Category: Resume Examples

Resumes with Too Much Information

I reviewed a couple resumes this week that were vastly different but made the same mistake.  Both resumes had a lot of unimportant information that detracted from their effectiveness.

The first resume was from a sales professional with extensive B2B sales experience.  For each job, the description of the position included a list of all the products the person sold.  This is the structure of one of the listings with identifying details masked:

<INDUSTRY> ACCOUNT MANAGER
Mo/Year to Present
<Information Technology Company>

Responsible for sales contracting activities in the <City> Metro area for <Company Name> communications products including <Brand Name> <Product Type> for <list of industries and customers>. <Brand Name> communications and data products such as <First Product>, <Second Product>, <Third Product>, <Fourth Product>, <Fifth Product>, <Sixth Product> and numerous other <Brand Name> products.

Accomplishments: Met or exceeded assigned quota every year in territory. $#.# M total for year end 200#. Major accomplishments in the territory include selling new <Product Type> to both <Customer Name> and <Customer Name>. Total number of <products> involved in these two purchases resulted in contracts for over #,#00 units for a combined total of over $# Million dollars.

The individual products listed had names much longer than the text I used to replace them.  They were things list "ACME Widget 3000 Ultimate Widgetizer." In fact, by replacing the product names, I shorten the paragraph by more half.  A laundry list of technical products doesn’t demonstrate sales skill. 

The second resume was from a senior executive – a Vice President of Operations for a mid-sized company. The bulk of the resume was good, but this person included lists of very general skills that added little to no value and hurt the over impression.  The first problem was near the top of the resume.  The job seeker included a list of core competencies – essentially a keyword list.  The list had 16 buzzwords, most very general.  Here’s the list:

Profit/Loss, Relationship Building, Team Building, Cost Control, Budgeting, Quality Assurance, Presentations, Recruitment, Startups, Call Center Mgmt., Turnarounds, Negotiation, Rightsizing, Customer Satisfaction, Restructuring, Productivity

Some of these are good – Startups, Call Center Mgmt, Turnarounds – these fine.  They relate to specific skills that are unusual and valued.  Some of the others are less valuable.  Relationship Building, Team Building and Presentations are few on the list that don’t help.  These should be a given for a senior executive. Now this individual may be an outstanding public speaker, able to deliver killer sales presentations.  Putting the word “Presentations” on the resume doesn’t sell this as an exceptional skill level.

If this keyword list was the only area with extraneous info, I really wouldn’t have a problem with it.  What I thought was really bad was the Computer Skills section at the end of the resume.  Here’s the list:

Microsoft Access, Supply Chain Software, CRM Applications, Microsoft Word, Net/Web Savvy, Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Outlook, Search Engines, Internet Explorer, Microsoft PowerPoint, Sales Management, Microsoft Excel

This list has several problems.  It’s not organized, it doesn’t provide any assessment of the candidate’s skill level, and it includes skills that are impossible for the reader assess.  I don’t know what Net/Web Savvy means to this candidate.  I’m also unsure what it means to be skilled with Search Engines – is this candidate capable of googling a search term, or are they a Search Engine Optimization expert, capable of getting a website to the top of the google rankings? 

The real question is how this would affect a hiring manager’s assessment.  Do you think this list, and the list of core competencies above is going to differentiate this candidate and help them stand out from their competition? 

Bottom Line:  Don’t add a lot of extraneous information and buzzwords to your resume.  Make sure you include the the information that does the best job of selling your potential.

Resume of a Failed Business Owner

I read a resume today from an individual that had been running a company they started more than five years ago.  The company was in the movie industry.

The job seeker had successfully started their company and kept it alive for over five years.  They also have produced several multi-million dollar films in that time, raising the required capital along the way. 

This is good experience and shows the scope of this individual’s responsibility.  The problem was that the performance of the company was never discussed. 

Having a large budget doesn’t make someone a success.  Controlling costs and producing a profit are critical to a business’s success.  This information was left out of the resume.

It’s likely that the job seeker is looking for a job because their business has failed or is in the process of failing.  This isn’t a career stopper, in fact, keeping a business running for as long as this individual did and going through the decline and failure was probably one of the best learning experiences in this person’s career. 

So what should they do?  The first thing is to not hide what happened.  By not saying what happened to the company, a hiring manager is going to assume it failed – so confirming that isn’t going to make a worse impression.  It’s likely that the reality of the situation isn’t as bad as the image a hiring manager will imagine.

The next thing to do is discuss some of the successes along the way.  When a person has a business fail, it’s easy to dwell on the failure. Getting hired requires recognizing and promoting the successes. A business doesn’t survive as long as this one did if it never turned a profit.  Talking about the specific projects that were successful will help demonstrate the capabilities of the job seeker.

On this resume, there were lots of numbers stating how big the projects where and how much was spent.  There was nothing about revenues or profits – just expenses.  Anyone can have expenses – generating sales and profits are the key.

The job seeker should emphasize their strengths.  It is likely the individual was very good at one or more aspects of the business – promotions, production, administration, etc. – unfortunately, their resume isn’t clear on this.  Identifying these strengths and highlighting them in the resume will help make the case that this individual could be a valued employee.

The job seeker didn’t highlight any successes and they didn’t explain the failure.  All we know is that they worked on building this business and it didn’t last.  That’s not a selling point. 

If you are in this situation, highlighting your strengths and accomplishments will help you get interviews. In an interview, it will be important to show what roles are good for you and what roles are similar to the failed venture. You and the employer will want to match your skills to the right role. If you can clearly explain this, the failure will not be career killer.

Explain Your Responsibilities

I usually write about resumes that focus on responsibilities, and recommend refocusing on accomplishments.  Today, I ran into a resume that lists responsibilities in such a brief and simplistic way that I have no clue what the person did.  Here are few bullets:

  • Managing Multi-units
  • Created and designed all projects
  • Operations & training
  • Housing Investors
  • Purchasing

Looking at these, it’s really tough to understand the scope of responsibilities.  The “Purchasing” bullet could mean anything.  Did the guy have a company credit card and buy a few office supplies at Staples?  Did he negotiated multi-million dollar contracts.  There is nothing on his resume that sheds any light on this. 

I’m sure that when the job seeker wrote this, he thought it was clear.  In his position, the responsibilities were clearly defined – so Operations & Training encompasses a specific set of responsibilities in his mind. 

The problem is that responsibilities aren’t the same from company to company.  Additionally, one of his positions didn’t even have a job title, making it impossible to guess what the scope of the position was. 

The important thing to remember is the hiring manager reading your resume has no knowledge of your background to clarify vague statements.  This makes writing and editing your own resume extremely difficult.  What seems like a clear and specific statement to you may be extremely vague to a hiring manager.  At the least, you should have someone that doesn’t know anything about your professional background review your resume.  If they understand the scope of your experience, you’ll be much less likely to confuse a hiring manager.

Answer the Obvious Question

I read a resume today from an individual that was well written and showed a significant pattern of achievement.  It’s an impressive resume.  Here’s how it breaks down:

  • Executive Summary:  A clear statement of his objective and overall experience

  • Skills:  List of about a dozen major skills related to his field

  • Accomplishments:  Eight bullets, each with a specific accomplishment – several are very impressive

  • Professional Experience:  Two jobs listed.  The most recent was with a civilian firm, lasted 3 months and just ended.  The other lasted 20+ with a government agency.

  • Education:  Bachelor’s and MBA along with continuing eduction certifications – overall impressive education credentials.

Everything about the resume says that this person has been successful and is very capable.  I would move some things around (shorten the exec summary and accomplishments, and move the skills section further down) but it’s a pretty good resume.

The thing that’s missing is an explanation of why this individual is on the job market.  He spent more than 20 years with one organization.  His next job only lasted 3 months.  This is an obvious question every hiring manager is going to want answered.

There are a number of possible reasons why this happened.  A few I consider likely are:

  • It was a short term contract

  • The company downsized and laid him off 3 months later

  • He misjudged the opportunity and quit

  • The company misjudged his abilities and fired him

  • The person had relocated for the civilian position (more than 1500 miles) and for family reasons, he had to move back to their original location

All of these are possible and none of them are deal breakers.  The important thing is to address the question.  The best place to address it is in the cover letter.  This job seeker had a lengthly cover letter, but it was limited to a recap of his accomplishments. 

By leaving out the reason why he’s on the job market, the tendency is to assume the worst.  If I had a position I was trying to fill where he would be a fit, I would still call him.  I would focus my interview on why he left the position after three months.    His omission of a reason why he’s on the market would effectively shift the focus away from his 20+ years of achievement to a single event that hurts his chances. 

Usually, when someone leaves an important detail like this out, I find they are uncomfortable talking about it.  Instead, they guarantee they will end up talking about it a lot, with a very skeptical interviewer – someone that’s probably assuming the worst and will be reluctant to believe a simple reasonable explanation.

Bottom line: If there is something in your background that is giant red flag – address it upfront.

The Visionary’s Resume

I read a resume today of a successful IT executive that was a little over top today with their claims.  The resume started with a Professional Qualifications sections with a half dozen bullets.  I’m going to share a couple of the bullets that went a little too far:

  • Technology and business visionary with executive and hands-on experience creating robust IT architectures with the proven ability to bring the benefits of IT to solve business issues while managing costs and risks.
  • Information Assurance Guru with experience establishing secure enterprise systems.

Referring to yourself as a visionary or a guru doesn’t make a good impression on me.  My first question is how did you earn these monikers?  This individual has a lot of accomplishments on their resume.  Unfortunately, they pretty much tell me what technologies were implemented and the size of the project.  This is the same information on the resumes fo other IT executives.  Without knowing the details, there’s no way of knowing if this individual is truly a visionary guru, or if they are just like everyone else.

The second problem with using language like this is that it raises the expectations of the hiring manager.  I expect a person that is a visionary to be clearly better than others with similar experience.  If they don’t stand out this way, I have to doubt the titles visionary and guru, and in turn, the rest of the claims on their resume.  There’s no need to create an expectation that is excessively high that you then need to meet.

One more reason I would stay away from language like this is that it gives a strong impression of arrogance.  Although it might not be a turn off for everyone, there are a lot of people that won’t like it. 

You might think that language like this is rare.  It’s certainly not on every resume, but I do see it from time to time.  I did a quick search of 350 resumes I’ve received recently and 12 had claims of being a visionary.  This was the only one in the group that said they were a guru, though.

Now lets look at a couple more of the bullets at the top of this resume.  They’re much better, and if the job seeker had stuck to just these, they would have made a better overall impression.

  • Extensive vendor relationship management and negotiations, facilitating a partnering relationship generating better vendor performance and overall company performance.
  • Proven Leader with over 15 years of significant, progressive experience in IT leadership.

These bullets aren’t very specific, but they convey a better tone.  They describe experience and accomplishment in a confident but not arrogant way. 

Now, here’s the tough part of this.  I’m sure the job seeker that wrote this resume was not trying to convey a sense of arrogance with first two bullets.  They may have been called visionary and guru by friends and didn’t think much of it.  The problem is being able see how your resume is going to be perceived by a wide audience.

Explaining Your Progression on Your Resume

Most resumes don’t explain how the job seeker made their career changes.  They just list the jobs they have held, in reverse chronological order.  This is fine for the vast majority of people.  Most people have a career path that makes sense. 

I want to share with you a resume that doesn’t make sense.  The individual that sent me this resume had this progression: graduated with a bachelor’s degree, worked as a production coordinator in mfg, was promoted to production planning manager, was hired as national sales manager at another company and recently became unemployed.

This individual was looking for a sales management position and had some great accomplishments on their resume.  Here are a few (I took out the numbers for confidentiality – the sales growth listed is very impressive):

  • Increased nationwide revenues from $# million to $# million per month in year one and to $# million per month in year 2 through product launches, new market penetration, and customer acquisitions.
  • Negotiated a multi-million-dollar contract with *** Corp., boosting revenue $# million dollar per month.
  • Raised <product> sales 40% by implementing marketing campaign for <brand name>, integrating television, radio, and field events.

Just reading that, I would say that this is someone I want leading a sales team.  The problem is their progression.  Let me explain.

I almost never see a person make a career move that changes their company, promotes them to a higher level and completely changes the type of work.  It just doesn’t happen.  I’ve seen people get promotions into a different field within the same company.  I’ve seen people take lateral positions with another company in a different field.  It’s just very rare to get promoted into a higher level role where you have no expereince. So, how did this person do it?

The other question is, why are they unemployed if they were so successful in leading sales for the company – more than doubling sales in two years.

There may be great reasons for this and this person may be a superstar sales manager.  Unfortunately, with the information they’ve provided, I have a lot of doubt. 

To address this, I would explain the transitions in a cover letter.  This person has a well written cover letter, focusing on accomplishments.  It didn’t say anything about how they got into sales or why they’re out of work.  Another option would be to put an executive summary at the top of the resume that includes this information.  I prefer the cover letter option, but both would work.

When you look at your resume, make sure it looks believable.  That doesn’t mean you water down your best accomplishments – just that you should explain things that you know are going to raise really big questions.  For many job seekers, their progression makes a lot of sense.  In that case, explaining their transition probably won’t add any value. 

Incomplete Education

There are a lot of talented job seekers that have not completed a Bachelor’s Degree.  Many have started and are working towards their degree, but aren’t finished.  How you present this on your resume can make a big difference in how you are perceived.

If you are working full time and trying to complete a degree – you can’t finish quickly.  A bachelor’s degree could take six to eight years going to school part time.  During this time, your effort and progress can help you job search.

List your progress towards the degree.  You will have to provide a little more detail than normal, but it’s worth it.  In addition to the school, degree and major you are pursuing, list the number of courses you have completed (or credit hours) and the number you need to complete your degree.  You can also list specific courses you’ve finished, if they relate directly to your field.

If you have a schedule for when you expect to finish your degree, you can list that date as a projected graduation date.

All of this can help the impression you make.  The discipline, commitment and motivation that are required to pursue and complete a degree while working full time are impressive and will make a very positive impression on many hiring managers. 

Some companies that require a Bachelor’s degree may consider a candidate as meeting this requirement if they are close to completing the degree – say 12 to 18 months or less to finish. 

Let’s look at how a job seeker presented their education on a resume I read today:

EDUCATION

BA-in-progress. University of <school name>, City, ST
Major: Law and Society (pre-Law), #.## GPA, ## units completed.

This is a pretty good presentation.  It gives the degree and major, the school, location, GPA and progress completed.  The one thing that’s missing is some indication of how close this individual is to finishing.  The units completed helps, but I don’t know what this school considers a unit – it could be the same as credit hours or the number of classes completed.  I also don’t know what the requirements to graduate are – they’re probably in the neighborhood of 36 classes, but there’s no way to know from this.  A little more detail in this area would really help.

One more thing to consider, if you are working towards your degree and highlight that your graduation is forthcoming, an employer may expect you to finish.  This is especially the case if the employer requires a degree and hires you without one.  If you decide not to pursue your degree after getting hired, this could impact your position in the company.  I’ve even heard of companies making the completion of the degree a condition of continued employment. 

Planning Isn’t an Accomplishment

I read a resume today that reminded me of something I see from time to time on resumes from sales and marketing people.

The resume had some very good accomplishments and was pretty good overall.  What caught my eye was one bullet that I don’t think served any purpose other than to take up space.

Spearheaded the development of a strategic sales plan, which projected sales in excess of $## million over a #-year time frame.

I see bullets like this on resumes a fair bit – a statement of developing a sales plan with high projected sales.

Developing plans in any business is important and sales plans are some of the most important.  The problem with the bullet is that it doesn’t really say anything.  It doesn’t say if the sales plan was approved and acted upon.  It doesn’t say if the target was achieved.  It doesn’t even say if it was a realistic projection.

I’m a big fan of specific accomplishments, but a bullet saying someone planned on succeeding doesn’t tell me anything – just that the job seeker arrived at a sales figure that they planned to achieve in a few years.

With something like this on your resume, you have two choices – expand or delete.

Expand: You can write a little more to change this from a waste of space to a really impactful bullet.  You might have to combine other bullets to tell the full story.  Here’s an example.

Spearheaded the development of a strategic sales plan projecting sales in excess of $## million over a # year time frame.  Enacted this plan and led a team of ## sales associates.  After # years, the team was $# million ahead of the projections.

Now, that’s someone on my team.  They built a good plan.  Managed the execution of the plan and exceeded their objectives.

Delete: The other option is to delete the bullet entirely.  The resume that I got the bullet from had some good accomplishments.  It didn’t need anything extra.  Deleting this bullet would have improved the overall resume by making it more concise and easier to read.

It’s important to prioritize what’s important.  If something isn’t helping you on your resume, change it or get rid of it.  Keep the information you absolutely need and add the accomplishments that make a strong case for hiring you.

Keyword Summaries on Resumes

If you are planning on posting your resume on the internet or applying to large corporate sites, it’s important to include keywords in your resume.  It will be tough to be found if your resume doesn’t appear in the search results.  This is even more of a problem if the company uses database software to conduct the first screen of the resume.

It’s easy to put keywords into your resume.  They should naturally occur within the text.  To ensure you appear in every search that matches your background, you may want to include a keyword summary section. 

Here’s what I saw on a resume today.  The resume started with an executive summary, then had a keyword summary and then the work experience.  The job seeker was from a non-technical executive position.  The keywords listed included things like training management, organizational development and project management. 

The order is the first place where the job seeker got it wrong.  The keyword summary isn’t important enough to go at the top of the resume. Having the words "organizational development" at the top of a resume do nothing to differentiate the candidate. 

The other big mistake was calling the section a keyword summary.  The keyword summary is essentially a listing of skills.  Call it a skills section and write it in a format that appeals to a human reader.  The content will still help with search results and it won’t detract from the presentation. 

What if you’re in a highly technical field?  Then you may want to put your technical skills near the top of your resume.  For technical roles, the technical skills can be the most important information on your resume.  They are one of the primary selling points for you.  For most job seekers though, the skills section is information that is important, but a much lower priority than the work experience and education.

Employment Dates on Your Resume

While reading a resume today, I was reminded of a mistake some job seekers make with their employment dates. 

When listing the current position the job seeker is in, the convention is the starting date to “Present.”   If the job seeker is unemployed, they should list the starting and ending date. 

The mistake I have noticed occasionally is listing the current date as the end date for job seekers that are still employed.  This sends a mistaken message. 

Here are some examples and how I would interpret them:

12/94 to 4/08 Unemployed since April 2008
1/00 to Present Currently employed in a position since Jan. 2000
2003 to 2008 Unemployed for part of 2008

These are three formats I commonly see.  I don’t like the years only format.  I prefer to have months listed.  If the months aren’t listed, I ask for them in the interview – usually in the first phone screen.  If the job seeker had a gap in their employment they were trying to hide, it’s eventually going to come out.  When the gap is uncovered, it usually makes a worse impression than if it had just been listed on the resume.  Part of the reason for this is that the job seeker is probably uncomfortable talking about the gap, otherwise they wouldn’t have tried to cover it up.  They would have been better off to have disclosed it up front.  If the gap is a significant factor on the resume, talk about it in the cover letter. 

Ok, so back to the format…listing the years with an ending year implies the job seeker is unemployed.  Although rare, some make the mistake of doing this while still employed.  If you are employed, go with the 2nd format, listing the starting date to "Present."