Optimizing Your Resume for Results in a Tight Job Market

Resources

Life's Work Career Advancement Services

Presentation by Andrew Davis

Andrew Davis and his colleague Cliff Flamer recently started Life's Work Career Advancement Services, which offers personalized services for resume improvement. Several BAPMF members have already used this service, and are generally enthusiastic about the results. In most cases, the reworked resumes have rapidly resulted in interviews.

Today's employment market is very unusual:

HR departments are swamped with hundreds or thousands of resumes. You must do everything possible to make your resume stand out.
Most large employers use automatic resume screening software, so a plain ASCII version of any resume is needed.
ASCII resumes should use 60 character max line width; no indentation; CAPs rather than underlines.

In the meeting, Andrew presented Before and After versions of the actual resumes of two BAPMF members. The suggested changes were subtle rather than drastic.

A paragraph must "grab" attention within the first 5 or 6 words.
Often, all that is needed is reorganization (or re-sequencing) rather than a total rewrite.
Break down long paragraphs of tech skills into bullet items.
Separate lists of doc tools from product technologies.
Don't downplay technologies you have studied rather than used on the job.
List accomplishments, not responsibilities.
Emphasize repeat assignments (if you have worked as a contractor).
Anticipate hiring manager's concerns and address them in the resume. (For example, if you have worked mainly as a manager, why are you applying as an individual contributor?)

Some of the advice you might have heard of before:

Tailor the resume to the specific job you are applying for.
Omit experience more than 10 years old to avoid age-bias.
It is not necessary to limit the length to one page! BAPMF members are generally highly-experienced, and this would not do justice.
Summaries should match up with details in job chronology.
Avoid the obvious "References available on request."

Finally, when you have your new resume, what to do with it?

Give it maximum coverage at Monster Board, etc.
Always use a concise cover letter when submitting directly to a company.

To Contact the Speaker

Andrew Davis and his colleague Cliff Flamer run Life's Work Career Advancement Services (www.lifesworkservices.com), which offers personalized services for resume improvement. Cliff can be contacted at cliff@lifesworkservices.com. Andrew can be contacted at andrew@synergistech.com.