The employer calls the shots.

One of the most amazing placements I’ve ever heard about was the case of the chemist who at age 50 left the profession to take a fling dealing cards at a casino. Five years later, at age 55, he wanted to return to the chemistry workplace. A cold mailing of a well-written resume letter to owners of small chemical companies turned up a caretaker CEO job while the owner took an extended two-year trip out of the country. Would the resume letter and broadcast mailing approach work as well with e-mail? I have no data on this question. The trick would be to bypass spam filters.

Portfolios

Hard-copy samples of your work, gathered in a portfolio, have long been valuable to fields such as design, graphics, photography, architecture, advertising, public relations, marketing, education, and contracting.

Often, you deliver your portfolio as part of the job interview. Some highly motivated job seekers include a brief version of a career portfolio when sending their resumes, although recruiters say that they want fewer, not more, resume parts to deal with. If you must include work samples to back up your claims, send only a few of your very best.

The portfolio is a showcase for documenting a far more complete picture of what you offer employers than is possible with a resume of one or two pages. Getting recruiters to read it is the problem. When you determine that a portfolio is your best bet, take it to job interviews. Put your portfolio in a three-ring binder with a table of contents and tabs separating its various parts. Mix and match the following categories:

Career goals (if you’re a new graduate or career changer): A brief statement of less than one page is plenty.

Your resume: Use a fully formatted version in MS Word.

Samples of your work: Include easily understandable examples of problem solving and competencies.

Proof of performance: Insert awards, honors, testimonials and letters of commendation, and flattering performance reviews. Don’t forget to add praise from employers, people who reported to you, and customers.

Proof of recognition: Here’s where you attach certifications, transcripts, degrees, licenses, and printed material listing you as the leader of seminars and workshops. Omit those that you merely attended unless the attendance proves something.

Military connections: The U.S. military provides exceptionally good training, and many employers know it. List military records, awards, and badges.

Make at least two copies of your hard-copy portfolio in case potential employers decide to hold on to your samples or fail to return them.

Your portfolio should document only the skills that you want to apply on a job. Begin by identifying those skills, and then determine which materials prove your claims of competency.

Choose What Works for You

The big closing question to ask yourself when you’ve settled on a format is:

Does this format maximize my qualifications for the job I want?

If the format you’ve chosen doesn’t promote your top qualifications, take another look at the choices in this chapter to select a format that does help you present your top-pick value.