resume example Archives - Palladian Career Resources

Are You Successful?

It continues to amaze me how common it is for job seekers to fail to include any mention of a successful contribution to an employer in their resume. This morning, I was struggling to come with a topic for today’s article. After writing more than 360 articles over the last year and a half, I often need something to get me started. I turned to my old standby… my Inbox. I receive a lot of resumes, and readying a few always produced an idea for an article.

Today’s search was just as fruitful as past searches. I didn’t have to read many resumes to find one to inspire me. It was the first I opened. This is typical. When I look at resumes, I don’t think I’ve ever had to open more than three or four to find a disaster to profile. Now, to be fair, the some of the resumes I look at for my blog are from the really active job seekers. I subscribe to some resume distribution services that send resumes to thousands of recruiters. I really don’t know if these services are effective for the job seekers, but they help me ensure I always have a lot of bad resumes in my inbox. For a job seeker to reach the point where they are broadcasting their resume in an email to as many people as possible, they would have been overlooked for a lot of jobs in the past. A big reason these people haven’t landed a job is they have a terrible a resume. So, the majority of resumes I receive this way are absolutely terrible.

So, let’s look at today’s resume. It comes from a Marking Manager for firm selling agricultural equipment. The person has been out of work for a year. Prior to that, she worked for eight years for one company. The resume has five sections:

Synopsis
Summary of Qualifications
Work Experience
Continuing Education
References

The resume didn’t contain a single accomplishment – absolutely nothing showing the job seeker was successful at any point in her career. Looking at the language used in the resume, the entire resume is focused on responsibilities. Below are the first few words from each bullet in the work experience section:

Assisted…
Prepared…
Developed and coordinated…
Planned…
Managed…
Direct supervision of…
Coordinated…
Managed…

Most of these start with verbs, which is good, but the verbs are not very strong. You can use these verbs in a resume and make a strong impact, but you need to include another verb in the bullet. For example, “managed an advertising campaign for a new line of machinery, leading to initial sales 40% above budget.” This would be a good accomplishment because of the second half of the bullet. Unfortunately, the resume only included statements similar to the first half of the example.

Another big mistake on this resume relates to the education of the job seeker. She has a continuing education section with some good educational events, but nothing about her formal education. She has an Associate’s degree, but it isn’t listed on the resume (it was in the cover letter). A lot of hiring managers skip the cover letter. Additionally, when a hiring manager distributes a resume to several other managers to review, the cover letter may not be distributed with the resume. For key information like a degree, you need to put this on the resume.

To improve this resume, it would only take a little work to make a huge difference. The Summary of Qualifications section has five bullets. Two relate to soft skills (organizational skills and teamwork), two are marketing related (creativity with graphic design and tradeshow experience) and the last lists technical skills (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, etc.). Under each bullet, the job seeker should add one line describing an accomplishment or noteworthy experience. For the soft skills and marketing experiences, an accomplishment would be best. For the technical skills, listing an accomplishment would work, but the job seeker could also summarize the continuing education she has completed.

Adding five lines in this way would help tremendously. Throw in the Associate’s degree in an Education section and the resume should be reasonably effective.

One last note… The last section of the resume, a list of references with names and phone numbers, should be eliminated. There is no need to put references on a resume (especially in an email blast to the whole world). Companies know they can ask for references throughout the hiring process. Listing a person’s contact information is actually an invitation to cold call them. The three people listed are likely to be people who are respected by the job seeker, so a recruiter may toss the resume, but keep the names of the references. Who do you think is more marketable… the job seeker who sent the resume or the Director of Marketing who is still at the company and is listed as a reference? By listing the references, all the job seeker did was distract the attention of the reader from her background.

Send Me Your Questions: I’m always looking for ideas to write about. Do you have a job search question you want answered? Send it to me and there’s a good chance I’ll write an article on it. Just send your questions to me at [email protected].

Provide Context for Common Acronyms

I read a resume today with a lot of acronyms. I’ve written about the problems of using acronyms in the past – they confuse the reader and can make a resume impossible to decipher. This should be simple to understand, but what if the acronym is used much more frequently than the term?

This was the case with the resume I received. The resume was from a person who sold displays using LED lights. The acronym I had trouble with was LED. The term light emitting diode is rarely used – it’s almost always writen as LED. The reason I had trouble with this abbreviation is the resume provided no context for the term. It was only after I reviewed the resume in detail that I figured out that the reference to LED was likely to be a reference to light emitting diodes. There are a lot of other terms that use the abbreviation LED. In fact, a search of website listing common abbreviations yielded 169 results for LED. These ranged from the airport code for the St. Petersburg airport in Russia, to organization terms such as Law Enforcement Division and Library Education Division, to medical conditions such as Lupus Erythematosus Disseminatus, and a wide range of other terms.

Light emitting diode is one the most common meanings for the term. The reason the resume is confusing is it provides no context for the term. There was nothing at the start of the resume that would implied light emitting diodes were the technology being referenced. Some readers would instantly think of this meaning and “get it.” Others would think of some other meaning or context and be completely lost.

This could have been made clearer by adding a single word. The salesperson sold LED signs. Adding the word signs makes the context of the acronym clear.

After you write your resume, look closely at the terms you use. Make sure terms specific to your industry are clearly explained. In your job search, you cannot expect the reader of your resume to know the meaning and context of technical terms you use. Providing a simple explanation of your career and of each individual job can make your resume much easier to comprehend.

An Unimpressive Accomplishment for Your Resume

Your resume needs to show specific accomplishments demonstrating your abilities, experience and potential. You will compete against others who have the same experience and skills. In fact, some of your competition is likely to be higher qualified than you. To land an interview and to get hired, you need to show why you are better. A good accomplishment can to this. A weak, unimpressive accomplishment will not help, and can actually hurt the overall impression of your resume.

The resume I read today came from a training manager for a large corporation. It lists a number of training programs the candidate had managed. One of the bullets listed was:

Conceptualized and led the design of a leadership and management strategy and curriculum for all support divisions. Implemented and facilitated management training and best practices sessions. Results included a 60% participation rate in manager best practice sessions.

It’s important to understand that numbers stand out on a resume. A lot of hiring managers will scan a resume, looking for the number and read bullets with quantified results first. Additionally, for many people, numbers stand out from the rest of the text and will naturally draw their attention, even if they aren’t specifically looking for quantified results. This makes it much more likely your bullets with numbers will be read before the bullets without.

In this resume example, the bullet might draw extra attention because it lists “60%.” This figure may have been good, but on a resume, without any context to place this in, it seems very unimpressive. In fact, some may interpret it as a failure.

Imagine an executive struggling to cut costs, drive revenues and stay profitable in this economy. The exec decides he needs to upgrade the skills set of his workforce and needs a top notch trainer to design the training. His concern is driving specific results – profits – in the short term. This requires a training who can make an impact quickly and understands how to focus on elements that will make the company more productive right now.

The job seeker designed a management and leadership program for a major company – an organization everyone knows. This is a good responsibility. The only result given for the program was a 60% participation rate. I really can’t assess whether this was good or bad. If the program was very time consuming, voluntary for managers to participate and not supported well by upper management, a 60% participation rate might have been great. In the eyes of the hypothetical hiring manager I described, this result probably looks like a failure.

The hiring manager needs to maximize the value he gets for the cost of the training manager. Knowing he might only get a 60% participation rate, will make the training far less effective. Another candidate, showing a consistent pattern of running programs with very high participation rates is likely to have an edge, even though we haven’t assessed the quality of the training or the impact on the performance of the company.

Ideally, the job seeker wouldn’t emphasize participation rates. A better approach would be to emphasize the impact of the training. With 60% participation, showing how the group that completed the training improved their performance while the non-participants didn’t improve would be extremely impressive. If the job seeker can’t show a benefit like this, it is likely they will lose out to another job seeker than can.

Accomplishments that Hurt a Resume

I write a lot about how important accomplishments are to a resume. They provide the sales pitch to get a hiring manager interested and excited about your background. They also demonstrate your capability in a way that nothing else can.

The resume I read today showed me the rare example of when accomplishments actually hurt the overall impression. The problem wasn’t the individual accomplishments – each was good and impressive. The problem was they didn’t fit together. In fact, they seemed to contradict each other. Below are the two accomplishments from an operations manager within a distribution company:

Building up staff to eventually build in 2nd shift for production to accommodate increased volume.
Reduced warehouse staff 25% and increased production by 15% in shipping and receiving.

The candidate has been with this employer for around a year. In this short time, both increasing and decreasing staffing levels seems out of place. If the candidate had a five year track record with the company, it would be fine. The business cycle has changed and companies are adjusting.

Do I think the candidate is lying about his accomplishments? No. There is probably a good explanation for what he did. Despite this, I’m focused on whether he is telling the truth, how these two accomplishments could be reconciled and whether the accomplishments are credible. I’m not thinking about how the accomplishments demonstrate an ability to help an organization.

If the job seeker is coming for the exact role and type of company than the job being filed, this won’t be too much of a problem. A hiring manager is like to still give him a call. More often, a job seeker will be from a different job type or industry. If this is the case, the job seeker already has a strike against them. Adding even a little doubt or confusion about the accomplishments can be the deciding factor in rejecting the candidate.

There are a couple of solutions for this job seeker. The easiest is to delete the bullet related to adding 2nd shift. In a down economy, more companies are concerned about cutting costs, and few are worried about expanding. Dropping this will not hurt the resume.

Another option would be to explain the accomplishments better, so they make sense together. For example, the staff reduction might be in one department and adding 2nd shift could be in a completely different department. If this is the case, providing a little more detail would fix the inconsistency.

One of the greatest challenges when writing your resume is knowing how a reader, who knows nothing about you, will interpret what you write. You have the benefit of knowing your complete work history. This makes it difficult to see when key details are omitted. The solution is to have someone, who knows little to nothing about your review your resume, assess the content.

Resume of a New MBA

I received a resume from a student about to graduate with an MBA. The candidate went straight from her undergraduate to graduate school. During both programs, she held a series of entry level retail jobs.

This career progression shows a good commitment and work ethic. The problem with the resume is the order of the information. It emphasizes the work history and not the education. The job seeker is not going to land the type of job she is pursuing based on her work experience. She’s going to get hired because of her education. This needs to be emphasized as the main selling point.

Below is the resume structure:

Summary Statement (19 words, does not mention the education, focused on the work experience)

Experience

Job 1 (127 words)

Job 2 (75 words)

Job 3 (70 words)

Education

Master’s Degree

Bachelor’s Degree

Skills

The entire resume had 387 words, so the listing of the three jobs represents 70% of the text. It’s also at the top of the resume. There’s a good chance a hiring manager receiving this resume will read the summary statement, skim the work experience and discard the candidate. This is unfortunate, because the job seeker has some great skills and a very good education.

A better way to organize this resume would be to focus on the education and skills of the job seeker. A hiring manager is going to be impressed with the potential of the job seeker, not the jobs she has held. The jobs help show her work ethic, but this is just one attribute. The experience should be placed in a supporting role, not the lead.

I would reorganize this resume into the following order:

Summary Statement (emphasizing the education and key skills)

Education

Master’s Degree

Bachelor’s Degree

Skills

Experience

Job 1 (127 words)

Job 2 (75 words)

Job 3 (70 words)

This structure leads off with the candidate’s strengths. The content didn’t change (except for the summary statement). Only the organization of the content changed. The other option I considered was switching the skills and education. As impressive as the education is, the job seeker possesses some great skills that might be more impressive for some careers. In this case, leading off with the skills would be better than starting with the education.

Resume with an Atypical Career Progression

The career progression of most job seekers follows a typical pattern. It starts with an entry level job and progresses to positions of increasing responsibility. At any point in time, the job seeker holds a single full time position. This progression is very common and easy to understand. So, what do you do if your career isn’t typical?

The resume I ran into today dealt with a non-traditional career in a very effective way. The job seeker had held a series of sales and sales management positions. Then, a couple years ago, he shifted into a consulting role. His resume shows five concurrent positions, with titles such as Director of Sales, Director of Business Development and Director of Fundraising.

This list of positions raised a number of questions immediately. Holding what appear to be five full time positions simultaneously doesn’t make sense. My initial reaction was confusion. I had no idea what the job seeker was doing.

One tactic the job seeker could have taken would be to describe each position in detail. This would make for a very long resume. The job seeker took a different approach. He provided one line that explained that these were consulting positions. He then offered an example. In the example, he described one of positions in detail. This showed the type of work the job seeker was doing. Because the positions were similar, it is easy to see how the other roles would have similar responsibilities and accomplishments.

The job seeker then provided a traditional description of each full time job he had held prior to moving into consulting. The approach turned out to be clear and easy to follow.

The key to the effectiveness of this resume was its clear presentation of what the job seeker did. The way it was written was unusual, but it made it clear, very quickly, what the job seeker did. Although I started out confused, it only took a few seconds to understand what was going on. There are other ways the job seeker could have presented their consulting experience without writing a long description of each position. The important thing is not providing every last detail – it is showing a clear picture of your overall experience. In this regard, the job seeker did a good job by describing just one of the five positions.

If you have a non-traditional career progression following a traditional chronological format may not work. If you are uncertain how to structure your resume, get help.

Using Buzzwords Without Substance

Buzzwords are used so commonly they lose their impact. The resume I read today illustrates this. At the top of the resume was a Summary of Qualifications section. In it, there were a number of buzzwords. The overall effect was to hurt the impression the resume made.

The buzzwords listed are some of the most common. In fact, some used so much, they qualify as gobbledygook – words that have lost all meaning due to over use. Below are a few of the bullets from the Summary section:

Summary of Qualifications

Change-management leader

Understands budgets and expense control

Six Sigma/Lean exposure to improve productivity, teamwork, and profitability

Diversity aware

A summary section like this is supposed to create a positive image while introducing the job seeker. Instead, the bullets do little if anything to promote the job seeker. The problem is they don’t have any clear benefit.

Change-management is a nice buzzword, but the resume has little content that demonstrates how the job seeker led change in an organization. Where it is mentioned, it is buried deep in the resume. I had to read closely to find something that showed some change-management experience.

I’m not sure what to make of “Understanding budgets and expense control.” My initial reaction is: “great, you understand cost-cutting – I’m looking for someone with experience cutting costs.” This is a very weak bullet and the resume would be stronger if it was deleted.

The Six Sigma bullet is also extremely weak. I read having exposure to Six Sigma as meaning someone in company ran a six sigma project and the job seeker got to watch some of what that person did. Reading rest of the resume, there is nothing that shows the six sigma experience is more than a basic familiarity the term.

Six Sigma is a major buzzword found in a lot of job postings. If you have significant Six Sigma experience, highlight this skill. If you don’t have experience, don’t highlight it. This bullet was at the top of the resume, with the words "Six Sigma" the 14th and 15th words on the resume. Putting this at the bottom of the resume wouldn’t hurt overall impression (I doubt it would help either). At the top of the resume, it makes a terrible impression.

The resume is from a human resources manager. Diversity is a major buzzword in HR, but I really don’t know what it means to be Diversity Aware. Is the job seeker aware of the importance of diversity in the workplace? Does he have experience promoting diversity? Is he saying he is capable of recognizing difference between men and women or between different ethnic groups? I expect that he is trying to say that he knows how to promote and improve the diversity in a workforce.

When hiring managers read your resume, they will not assume you have more experience or better credentials than the content of your resume shows. If you are very good with a specific skill, you need to show that. Listing a buzzword without qualifying your experience will not help and may hurt the effectiveness of your resume.

Successfully Showed Up

I read a lot of resumes that are nothing more than copies of the job descriptions the employers wrote. The basic responsibilities from a job description do not demonstrate any ability or skill. One resume I read recently was especially bad.

The resume had a litany of basic responsibilities that did nothing to sell the job seeker’s potential. One bullet that really stood out for me was:

Attended staff meetings

A staff meeting is a meeting where all the staff get together. Attending requires moving from one’s desk to the conference room. This is barely a step up from “showed up to work.”

There are two reasons I can think of why a job seeker would list something like this. First, the job seeker may have copied the job description and was too lazy to edit it. Second, the job seeker may have added this bullet in order to fill space and make his resume look more hefty. In either case, the bullet makes a terrible impression.

When writing your resume, focus on giving reasons why you are valuable. The key question you need to answer is:

How are you better than others doing exactly the same job as you?

If you do not give a reason why you are more valuable than your competition, you will not get hired. The job market is competitive enough to guarantee that someone applying for the same job as you will develop a resume highlighting their skills, accomplishments and potential value.

Does your resume show specifically the attributes that make you valuable? Do you show how you have used these abilities in the past with concrete examples of what you have done? Do you provide specific results you delivered? Does your resume show the value you will provide an employer?

If you are having trouble identifying how you stand out from your competition, talk with a resume writer or career coach. These individuals are a experts in assessing job seekers and identifying the strengths that can be marketed.

A Recruiter’s Perspective

One of my primary goals in writing the this blog is give you the ability to look at your resume the same way a recruiter or hiring manager will. I ran into a resume today that illustrates a common mistake I see, although this example is worse than most.

The resume is from a salesperson with fifteen years of experience. The resume listed a number of great accomplishments. There were bullets where the job seeker had exceeded their annual quota by significant percentages. Other bullets showed their ranking within the company or region – for example, top five out of three hundred sales associates at one position.

The work history looked good. Then, at the start of 2007, the candidate took a new sales job. The new position had one bullet, “Sell comprehensive line of…” and a list of products. The listing had nothing about the success of the individual. No details of the territory, customer base, training or anything else about the position.

Recruiter Perspective

My reaction to this resume is simple. The job seeker had been successful in the past but failed dismally in their most recent position. I can’t think of any reason why the job seeker wouldn’t give some detail of their performance for this position if their performance was good. Describing this as a dismal failure may seem strong. I have to assume the candidate did not meet or exceed expectations in any way.

I also read the cover letter closely. My thought was the candidate might have a reason why he didn’t detail the position. The company many have had financial difficulty or the sales process may not have been a fit for the candidate. These reason could mitigate a failed position. The cover letter mirrored the resume, emphasizing the past and skipping over the most recent position.

The Job Seeker’s Perspective

I expect the job seeker left out details of this position because he has trouble acknowledging the failure. The career track record shows a pattern of success. It doesn’t appear that he has had to deal with failing before. The easiest thing for the job seeker is to skip over the position and emphasize his accomplishments. I’m sure this seemed like a good idea, but it doesn’t create the impression the job seeker wants.

Just as there are reasons that would mitigate the significance of a failure, there are reasons that could make this failure a major issue. What changed about the job seeker that led to the failure? In an interview, this would be my focus.

Solution

The best way to deal with this is to be upfront and give some detail. The job seeker should explain their performance. If the performance was below expectations, then the job seeker should explain way. I’m not suggesting that they job seeker needs a bunch of excuses – that’s the wrong approach. He just needs to provide an honest assessment. For example, shortly after starting the position, the company may have experienced a change in a their operations that made their products less competitive. Stating this by itself is just an excuse. Adding details about how the company’s sales dropped significantly would make it understandable that a new salesperson would struggle.

Another option is to remove all the accomplishments from the resume. I think this is a terrible option, but some job seekers may consider it. By removing the other accomplishments, the job seeker will create a consistent pattern from start to finish. The lack of accomplishments in the current position will not standout without any other accomplishments on the resume. In a down economy, this tactic will cause the job seeker to appear completely unimpressive and reduce the chances of getting an interview.

Often a resume tells as much about the job seeker from the lack on information as it does from the information is included.

The 2,600 Word Resume

A resume should be a concise summary of a job seeker’s background and potential. Resumes are not designed to provide every detail about the job seeker. The resume I read today was far from being concise.

I recommend a resume should be 400 to 900 words and no more than two pages. There are rare exceptions to this guideline, but most resumes are too long. The resume I looked at was seven pages, with a small font. I ran a word count and it totaled 2,606 – more than six times the length I recommend.

This wasn’t the first problem with the resume. The cover letter got things starter, beginning with:

Hello Gentlemen/Ladies,

I am a software engineer with a very strong backgroud in UNIX/LINUX, C, C++, parallel and distributed computing applications. I think my resume speaks for itself.

If misspelling “backgroud” wasn’t enough, a statement that the “resume speaks for itself” is a major detractor. It creates an impression of an extremely arrogant job seeker. The resume confirmed this. The vast majority of the resume dealt with various IT systems and programming languages. The level of detail was so overwhelming, it is very difficult to know what the candidate’s greatest strengths are.

The talent, education and experience of a person with a PhD in computer engineering and 16 years of design experience at top firms is impressive, but the candidate isn’t going to be assessed in isolation. A company that is considering a PhD with this much experience will be looking at other candidates with similar experience and educational backgrounds.

The resume was composed of lengthy paragraphs that only detailed the technologies used on the project. The technical skills are important, but listing the names of the technologies does nothing to show the skill level of the job seeker. It read like an IT version of boastful name-dropping. The project descriptions provided little information as to the scope of the project, the obstacles that were overcome and the results of the project. It only explained what technologies were used.

Without detailed information on the project scope, there is no way to assess the work of the job seeker. Listing a lot of in demand technologies does not make a person qualified to do a job. A much shorter resume, with far less detail could convey a lot more information.

Another problem is a direct result of the length. A seven page list of projects detailing every technology ever encountered resulted in a list of skills that covers most of the IT field. No one can be an expert in hundreds of different technologies, and companies don’t hire people because they have a very limited familiarity with a skill that is critical to the job. By presenting so many technologies, the job seeker dilutes the skills he really is a top expert in using.

This resume will show up in a huge number of IT searches if it is posted on a job board, but it is unlikely that the job seeker will get many calls. There just isn’t anything to generate a positive impression except for the education of the job seeker and a seven page list of buzzwords.

When writing your resume, look for ways to cut words out. You should assess every word and every sentence for whether they provide significant value or not. Shorter and simpler will be much more effective.