Make Your Resume Standout

Make Your Resume Standout

The key to success in today’s competitive job market is knowing how to sell yourself.

To effectively sell yourself you must differentiate yourself from other candidates.  Differentiation is easy once you know what employers are looking for.

Sell what employers are looking for

Corporate objectives are universal.  All companies want to increase sales, reduce costs, improve productivity and outperform competitors.

You differentiate yourself by identifying and marketing talents that help employers achieve their objectives.  By doing so, you’re demonstrating why they should hire you and not one of the other hundreds of applicants vying for the position.

Differentiate yourself

Your resume is your personal marketing tool.  Use it to showcase how you can help potential employers boost revenue, trim expenses, strengthen performance and improve competitive advantage.

For example, say you’re seeking a project manager position and a company you’re interested in working for has posted an open position.  You need to prepare a resume that conveys your ability to manage deliverables that are above and beyond the fundamentals of a traditional project manager.  Note the words “above and beyond.”  Companies want to hire the best person for the job – not an average person.  We all have situations in our background that are mundane and ordinary.  Don’t bring up everyday situations in your resume.  Instead, look at projects where you were up against a wall and still managed to deliver extraordinary results.

Pinpoint key projects you’ve managed and ask yourself some simple questions:

1. Did you deliver the project on time or did you outperform your deadline?  If you delivered early, how were you able to do so?  How early were you?
2. Did you deliver the project on budget or under budget?  If you were under, by how much?  How were you able to do that?
3. Did you find a way to cut costs?  How? How much?
4. Did you improve any processes?  What was the benefit of the new process?  Is it applicable to future projects?
5. Have you been asked to complete a project that someone else started?  Did you turn it around?  If so, how?  What were the results?
6. Find any ways to increase team productivity?  If so, how?  How much did productivity improve?
7. Did the project you worked on result in any add-on business for the company?  If so, how much?

By asking yourself these simple questions, you can quickly see what role you’ve played in the overall success of an organization.  We all tend to get caught up in the details of the job.  But once you see yourself from a birds-eye view, you can identify accomplishments that are critical to effectively marketing yourself.

Put your best accomplishments in your resume

Now that you’ve identified some marketable accomplishments, how do you translate that into a powerful statement on your resume?

Start with your strongest and most relevant achievements.  Then, clearly convey the quantifiable results that helped a company achieve its goals.

For example, let’s say you were asked to step in and manage a $2 million project.  The previous project manager was having problems meeting deadlines and managing the budget.  He(she) was over budget by $750K and was well past a benchmark that should have been met within the 1^st 3 months.  You stepped in and got the project completed on time and on budget.  Your resume bullet should say something like:

“Turned around troubled $2 million project; recovered 3-month delay and $750K budget overrun, delivering on time and at budget.”

Do you know any other details of the project that will make your bullet stronger?  How large was the team?  Was the project in a niche that you would like to pursue in your current job search?  Did you salvage a critical client relationship?

All these details can be added to the bullet as long as it supports your current job search.  Meaning, if it was an IT project and you’re interested in managing IT projects in the future, then add it in, if not, don’t.

Now we have:

“Turned around troubled $2 million IT project, salvaging key client relationship; recovered 3-month delay and $750K budget overrun, delivering on time and at budget; managed virtual team of 25.”

You can continue to add or remove items in the bullet to make it more relevant to your current job search.

Each bullet in your resume needs to be examined from several angles.  First and foremost is the reader’s point of view (how can you – the applicant, help me – the employer, achieve my goals?) and secondly, what your target market and personal goals are.

If you keep these two targets in mind while you are writing, you should come up with a strong marketing tool.  Remember to make your resume standout, you need to sell what employers are looking for.  Don’t fall into the trap of writing for yourself, then the only person you please will be yourself.

Thanks and good luck!