Hidden Power of the Resume
20 October 2015
For many years in the public sector the resume has been the poor cousin to the application. It has been the document that people rush to put together in the hour before the application is due. Days and weeks are put into crafting the words to address selection criteria and create convincing expressions of interest, yet the resume is given scant regard. It has been the document that festers in the bottom drawer, that doesn’t get transferred from the old computer to the new, and gets pulled out and looked at only when necessary. When people hand it out it is usually with some embarrassment and words of apology – “Sorry, it’s not really up to date.”
I want to encourage you to reimagine the resume and move it from being an afterthought to becoming your first thought when it comes to keeping on top of your career and your job prospects. Give your resume shine to make it a document you are extremely proud of because the resume has hidden powers.
These powers are subtle and deep. The greatest power that a resume has is that in order to compile a really good one you need to think deeply about your career, about yourself and what you offer. You have to know what you want your future career to look like, what you have achieved in the past and what you are capable of in order to write a really good resume. Writing a good resume requires self knowledge and self reflection, which often lead to new insights about your career. Weaving knowledge about your values, aspirations, capabilities, preferences, strengths, skills and attributes ensures your resume is a compelling document that helps employers know how well you will fit with their organisation, not just how capable you are at doing the job.
Another great power of a well written resume is that it makes you think about what it is you want to sell to your next employer. Most of the time when people write their resume they list the headings that they think they are supposed to have and fill in the blanks, but this is not enough. You need to think carefully about the information you want to present to a prospective employer. Ask yourself what it is you want the employer to know about you – or in other words: What do you want to sell to them. The skills you present in your resume is one area to think about. You will have developed lots of skills, but not all of them are ones you want to continue using, so don’t sell them through your resume. An example of this is a manager I recently worked who was keen to shift his career away from people management and back into an operational focus. In re-crafting his resume he deliberately downplayed the level of people management he had been involved in because he did not want to use this skill any more and did not want any prospective employers to employ him for that skill.
Everyone’s resume will be different as we all have different things we want to present, but in addition to the typical headings in your resume of Employment History, Qualifications and Referees consider the value for your resume, and for you, of including information such as Career Summary, Career Objective, Skills Overview, Achievements, Capabilities and Strengths.
Taking the time and putting the effort into knowing what you need to know to create a fabulous resume has lots of benefits:
- 1. First is that it is incredibly valuable to do for the feeling of hope, pride in yourself and renewed confidence it gives you about what you are able to do.
- 2. Compiling a really good resume also keeps ‘front of mind’ for you the words and the language you can use to talk about yourself. It expands the vocabulary that you have for discussing with others your skills, strengths, attributes and value.
- 3. A regular update of your resume also means that you don’t forget important tasks, projects, skills, compliments, feedback and experiences that it may be useful to include, and each time you update your resume you are reminded of your awesomeness.
- 4. A regular dip into your resume also highlights areas for development and reminds you of the goals you have for your career.
Here are a couple of actions you can take immediately to start tapping into the hidden power of your resume:
- 1. Set a calendar reminder to update your resume on a regular basis. It only needs to take 10-15 minutes each time. I recommend that you do this every month as it is incredible how much we forget from month to month.
- 2. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being low and 10 being high, rate how much pride reading your resume gives you and record this number. Next time you review your resume aim to increase the self-score you feel you can give yourself.
As always wishing you a flourishing career.
Katherine