Employee

Your resume is a marketing document—it markets you. You want hiring managers and recruiters to come away from your resume feeling positive about you as a candidate and potential employee. Here are six ways you can help ensure that:

Remove negative facts about your career path. Your future employee does not need to know that you had personality conflicts, problems meeting sales or other goals, a difficult boss, or health issues.
Remove any information that ranks you below other candidates. For example, if you are a recent college graduate and barely passed; if you ranked in the bottom half of your sales team; if you failed to get a promotion that you should have received—do not share that information.
Do not compare your achievements to anyone else’s. Maybe everyone in your office became “employee of the month” at some point; your award is still your achievement. Maybe President’s Club status was easy for you to achieve compared to your peers; that doesn’t lessen its impact on a resume.
Do not pan your former employer with statements about “unrealistic expectations,” “confusing lines of authority,” or “unethical behavior.” You might state that you offered steady leadership through many changes in owners, for example; that you collaborated across silos; or that you finished a project that experienced multiple delays. But be very careful to watch the boundary between your achievements and your former employer’s short-comings.
Do not focus on skills you lack as a candidate. Instead, present them as skills you are capable of learning, as you have learned so many skills in the past. This is particularly important for those in technical fields where postings may include an exhaustive (and exhausting) list of preferred skills.
Focus on your positive accomplishments as an employee. Your resume is not your life story. You are allowed to focus on the achievements that make you proud, not the moments that led you to seek another job. Negative moments are over and done with. Hiring managers and recruiters want to hear what you are good at, not what you need to improve.

Robin’s Resumes® makes sure to do like the old song says: accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative. We give you a resume that introduces you to hiring managers and recruiters in the best possible way.

Many individuals who lost their jobs during the Great Recession became self-employed consultants in their field, performing the same work for companies but without the benefits of full-time employment. Some of those individuals smoothly transitioned from consultant to full-time employee as the economy improved. If you are experiencing difficulty in that transition, here are three questions to ask yourself:

Do I really want to become a full-time employee?

Full-time employment brings regular hours, a regular paycheck, paid vacations, and a built-in circle of peers, among other advantages. But a consultant or freelancer also reaps benefits from self-employment (no office politics, the prestige of being the subject matter expert, freedom to work at home, and so on). If you are able to support yourself with the work, like the variety, and can handle the ups and downs, then you may not want to look for full-time employment. I had one consultant who was offered her ideal job and called me in total panic: she had just realized, after all our work on her resume and social media profile, that she never wanted to join any company ever again. That is okay but it is more efficient to realize how you feel before your job search.

Can I look at my experience from the perspective of a recruiter or hiring manager?

As a consultant or freelancer, you have probably worked in a wider range of industries and projects than the full-time employee of one company. But your resume should always emphasize the accomplishments and skills that match the exact job you are applying for. As a result, you may need several resumes, each with a different selection of contracting jobs, so that your experience always matches the requirements of the full-time job you want.

Do I have a realistic view of my value?

Sometimes companies are much more generous in their praise to contractors than they ever are to their employees. I am sure there are solid psychological reasons for this but the result is that freelancers or consultants may have an overly optimistic view of their value. Remember that a job posting’s salary range may be lower because it reflects benefits and overhead; that job titles may not match your expectations; that personal time off will probably be less flexible and more limited; and that you have a better chance of finding a job if you are careful with demands and expectations.

At Robin’s Resumes®, I help job applicants make transitions involving company size, locations, industries, and status. I can help you transition from consultant or freelancer to full-time employee. Contact me today.

Keep Your Resume Positive

Transition Resumes: Consultant to Employee

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