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When you want to get a job interview
When I left university, like many students, I didn’t have a job. I was also – again, like many students – totally broke, so was living with my parents.
While I was still job-hunting, I remember watching my Dad review applications for a very senior position in his office. And I was amazed – and a bit gutted, to be honest – how quickly he reviewed people’s résumés that they’d taken ages to write.
I mean, he read everything in there, and treated all the résumés fairly. But it was all just so quick. And it struck me how a recruiter’s first read-through is often a filtering exercise, which puts people into one of three groups – extremely impressive; definitely not; everyone else.
Twenty years on, and I’ve helped hundreds of people secure senior jobs by ensuring their résumé goes into the first group. This chapter contains my top tips to help you do this. To make things as “real” as possible, I’ve included “before and after” excerpts of Carl’s résumé (he’s one of my customers) whose revised résumé led to an interview panel saying it was the best they’d ever read and that it “was like reading a story”.
Start with the Employer’s Needs, not Your Background
You want to grab attention from line one. This means focusing on the employer, not you. For example, Carl’s original résumé began:
other
An outstanding and resilient NHS commissioning professional, with strategic and operational experience in both primary and secondary healthcare services and a reputation for de-mystifying complex data to effect change, Carl brings a proven record of delivering major savings and performance improvement across multiple trusts and levels of care.
We changed this to:
other
The ability to deliver measurable outcomes is more important than ever. Carl has a proven track record of helping the NHS achieve this, including:
- Transforming a £2 m planned care budget overspend to operating a 2% surplus within a year.
- Delivering a 10% decrease in the number of patients waiting longer than 18 weeks for their treatment.
- Reducing GP consultations for common mental health disorders by 86,000 within a year.
Focus on the Results You’ve Caused, not the Work You’ve Done
Employers want to know you can deliver results. So focus on the results you’ve caused, rather than what you’ve done.
Did you notice how Carl’s revised résumé did this in the previous example?
Originally he’d written these three points like this:
other
- Delivered major efficiency programs across community, primary, and secondary care.
- Worked extensively with GPs to embed new frameworks to improve patient outcomes and reduce unnecessary referrals.
- Jointly managed national programs locally, including implementing the Electronic Staff Record system across multiple trusts and hospitals and a national program to improve mental health outcomes.
Tell Your Unique Story in a Clear, Compelling Way
According to LinkedIn, most people sell themselves by using words such as “Extensive experience, dynamic, innovative, motivated, team player, results-oriented, great interpersonal skills, entrepreneurial”.
Now people may well all have these characteristics. But, if everybody’s saying them, they don’t stand out. This is like the scene in my son Jack’s favourite film The Incredibles, where Mrs. Incredible says “Everyone’s special”, to which her son replies “That’s another way of saying ‘no one is’”.
Carl has some great, unique experiences, but he used to say things like:
other
Carl was Regimental Sergeant Major of the Army’s premier Field Hospital.
His résumé now reads:
other
Carl’s experiences – which include managing a £77 m planned care budget and being part of the Army’s executive team which was awarded the Wilkinson Sword of Peace – mean he knows how to deliver outcomes with measurable benefits.
Link Your Experiences to Their Needs
Carl used to describe himself using words like “outstanding and resilient”. This is great if an employer wants someone outstanding and resilient. But it’s often better to frame your qualities from the employer’s point of view:
And the Best Advice about Your résumé?
Don’t rely on it.
Wherever possible (and it isn’t always), do all you can to ensure your résumé isn’t the first the decision maker hears of you. If you can, speak to them beforehand and/or ask a mutual contact to put in a good word.
After all, you’d rather their first thought was “Oh good, here’s Carl’s CV. I’m looking forward to reading this”, and not “Just three more to go, then I’ll have a break”.
