---

Today's marketplace is tough! Even the best and brightest need a powerful resume to achieve career success. With the unemployment rate dropping and the labor market tightening, that means JOBS are opening up. Now is the time to get your resume in tip-top shape.

Executive recruiters and HR professionals typically scan the first page of your resume on the first go-around. That’s why your resume needs to read like a newspaper headline, highlighting your brand, value, qualifications, and achievements. Express how you fit into the organization’s future.

The suggestions below really work and are sure to improve your marketability and success landing interviews. You are unique, and your resume needs to be unique too.

Here are 10 tips that will help you create a winning resume.

• Career Focus: Start with a career focus / title at the top of your resume under your letterhead. You want this title to stand out. Focused resumes are powerful job search tools. It’s a well-known fact that hiring managers and recruiters want applicants who know where they can best fit into an organization. Objectives statements are out of style these days.
• Professional Profile: Write your profile / branding message in paragraph or bulleted format. This is your sales pitch — a concise synopsis that tells employers who you are, why you are unique, and what you have to offer, and compels them to read further.
• Areas of Expertise / Core Competencies: This section contains top business, leadership, or tangible / intangible craft-related skills and is comprised of keywords / industry jargon.
  * Advanced Degrees: If you have a Masters or above, place your educational credentials to the top half of your resume to improve your marketability.
• Key Performance Indicators: Highlight 4 - 5 of your STRONGEST career accomplishments on the first page. This is a great way to pull a success story that might appear on page two or three and bring it to the reader’s attention during their first scan. Achievements communicate success and numbers sell. Employers want candidates who can identify problems and challenges and offer solutions. Select accomplishments that showcase your track record of success resolving similar challenges.
• Employment Summary: Make sure you include a brief description of each employer and then follow with a scope of responsibility to include the number of direct reports you provide leadership to, type and amount of budget oversight, and title of the person you report(ed) to. Don’t forget to mention your mission – they hired you for a reason.

Bullet point your most relevant accomplishments. You don't need to tell everything. Focus on your important contributions, and be sure to summarize the challenge, action, and result of your initiatives.

Note: If you are having problems coming up with your accomplishment statements, ask yourself the following:

• If the person interviewing you asks what the bottom-line impact of what you did was, and how it affected the organization, how would you reply in 30 seconds?
• Think of what it was you did for the organization, and what it meant to the company. What steps did you take to make it happen?

 

• Education, Professional Memberships / Affiliations, and Certifications: Include relevant information only. Note #4 above for advanced degree placement.
• Verbiage: Avoid saying “responsible for” and never use "I" or "my" in a resume. Don’t use helping verbs (be, is, are, was) and limit the use of articles (a, an, the).
• Length: If you have a solid background, don’t be concerned with length. You have a story to tell, and squeezing your entire career history on one or two pages just won't work. One-page resumes are killers; however, for networking purposes they are perfect.
• Formatting: Make your resume easy to read, pleasing to the eye and designed to generate interviews. No pictures please, and leave some white space. Once content is in place, it's all about presentation. First impressions count. Use good paper and a laser printer.

Resume writing isn't for everyone. The most brilliant of minds can have difficulty writing about themselves. Don’t rack your brain toiling over your resume. If you find it difficult, hire a professional writing service to team with you.