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Resumes for Career Changers

When you are ready to change careers, to a new field, a new position in your existing field, or a new industry, make sure your resume is ready for the change. By thinking ahead, you will be prepared to create a resume that is attractive to hiring managers and recruiters in your new career.

First, find out if you will be a more attractive candidate with certifications or classes in your new career. Someone moving from hands-on product development to project management might, for example, want project management certification.

Second, examine ways you can demonstrate appropriate skills for the new career either through volunteering or part-time work. For example, someone moving from for-profit to nonprofit organizations might begin by volunteering for nonprofit boards and events.

Third, read job postings for your desired career to identify skills you already have that are transferrable to the new career. Those skills should play a prominent role in your resume. Accomplishments and skills that are not needed in your new career should play a secondary role, no matter how impressive they are. For example, if you are moving from a receptionist to a sales position, your ability to interact with people at all levels, to keep accurate records, and to make connections with visitors are all important soft skills for a salesperson.

Fourth, network, network, network, both in person and online. The more people you connect with in your desired career, the more likely someone will think of you when an opportunity arises. Have a professional resume available so that you can send it to them immediately, before memories fade and opportunities vanish.

Finally, work with a professional resume writer who is familiar with the process of changing careers. I am a Job and Career Transition Coach (JCTC) with Master Career Director certification and I have myself transitioned careers. I know change is possible, and I can help you on your way to a new career.

Defining Some Resume Terms

Often in these blogs I speak about achievement, hard skills, soft skills, knowledge, and experience. Here briefly are definitions of those terms with examples:

  • Achievements describe what you accomplished by applying your skills, education, and experiences—for example, “Saved $250,000 annually by renegotiating vendor contracts.”
  • Hard skills are those you accumulate through education and experience, such as the ability to code software, speak Italian, build a house, or audit finances. The best way to demonstrate hard skills is to incorporate them in an achievement. They can also be listed briefly at the top or bottom of the resume (language fluency or financial skills are often handled this way), depending on their importance to the job.
  • Soft skills include leadership, teamwork, and the ability to handle difficult situations (for example, difficult customers)—anything that reflects on who you are as a person. These are best shown as part of achievements: “Led team of technical writers and designers in developing user manuals.” If you simply state that you are a great leader, the hiring manager or recruiter has no incentive to believe you. You must demonstrate through an achievement that you practiced your leadership ability and that your leadership had an effect on the company.
  • Knowledge includes education, both college degrees and continuing education through workshops, seminars, post-graduate courses, and so on. (High school education is generally not mentioned unless you are applying for your first job as a teenager.) You should mention if you are working toward a degree or if you fulfilled some of the requirements toward a degree.
  • Experience includes board memberships, volunteer work, participation in professional organizations, publications, and relevant hobbies (for example, membership in a softball team when you are applying to sell sports equipment).

Your resume should highlight achievements, hard and soft skills, education, and experience because they are unique to you and make you stand out from the competition. Whether you call it “branding” or a “unique value proposition” or any other name, what employers want to know is why they should hire you and not the other guy.

Having trouble identifying and writing about the achievements, skills, knowledge, and experiences that make you a valuable employee? Contact Robin’s Resumes® for the help you need.

Will a New Resume Help?

Alison was skeptical about whether a new resume could help her job search. She believed that her current resume gave employers all the facts they needed and anything I could add would be, as she put it, “sugar coating.”

The first thing I explained to her is that relaying “facts”—where you worked, how long you worked, what duties you performed, what responsibilities you had—were certainly important but were only a small part of her career history. “You received several promotions,” I said. “What did you do to deserve that first promotion?”

Alison’s said, “I did what anyone would do in my job.”

“Okay,” I answered, “how many people at your company held a job similar to yours?”

“There were five of us.”

“And were they all promoted?”

“No, I was the only one.”

“So let’s think about why you were promoted. When you had your annual review, did your boss praise you for any specific reason? Did you do something at work that the other five did not do?”

“My boss said several customers had spoken to him about how knowledgeable I was about our products and how I helped them to make a decision about which model to buy. He said the senior sales person mentioned that I asked excellent questions about the new products and seemed to understand how they would help customers solve their problems.”

I said, “That is wonderful, Alison, but none of that information is in your current resume. Companies are always looking for salespeople who are eager to learn, understand their products and form relationships with customers that result in sales. Your promotion was due to real accomplishments on your part. The bare fact that you received a promotion is only part of the story. The rest of the story is the why and how of the promotion. Your accomplishments make you stand out from the competition, including your four co-workers who were not promoted.”

Alison and I then worked through her resume and found several more instances of accomplishments that showed her potential value to a new employer. When we were finished, I rewrote her resume to emphasize her achievements, as well as her skills. Her resume and her job search were revitalized!

How a Great Resume Prepares You for a Great Interview

Your resume introduces you to a company and puts you in line for an interview. But your resume is also an essential part of your preparation for that interview.

First, suppose you tried, without a resume, to keep the exact same information on employment websites, social media like LinkedIn, personal contact, networking, email and snail mail. It would be very difficult to avoid minor errors and contradictions while juggling all those resources. However, an employer who reads one thing on-line and hears another at the interview becomes confused and even suspicious. A resume is a standard resource you can consult to keep all your communications on point and consistent all the time.

Second, suppose you interviewed for a job without a resume. Would you be able to remember every position you held, every skill you learned, every achievement you accomplished?

The resume reminds you of the facts of your employment (exact name of company, exact dates of employment) but more importantly it reminds you of the journey you have taken, from new hire to experienced professional with value to contribute. Memory might trick you into believing that your skills and accomplishments were easily gained; the resume reminds you how hard you worked for your success and how much acquired talent you bring to a new employer. That confidence boost is essential to interviewing well.

Last, at some point in the interview, you will need to convince an interviewer that you have the “soft” skills that most companies want—ability to work in a team, accept feedback, find solutions rather than dwelling on problems, and so on. Through the story told by your accomplishments, a resume prepares you to answer interview questions like, “What is the hardest challenge you have overcome in your career?” or “How would you handle a difficult subordinate?”

I write resumes that help job candidates at every stage of their job search, from first contact through final interview. Contact me today.

Three “Hidden” Accomplishments That Companies Love

I was talking to a woman recently who had left the workforce to look after her children. Then her husband was fired from his job and she had to find a job herself. She obsessed over how she would bridge that employment gap in her resume. But during her time off she had worked on nonprofit boards and suggested improvements at one nonprofit that saved thousands of dollars in overhead. Most companies value nonprofit successes as highly as for-profit and are overjoyed to find applicants who made a strong contribution as a volunteer.

 

Another client dismissed his participation in company committees because he never served in a leadership position. “I was just one of the troops,” he said. But he was also one of the few people selected to serve on those committees—in itself a measure of his value to the company—and his participation confirmed his ability to work in a team and across departments. That is another valuable skill.

 

A third client kept a department running while her boss had health issues and ultimately resigned. She guided the department through a period of chaos and kept it on track. But without the title, she thought, her efforts meant nothing. Companies look at accomplishments more strongly than titles. Titles vary from company to company and industry to industry; accomplishments are what sell one job applicant over another.

 

If you have teamwork, volunteer and leadership accomplishments, make sure to mention them in your resume. They may seem minor to you, but they make you stand out. I constantly search for skills, accomplishments, or educational experiences that will differentiate my clients from the thousands of others looking for the same sort of job. Let me help you, too.

Make Sure Your Skills Get Noticed

I am always concerned when a potential client comes to me with an old resume, and I cannot figure out from the resume what job the client is interested in. What I cannot do, an employer definitely will not do; no hiring manager or recruiter is going to try to figure out where a job applicant might fit in their company.

As a job applicant, it is your responsibility to make clear what job you want and that you have the necessary skills, accomplishments, and education. Here are some ways you can do that:

  1. At the top of your resume, put the title of the position you want. Make sure to mention the title of the position in your cover letter or email also.
  2. Review your accomplishments in every previous job to emphasize those accomplishments and skills which have the highest value in the job you want. How do you know which accomplishments and skills have value? Read the advertisement or job posting; if they do not explain what the company is looking for, read ads for similar positions.
  3. Stress your accomplishments that align with the company’s priorities. A good online source for understanding a company’s priorities is their mission statement or annual report. You can also search LinkedIn for current employees of the company and see what qualities they emphasize in their LinkedIn profiles: cost savings, customer satisfaction, regulatory compliance, growth, international teamwork, buy local, and so on.
  4. Emphasize how you used your skills to benefit your past employers: that is the definition of an accomplishment. Use verbs that make that benefit clear, such as increased, saved, directed, retained, attracted, replaced, led, generated, identified, built.
  5. While education is usually mentioned at the end of a resume, often it deserves first page placement. Education belongs on page 1 if you are a new graduate or if you have or are working toward credentials that are essential for someone in the job you want (for example, a CPA in a financial industry resume or Project Management Professional certification in a project manager resume).

Robin’s Resumes® helps recruiters and hiring managers immediately understand what a great match a job applicant is for the job on offer. Let us help focus your resume on the job you want. Next week we will discuss “Contact Information on Your Resume.”

Secrets of a Professional Resume Writer

With 12 years of resume writing experience behind me, I have acquired quite a few little tips and techniques that come automatically to me but might be unfamiliar to those who are writing or rewriting their resume for the first time.

For example,

On finding accomplishments: Any industry awards you received, any business you brought in, any committees you chaired, and any dollars you saved the company are clear accomplishments. But so are the awards you were nominated for, the growth your company underwent while you were there, the committees you were a member of, and the efficiencies you brought to your own job. Accomplishments in volunteer positions are also important.

On finding good keywords: Your best guide as to what a company is looking for is the company itself. Look at the advertisements, job postings, and websites for the company or others in the same industry. List the words they are using over and over again, and make sure those words appear naturally in your resume.

On proofreading: Forget that adage about proofreading by reading the text backwards. You will not only lose concentration out of sheer boredom, you will never find errors in grammar. Always proofread from first word to last at least twice: once on paper and once online. When you proofread online, set the zoom level over 100%. That way you will be sure to see missing or extra periods or other problems that might be hard to spot.

On using resources: No one knows everything, especially not online spelling and grammar checkers. A physical dictionary and grammar reference are still handy; there are also some online sites run by colleges that answer grammar questions. I once had a client argue with me about her misuse of the word “compliment” in a sentence; it should have been “complement.” But she was absolutely sure the word “compliment” was fine because the spell checker agreed with her. Your instincts and the spell checker’s instincts might agree, but take the time to check a dictionary.

And when you need expert advice on your resume, please turn to Robin’s Resumes®.

The Ten Big Do’s of Resumes

  1. Write your resume for the job you want. Research the company and industry you are interested in and give them the details that will make their eyes light up.
  2. Look at ads and job postings for the skills/accomplishments companies expect to appear in your resume (“must know Excel”) and make sure you add them to the content.
  3. Start every bullet with a verb, preferably not “responsible for.”
  4. Discuss as many of your skills as possible in terms of accomplishments. Everyone can file. But if you “Saved 300 man-hours a year by reorganizing the filing system to reduce lookup time”—then you have an accomplishment.
  5. Try to put numbers to your accomplishments. In addition to numbers you personally generated (“sold $3,000 worth of product in 1 day”), your numbers can include size of company (“worked for international company with $1B in revenue”), number/type of people you reported to (“reported directly to company president,” “wrote monthly reports sent to Sales and Marketing departments,” “handled correspondence for five attorneys”), number of people who reported to you, the time something took (“promoted after 1 year”), and similar items.
  6. Take credit! If you were a member of a committee, if your team accomplished something under your direction, if you made a suggestion, if you were employee of the month—mention it.
  7. As well as your college degree, include courses you’ve taken since graduation, including company-sponsored courses. These courses show a commitment to professional development.
  8. Add your volunteer activities (“member of board of Chamber of Commerce; volunteer at Big Brothers/Big Sisters”), especially if you are a new graduate and your work history is sparse. Success is the nonprofit area is also meaningful.
  9. Provide a cover letter or email. Some companies do not expect a cover letter, but those that do really want it. Also a cover letter or email is another chance to highlight your successes.
  10. Proofread the obvious: there is nothing more frustrating than finding out too late that you switched digits in your phone number, left a letter off your email address, or misspelled the name of the company you are writing to.

So how can you be sure you are doing the right things in your resume? At Robin’s Resumes® we provide job seekers with resumes that give them confidence and get them interviews.

Problem/Solution/Achievement

When you are writing in your resume about your accomplishments, keep in mind the problem/solution/achievement structure. For example, it is far more impressive to organize files if they were disorganized to begin with (problem), and even more impressive if the reorganization (solution) allowed employees to find information 15% faster (achievement).

Here are a few examples of problem/solution/achievement statements:

  • Restored morale in a team with constant turnover by addressing problems with communication, recognition, and discipline; replaced individuals unable to work effectively in a team environment. Achieved 100% retention in 6 months.
  • Reduced response times to customer problems to 24 hours from 48-72 hours by initiating triage and assigning individuals to specific levels of problems. Increased customer satisfaction scores from .65 to .95.

If you are currently employed, now is the time to begin collecting specific information on various problems and on the solutions you have contributed to either directly or as part of a team. Keep notes on the positive changes achieved by your solutions.

At Robin’s Resumes®, we are experts in describing your accomplishments so that companies understand the value your bring.

The Pros and Cons of Three Resume Formats

The three main types of resumes are chronological, functional and combination.

  • Chronological resumes list your past occupations in reverse chronological order, with your most recent job first. Chronological resumes emphasize your employment history and experience. While chronological resumes give recruiters the information they want most (what you did and where and when you did it), they might lead you to omit information about your accomplishments.
  • Functional resumes focus on individual skills, accomplishments and educational achievements; the list of jobs is delegated to the very end and might not have any detail. While functional resumes emphasize your talents and accomplishments, they are sometimes viewed with skepticism by recruiters who suspect that the functional resume is being used to hide a lot of job hopping or gaps in employment.
  • Combination resumes mix chronological and functional resumes; they start out with a brief statement of skills and experiences followed by a chronological and detailed employment history. They avoid the possible problems with strict chronological and strict functional resumes.

All three types of resumes have their place. The resume type that employers look for varies from job to job and industry to industry. Your own circumstances might also dictate which resume is best for you.

At Robin’s Resumes® we have experience in all three types of resumes and know how to select and use the right one to benefit your job search.

Using Numbers in Your Resume

When writing resumes, it is crucial to include numbers along with words describing your accomplishments.

For example, if you organized your past company’s benefit gala over the summer, it sounds more impressive to state that this event attracted 250 people rather “many people.” Or, if you ran your previous company’s Facebook page for a year, saying that likes for the page increased by 50 percent and activity increased by 70 percent during your management is more impressive than “increased Facebook likes and activity.”

Important numbers to include in a resume relate to decreasing a cost, increasing productivity, generating revenue and increasing usage. Numbers regarding the size or yearly income of the companies you worked for give employers a sense of the kinds of organizations and cultures where you are likely to flourish (for example, “handled Human Resources for a startup software company with 25 employees” or “for a corporation with $20 billion in annual revenue and 5,000 employees in 3 regions.”)

Numbers you do not want to use include your past salaries, age or social security number.

Not all accomplishments can be supported by numerical information; some accomplishments may relate to more abstract concepts such as researching new products or coming up with new formats for your company’s website. Those are important accomplishments in their own right. But if you can support them with figures (say, the number of new products or the increase in website visitors), you have added another dimension to your qualifications.

Including statistics in a resume shows your attention to detail and your awareness of how your skills benefit a company. Statistics supply a solid record of the level to which a past accomplishment was achieved.

Are you uncertain about when to include or how to state statistics in your resume? I can assist you. Contact Robin’s Resumes® today.

When to Go Bold on Your Resume

The use of bold print on your resume helps to distinguish headings (“Education”) and can be helpful in drawing the attention of hiring managers and recruiters to important facts and accomplishments (“increased revenue 20% in two years”).

Italics are a different matter, as they sometimes do not scan well. While italics are necessary for the titles of books or magazines you have written or contributed to, in general they should be avoided.

You don’t want hiring managers and recruiters to give up on your resume because CAPITAL LETTERS make them feel they are being SHOUTED AT. However, capital letters can be useful to highlight keywords, especially for Applicant Tracking Systems, or to indicate major headlines. You need to use capital letters appropriately.

Be conservative throughout your resume in the use of bold, italics, capitals and other effects. They lose their impact if they appear on every line. Italics and capitals in particular are difficult to read for any length of time.

If your resume is full of bolding, italics, small caps, and capital letters – and you are not sure you are doing this right, please contact me. There are better ways to emphasize your accomplishments and to communicate what a valuable employee you will be.

Is Your Resume Too Good to be True?

You have multiple skills; you have contributed to the workplace in multiple ways. But is your resume so filled with diverse accomplishments that it seems too good to be true? Are you setting yourself up as “jack of all trades, master of none”?

One of my recurring refrains in the Robin’s Resumes® blog is that a job hunt must be focused. There is no such thing as “any job.” Every job requires certain skills, accomplishments, and education; you have to focus your job search on the jobs that match your talents and interests.

By the same token, employers are not looking for employees who can “do everything and anything.” They want someone who is focused on achieving his or her best in the job that is being advertised.

Your resume is your platform for describing what it is that you do best. As a supply chain specialist in a small company, you sometimes have to haul around warehouse stock yourself. But is that the job you want to be hired for? Is that the achievement you are most proud of? As an administrative assistant to the CEO, you proofread reports. But if the ads you respond to never mention proofreading, how much valuable space on your resume do you want to use for that skill? Maybe your boss chooses you to serve on every company committee, from selecting recycling bins to leading a Lean initiative. Which of those committees actually align with the job you want now?

Your resume should show off your strengths, not hide them under a bushel of facts that do not match your own desires or a job’s requirements.

If you have a lot of accomplishments and cannot decide which one will result in a powerful resume, please contact me.

Keywords or Accomplishments: Which One Is More Important on a Resume?

Keywords and accomplishments are both important: do not choose one over the other. Your keywords should be woven into your accomplishments and your accomplishments should support your keywords.

If you do not have the right keywords or skills to match the requirements of recruiters or Applicant Tracking Software (ATS), your resume will not be found. If your resume is not found, it will not be read. You can find the keywords you need in each job posting or advertisement and on a company’s website. It is better to work in keywords throughout the resume, rather than concentrating them in the summary. Some ATS programs read summaries; some do not.

You must have accomplishments to validate your knowledge, skills, abilities, and keywords for you to be contacted by the recruiter and/or hiring manager. Accomplishments set you apart from the other candidates whose resumes also contain the right keywords. Accomplishments tell recruiters and managers what you did with your skills, education, and knowledge. Say a large company needs someone who can lead a software engineering team. They have four candidates. The company is more likely to choose the candidate who “led six engineers using agile software development to create a proprietary scheduling application that generated $5 million in revenue from hospitals throughout the United States.” That accomplishment speaks volumes more than “led a software engineering team.”

Check out this article on FoxBusiness for my advice on using keywords and accomplishments to make a resume stand out.

If you have trouble identifying keywords and accomplishments or if you are struggling to weave keywords into your story, please contact Robin’s Resumes®. We can help.

Why Are You Writing Your Resume?

Do you know why you are writing a resume? If you answer, “to tell a company about me,” you are missing the most important point of a resume.

When writing their own resume, many people become so wrapped up in listing all their skills and accomplishments that they forget their audience—the company they are trying to impress.

That company wants to find an employee who can deliver the specific skills and education they want, who has demonstrated an ability to use those specific skills to benefit past employers, and who will fit the company’s culture. Any other skills, education, accomplishments, and attitudes are nice to know but not immediately relevant. You want to use the limited space of your resume to relate the parts of your work history that are most important to the company you are contacting.

What is important to the company? You may get clues from the company’s advertisements, job postings, websites, LinkedIn page, or press releases. Use those clues to write a resume that sparks a company’s interest.

To learn how Robin’s Resumes® can help you, contact me today.

What Not to Do: Countdown of Four Things to Avoid on Your Resume

Number four in our countdown of things not to do on your resume is keyword spam. Modern Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)—the software that “reads” resumes to save humans work—are aware of context. If you are a chemical engineer, the terms “chemical,” “engineer,” “engineering,” and so on should appear naturally in the description of your career. That is a better way of handling keywords than listing them over and over with no regard for context.

Number three is sending your resume to a resume writer who is not qualified. The unqualified people include not only family and friends (no matter how well meaning) but those who advertise themselves as professional resume writers without any of the credentials. By way of contrast, I am a member of the top three professional organizations in the resume writing field, namely Career Directors International (CDI), Professional Association of Resume Writers and Career Coaches (PRWA/CC), and the National Resume Writers Association (NRWA); I speak at many resume writing conferences and webinars; and I have more than 20 years of experience. Those qualifications are the definition of “professional.”

Number two is focusing on skills instead of accomplishments. Take our chemical engineer example. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 32,000 chemical engineers were employed in the U.S. in 2008 alone. A list of skills would be identical for all 32,000. None of them would stand out to a company as the perfect hire. But if they concentrated on accomplishments, on what they did with those skills, then some of them would clearly match the company’s requirements, culture, and expectations more closely than others. Want to stand out from your competition? Concentrate on accomplishments.

Number one on our countdown of things to avoid is lying. Companies will check the facts you give them. They will ask you questions during the interview to confirm what you’ve told them. Inconsistencies, hesitations, and confusion will alert them to problems they don’t want to deal with.

If you have trouble creating a strongly written resume that clearly and truthfully demonstrates your value to future employers, turn to a professional resume writer. Turn to Robin’s Resumes®.

What To Do Before You Need a New Resume

If you are worried about being laid off, thinking about looking for another opportunity or simply unsure about the future, now is the time to work on your next resume.

While you are still in your current job, begin to gather testimonials about your performance, whether they are a single line in an email from a grateful client or a passing comment made during your annual review. Those testimonials and referrals indicate where you have performed beyond expectations. Write down the circumstances; the information will become an accomplishment on your resume.

Also gather data on the effect your performance has on the company. Did you serve on a company committee? Did the company award you “employee of the month” or honor you for years of service? Did the company’s revenue rise during your tenure? Did you gain x number of new clients, reduce turnover in your department by x%, produce x number of products or redesign a procedure for greater efficiency? It is easy to forget your contributions and hard to remember them when you are looking for a new job. Document them now.

Finally, take out your old resume and look for skills, expertise and connections you have now that you did not have back then. You may have taken courses, learned how to operate new equipment, interacted with different or more departments or taken on more responsibilities. That progress is important to capture.

When new clients come to me, I help them through the process of recalling their accomplishments, their contribution and their personal growth. Call me if you would like help in making your next resume the strongest it can be.

Describing Accomplishments: Why Is It So Hard?

In past blog posts, I have emphasized the need to describe, not job duties (which anyone in your position could perform), not merely skills (which anyone can acquire), but accomplishments. Hiring managers want to know what you did with your skills and how you approached your duties to benefit the companies you worked for in the past.

Yet, job hunters uniformly have difficulty with describing their accomplishments. The reasons are varied:

  • They believe everything they do, even if it falls way beyond their job description, is all “part of the job.”
  • Even if they are proud of their work, they have not received any recognition for their accomplishments at their current job and are convinced a future employer will also consider their accomplishments not worth mentioning.
  • They believe accomplishments must include numbers like “increased sales to $1 million and ranked 3 out of 40 salespeople in customer satisfaction.” They do not realize that accomplishments can include coming up with new ideas, researching products and services, easing a boss’s workload, and many other items that cannot easily be measured.
  • They worked as part of a team and are reluctant to claim any of the team’s achievements as their own.

If you recognize any of these attitudes as your own, contact me today. We will partner in giving you a resume that accurately describes the value you bring to a future employer.

The Most Important Information on Your Resume

A LinkedIn participant asked the group to identify what information was most important on a resume. All of the professional resume writers and hiring managers who responded agreed that contact information topped the list: name, phone number and email address.

The next most important items were to show how your experience matches the job requirements and how your accomplishments make you stand out from the rest of the crowd.

To that all-important list, I would add three more items:

  • Proofread carefully. If you make a change, check the entire resume again. Your change may contradict a statement earlier or later in the resume. It may force a line over to the next page or make formatting disappear.
  • Create the resume in two formats. You need a format that is ATS friendly for online submissions and a more styled format for networking.
  • Remove irrelevant information. Remember, your resume is not your life story.

If you need help deciding what’s important for your resume, contact Robin’s Resumes® today.

Avoiding Repetition in a Resume (When All Your Jobs Sound the Same)

One of my clients came to me with a problem: she had held pretty much the same manager-level job during her entire career but with different companies. Her resume felt boring, even to her, because every job sounded exactly alike.

I saw the problem immediately. Like many job hunters, she had focused her resume on her skills. And every job she held required almost exactly the same skill set. Anyone reading her resume would think that she had spent 10 years going nowhere.

The solution? We changed the focus of her resume to accomplishments. In every management position, she faced different challenges and had to come up with solutions. Every position involved different goals she had to meet. Every position required her to communicate with a different group of people, work on a different team or report to a different level of supervisor.

When we wrote about her accomplishments, her resume took on a whole new aspect. From yawn-worthy it went to exciting: here was a potential employee who brought value to one company after another.

You may be struggling with a similar problem and unsure how to focus your resume on accomplishments. I can help. I will interview you to bring out your achievements and then write a resume that makes you proud.

Organizing Your Resume

Sometimes the hardest part of writing your own resume is knowing where to begin—and end. How do you know which of your many achievements should be highlighted? How much detail do recruiters expect? Will you lose a job opportunity if you leave something out or if you reveal too much? How much space should you give to past jobs compared to your current position? How far back should you go in your career?

Organization is one of my greatest skills. I’ve developed proprietary questionnaires that help you detail all of your skills, background and accomplishments. Then I take that information and create a powerful, focused resume that targets the job you want. As a former engineer and project manager, I know how to marshal facts and describe them accurately, briefly and with conviction.

Once you receive my draft, you have three weeks to review it, making any changes you like. My clients often find that the draft and final resume give them a renewed sense of purpose and boost their confidence, as they realize exactly how much value they bring to future employers.

A Round of Applause for You

You have just been chosen “Employee of the Month”–but everyone seems to be chosen sooner or later. You came in second among eight salespeople for total yearly sales–but you weren’t first. Your boss asked you to be a member of a committee–but no one important served on it. At one job you were selected to lead a training session–but that was years ago. Are any of these “honors” worth mentioning on a resume? Absolutely!

Rewards, above average achievements and selection by a superior help you stand out from the crowd of other applicants. Recruiters like to know you were appreciated at a previous job, that you strive for excellence and that your employers respected you enough to single you out. No matter how old the honor is, you earned it. As long as it is relevant to your work history, it should appear on your resume.

Honors that come from volunteer work are also important. If you ever served as an officer for a nonprofit, received recognition or contributed your time and expertise in any way, mention your service, Many companies encourage giving back to the community and will be pleased that you are already on board with their policy. In addition, volunteering shows initiative and the ability to work toward a common goal, both highly respected qualities in an employee.

At Robin’s Resumes®, we help people understand the value of their achievements and communicate them to potential employers. While your resume is opening doors to employment, it should also remind you of all the reasons you have to be proud. That confidence will show in your interviews. So give yourself a round of applause and make sure recruiters know what an exceptional employee you are.

Advice from Your Next Boss

What do companies look for when they read a resume? Recently I asked that question on an online business site. Replies came from 18 hiring and department managers working in colleges, electronics companies, banks, sales, engineering and human resources among others.

Overwhelmingly (11 out of 18), they first checked the resume to make sure the skills and experience met their needs as outlined in the job description. No one wants to hire a brain surgeon without a medical degree or a chef who’s never worked in a kitchen. Often, the responders defined “experience” as number of years in the field.

Does this mean you can submit a laundry list of skills and job titles and get hired? No.

After that first glance, most of the people responding looked for accomplishments or achievements. Your resume has to explain what you did with your skills. How did the company benefit?

Did you develop a new report, increase sales, interact well with your peers and managers, lead a team, volunteer in the community, meet deadlines, streamline a process, help make a project successful, complete a class, give a presentation, serve on a committee, receive praise from customers or earn a promotion? The way you used your skills to benefit your old company tells your new company what to expect. They know whether you’ll be a valuable addition to their team.

You may find it hard to boast about—or even recognize—your own accomplishments. If you need help, call or email Robin’s Resumes®. Together, we can make sure the marketplace knows just how valuable you are.

Just an Ordinary Everyday Person

Recently, I spoke with a woman returning to the job market after years of raising her family. “I haven’t done anything for 10 years,” she said. Coincidentally, I had a similar conversation with an executive just a few weeks later. “I don’t give enough back to the community,” he said. And soon after that a college graduate complained that she lacked enough experience to get the website design job she wanted.

In a short while, I discovered that the woman had held leadership positions in three nonprofits over the years; the executive participated in at least one community event every month, including speaking before high school students; and the college grad had developed websites for two family members (“but they’re family members,” she objected).

The problem is that we all undervalue our contributions and experience. The achievement that you dismiss as nothing special may be exactly what your next employer is looking for.

A professional resume writer can help you discover those talents and abilities you take for granted—and then describe them so that potential employers recognize their value. We cannot be truly objective about ourselves.

What Not to Say in a Resume

Some resume mistakes are easy to find: you typed “manger” instead of “manager” or you transposed the numbers on your zip code. But what about this job description on the fourth page of a resume: “Kept books for our company for 5 years before it went out of business due to poor economy.” That one sentence is guilty of several mistakes:

  • Using the first person word (I, me, my, we, us, our) in a resume. The first person is fine in a cover letter—not in resume. Don’t say our, say the company’s.
  • Making apologies. Always stress the positive. If your company went out of business, focus on how you helped to keep it healthy for so long.
  • Resume too long. For most professions in the civilian sector, a 1 to 2 page resume is sufficient (technical professions such as IT, Engineering, Science, Medicine and College Professor are exceptions). In this case, a bookkeeper rarely requires 4 pages.
  • Listing your job duties alone. Your accomplishments are much more important. Every bookkeeper keeps the books. Did you develop new reports or participate in management’s five-year planning committee?
  • Giving up. If you don’t get results from your resume, seek out a professional. A professional resume writer will help you stress the value you bring to potential employers. In addition, most professionals offer advice on job searches, including methods for networking. Go to www.robinresumes.com to see the services a professional resume writer can offer you.
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