Last week I reviewed 15 résumés from my blog readers and after speaking with them at length I found only 5 résumés established a personal brand and corroborated it by showing how uniquely qualified they were for the jobs they were applying for.
This statistical trend is consistent with the feedback I’ve gotten from talent
acquisition specialists I am in close contact with.
Let
me clarify this based on the two key sections of a résumé.
Section One: The Professional
Profile & Summary Statement section
Many
professional and executive résumés begin with a Professional Profile or Summary
Statement that is written like a run-on sentence and contiguous paragraph. The
result being they are difficult to read and the points they try to make fail to
stand out and often go unread. Upon questioning, I found out many were written
this way because the writer preferred to conserve space to add more details
somewhere else at the expense of making an impact with what was written here.This is foolish since this is where the reader forms their first impression
about you.
Another
problem I see is many of these statements overemphasize the job seeker’s past
without focusing on the positions they are applying for. This makes them come
across as overqualified for the job they are being considered for, therefore
the reader rejects the résumé at this point without looking any further.
The
most egregious error I find is commonality. As I go over a Profile or Summary statement
point by point / sentence by sentence with someone I always ask two simple
questions. One is “does this describe you and what you have to offer an
employer.” The answer is almost always an emphatic “Yes.” The second question is
“how many other candidates applying for this job can write this same sentence because
it applies equally to them as well.” Not surprising, the response here is 60%
to 85% of the competition.
The
first impression I and most people skilled at screening résumés get is not the
impression the writer intended. Rather than showcasing a uniquely qualified candidate
for the job, the delivered message is “I’m one of X# of qualified candidates
you can choose from.”
Section Two: The Experience
& Career Progression section
Here
too there are several misconceptions in the way many résumés are written. The
most formidable ones, being a lack of context and validation.
What
I often read is an overabundance of details and cliché accomplishments, much of
which has little or no relevance to the job being applied for. Worse yet, the bullet
point achievements are crammed together so tightly nothing stands out and the
message gets lost or is never read.
The
next common mistake in this section is repeating the same information job after
job, making the reader think this is all you have to offer, when what you really
desire is to be doing something different or new on your next job.
A
killer mistake made by older jobseekers is often going back far into the past
when what you did 15 or more years ago has little relevance to the jobs you’re
applying for. All you are accomplishing is allowing screeners to justify
calling you overqualified which is often a code name for too old.
I
also get turned off by many of the so called accomplishments I read because
they only focus on qualitative facts without giving any specifics about how
they were obtained and most lack any perspective about how much of an
accomplishment they actually are.
As a courtesy I critique U.S. resumes and offer
suggestions on how to improve them at no cost. perry@perrynewman.com
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