Tip 1 - Use Ti­tles or Head­ings That Match The Jobs You Want

With em­ploy­ers re­ceiv­ing hun­dreds of re­sumes you must make sure that your re­sume hooks an em­ploy­er's at­ten­tion with­in a 5-sec­ond glance. A great way to do this is to use job ti­tles and skill head­ings that re­late to and match the jobs you want. For ex­am­ple, com­pare the head­ings Roger used in his be­fore re­sume to the head­ings used in his af­ter re­sume.

Be­fore Re­sume:

Ac­count­ing / Record­keep­ing

Ad­min­is­tra­tive

Com­put­er Skills

Af­ter Re­sume:

Man­age­ment of A/R and A/P Ac­counts

Com­put­er­ized Ac­count­ing Ap­pli­ca­tions

De­part­men­tal Ad­min­is­tra­tion / Record­keep­ing

Which set of head­ings are the strongest for an Ac­counts Payable / Re­ceiv­able Man­ag­er po­si­tion? Even though Roger's ti­tle was Ac­count­ing As­sis­tant, he ac­tu­al­ly man­aged over 1,000 A/R and A/P ac­counts. Us­ing skill head­ings that mar­ket the true na­ture of Roger's job du­ties will gen­er­ate him more in­ter­views and high­er salary of­fers.

Tip 2 - Use a De­sign That Grabs At­ten­tion

Em­ploy­ers make snap judg­ments when glanc­ing at your re­sume. If they see un­re­lat­ed job ti­tles or skills the like­li­hood is very high that they will make an im­me­di­ate as­sump­tion that you are not qual­i­fied for the job you want. Adding to this prob­lem is the fact that em­ploy­ers don't have the time to read through each of your job de­scrip­tions to de­ter­mine if you have the skills they need.

You Must Do That For Them! The de­sign of your re­sume must high­light the most im­por­tant in­for­ma­tion about your work ex­pe­ri­ence, skills and ed­u­ca­tion. At first glance this in­for­ma­tion forms the im­age that em­ploy­ers have of your skills and abil­i­ties.

Tip 3 - Cre­ate Con­tent That Sells

Re­sume de­sign should get at­ten­tion but it's re­al­ly the con­tent of your re­sume, the de­scrip­tions you in­clude of your skills and abil­i­ties, that de­ter­mine how many in­ter­views you gen­er­ate--as well as the lev­el of salary of­fers you re­ceive. Com­pare the be­fore and af­ter state­ments from Roger's re­sume shown be­low:

Be­fore Re­sume:

Main­tained records for ac­counts re­ceiv­able and ac­counts payable ac­counts.

Af­ter Re­sume:

Man­aged over 1,000 ac­counts re­ceiv­able and payable ac­counts, work­ing di­rect­ly with the Chief Fi­nan­cial Of­fi­cer.

Which of these ex­am­ples presents Roger as be­ing more qual­i­fied, hav­ing high­er skills and worth a high­er salary? As this ex­am­ple il­lus­trates, our im­age of Roger is changed and el­e­vat­ed when we read the af­ter ex­am­ple.

Tip 4 - Quan­ti­fy and Use Pow­er Words

As Roger's af­ter state­ment demon­strates, us­ing num­bers to de­scribe your achieve­ments and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties can great­ly ex­pand and el­e­vate your im­age. Us­ing num­bers and quan­ti­fy­ing cre­ates vivid im­ages in our mind when we read them, where­as gen­er­al state­ments like the be­fore ex­am­ples are easy to skip over or for­get. Typ­i­cal­ly the more spe­cif­ic you can be in de­scrib­ing your du­ties the bet­ter.

An­oth­er strat­e­gy that is ex­treme­ly im­por­tant in con­trol­ling the im­age that em­ploy­ers de­vel­op about you--is to use Pow­er Words or verbs that match the lev­el of po­si­tion you want. For ex­am­ple, Roger wants to use the ex­pe­ri­ence he's gained to move in­to a man­age­ment po­si­tion. To strength­en his im­age he should use as many "man­age­ment ori­ent­ed" words as pos­si­ble. Which ex­am­ple be­low do you think is the strongest?

Typ­i­cal Verbs:

Gave work as­sign­ments to staff of en­try lev­el ac­count­ing clerks.

Pow­er Words:

Di­rect­ed work­flow, su­per­vised and trained ac­count­ing staff per­form­ing post­ing to gen­er­al ledger, ac­counts re­ceiv­able and payable ac­counts.

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Look out for more tips next week has two syl­la­bles.