The Single Most Important Thing To Remember When Writing Your Resume
Are you searching the internet for help writing a resume that will win interviews ? Here is the most important resume writing tip . Resumes are not about you!
Does that sound unusual? It really isn't. Put yourself in the mind of a HR professional at a major corporation. Your business employs hundreds or maybe thousands of people for all kinds of positions . Hundreds of resumes cross your desk each week. Are you really going to review each of the resumes in detail? Probably not. Very few HR professionals would.
If you are going to go to the labor of creating a resume in the first place, what can you do to get the people in charge of hiring to actually read it? Better yet, what do you need to do to get the hiring manager to take enough interest in your resume to call you for an interview ? The answer is actually not that tough. So here is that resume writing tip one more time: Remember that the resume is not about you.
From the hiring point of view, the purpose of a resume is to screen out unqualified candidates and to screen in a select few who have persuasively shown in the resume exactly how they would add more value to the company than the other applicants. Creating an excellent resume means that you must know how get the attention of hiring managers and others who have a say about who is hired. To get your resume in the to-be-intervewed pile, you have to know what hiring authorities want to see. In virtually all cases, the resume that will generate the best results is the resume filled with previous achievements that prove how the candidate has produced results for past employers, saving costs, making money, increasing efficiency, and solving problems. Why does this generate results? By extrapolation, a candidate who has consistently and repeatedly produced benefits and strong results in the past will continue to do so in the future. Writing an accomplishment-focused resume such as described here ensures that you clearly understand the employers' needs and have created the resume to address these needs rather than some self-serving interest.
This leads us to one of the first things resume reviewers usually see: the objective statement. Objective statements are about what you and what you want. This goes directly against our advice to remember that resumes are not about you. What can you do? The most effective resume are focused resumes, but clearly an objective statement is not the best way to create that focus. The solution is a qualifications profile. A well-written qualifications profile will take the place of an objective, immediately conveying the focus of the resume while emphasizing exactly what it is you offer that will differentiate you from other applicants. In other words, a qualifications summary is employer-centered rather than self-centered.
Remember that one sage piece of advice -- resumes are not about you, they are about how you will meet the employers' needs in a profitable way -- and the entire content of your resume will flow from that principle. Getting attention in a crowded job market is challenging , but an employer-centric resume will significantly improve your competitive advantage.
About the Author
Michelle Dumas runs of one of the longest-standing and most respected professional resume writing firms on the internet. Since 1996, Michelle and her team have empowered thousands of professionals with resumes and job search strategies that get results and win jobs fast. Get insider resume writing tips that you won't find anywhere else, example resumes, and more articles like this one at her website. Go now to http://www.distinctiveweb.com
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