The Resume.Com Guide to Writing Unbeatable Resumes (35 page)

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A talented professional skilled in marketing, communications, and management

Once you’ve incorporated your strongest skills into the headline, finish with the position or professional objective you are pursuing to create a targeted resume for the industry or position for which you are applying:

• A talented professional skilled in marketing, communications, and management seeks supervisory position in advertising

We recommend always tailoring the headline to the specific position or industry for which you are applying. Also,
never end the headline with a period
. The purpose of this sentence is to hook the hirer into wanting to read your entire resume, so omit any ending punctuation here. For additional examples of headlines, review the 30 examples in Chapter 6.

The Summary of Qualifications furthers the intensive interest that you must foster in a prospective employer’s mind beginning with the headline. This section encompasses the top five to eight selling points that reflect your greatest accomplishments and transferable skills, basically creating a very strong overview of the abilities you can bring to a future employer. For example, if you managed a sales team of 10 people, many of those skills—motivating them, ensuring that they were acting in the company’s best interest, scheduling, and talking with them—are all transferable to a manager at a bookstore. Areas you can highlight in this section should focus primarily on your soft skills (which are nonquantifiable skills) that transfer easily from one position to another. These skills may include the following:

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Management experience, including operations, departments, or people

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Communication skills, including improving interdepartmental communications as a result of processes you created or instituted

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Special awards or commendations that reflect exceptional work performance

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Organization, administration, scheduling, presentation, or negotiation abilities

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Willingness to travel or relocate

As with all bullets, incorporate powerful action words to augment your talents and abilities.

SUMMARY OF QUALIFICATIONS

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Skilled background in new business development, marketing, communications and client services.

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Solid presentation skills with personable, effective communication talents.

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Proven track record for improving company profits while remaining adaptable in fluctuating consumer environments.

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Practiced in administration, event coordination, and information management.

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Willing to relocate.

If you are having a difficult time discerning your strongest skills and achievements, you may want to delay writing the Summary of Qualifications until after you have completed the resume. For guidance and ideas, see Appendix B.

In the skills and abilities section your professional background should include two to four skill sets that will demonstrate why you are the best candidate for the position. Unlike the linear, company-specific professional experience section of a chronological resume, this skills and abilities section (which can be titled “Skills and Accomplishments” or titled as you see fit) plays an integral role in demonstrating specific, transferable talents and capabilities.
You also can incorporate into this section achievements and abilities that have no direct relationship with your professional history, allowing your skills to apply to your new professional goal.
For example, if you are attempting to return to the field of sales after many years in interior design, you can touch on the interpersonal, prospecting, and communication skills you use in your current field and in everyday life. You then can apply those skills to a vast array of sales-oriented positions not limited to your last job. Creating a section of skill sets, along with your Summary of Qualifications and headline, will highlight these areas of transferable skills. Some key areas to discuss in this section include

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Quantifiable results as a result of your demonstrable skills, such as cost-cutting achievements, sales numbers, or number of employees you’ve managed

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Awards and honors you’ve received for exceptional performance

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Soft skills such as strong communication and interpersonal abilities

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Projects or processes you have proactively developed and/or implemented

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Your ability to learn new tasks quickly and “go the extra mile”

S
KILLS AND
A
BILITIES

Management and Team Development

• Founded and managed regional territory, identifying and acquiring new customers, negotiating agreements, and managing department finances.

• Interviewed, hired, and supervised personnel. Trained employees in diverse facets of industry, including sales, marketing, customer service, and technical support.

• Developed training strategies and materials, writing comprehensive guide and tutorials.

• Managed all financials, including budgets, sales, forecasting, ROI, labor costs, and inventory.

• Created and implemented Excel spreadsheets for budget, P&L, and labor cost tracking.

Technical Support

• Provided hardware, software, and product support for customers.

• Researched technical issues, identified causes, and formulated solutions.

• Supported proprietary software as well as Microsoft and Apple systems and applications. Assisted clients with product selection. Earned 10 Customer Recognition Awards during tenure.

• Telephone support expert for home/small business laptop customers.

• Provided hardware/software setup, configuration, usage, and troubleshooting assistance.

• Received appreciation award for job performance; recognized for outstanding service by several customers in letters to executive management.

Marketing and Sales

• Produced $36,000 in first month as number one salesman out of 50-plus representatives.

• Improved sales 250% in two previously stagnant markets within 45 days as marketing manager.

• Acquired over 100 new customers in first six months.

• Increased franchise sales 11% in less than seven months; reduced employee turnover 95%.

• Created and managed telemarketing and direct sales programs.

• Formulated local marketing strategies for several branches.

The work history or employment history section contains a list of your employment going back up to 25 years, including company name, location, dates of employment, and job titles. This is the section of the resume that should be deemphasized and should be the polar opposite of the chronological resume’s Professional History section. The following are a few ground rules to follow in creating and formatting the Work History section:

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If you have gaps in your employment, do not list the months (mm/yy); instead, list only the years you worked (yyyy – yyyy).

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Use an en dash to separate dates by selecting Insert, Symbol, Special Characters, En Dash. The en dash is longer and visually more attractive than a hyphen.

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You may include a short description of your responsibilities within the Work History section, but this is optional.

If you have college or graduate school experience, it should be included in the Education section of your resume. Hirers are interested in your school name, course of study, and grade point average (GPA) if it is 3.0 or higher. Here are some important points to remember:

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The more relevant and recent the education, the more it should be played up.
Major, minor, relevant coursework, honors, academic awards, achievements, and extracurricular activities should all be listed
to the degree to which they are relevant
. For example, if your college courses and major have nothing to do with your new career, list the school, the graduation year, and the degree you earned.

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If you went to college but did not graduate,
list years attended and credits earned (if over 60).

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Avoid listing high school education unless it is your highest education level and is called for specifically in the job announcement.

EDUCATION

Manhattan College
, Manhattan, NY

Bachelor of Arts, 1993. GPA: 3.5

Key Courses
: Business Information Systems, Business Administration, Accounting, Management I-II

There is a need for professionals with strong computer skills in almost every industry, and technical skills may give you a competitive edge in the application process. We recommend listing all computer programs you are proficient in, including operating systems, hardware, and Internet and e-mail programs.

Technical skills are an essential part of the IT resume. Computer skills should be listed clearly in a prominent section. For more information on IT resumes, see Chapter 12.

COMPUTER SKILLS

Microsoft Office Suite, Outlook, Explorer, Adobe Acrobat, AS400, BOSS billing system, E-mail

Include miscellaneous sections after computer skills, such as memberships and affiliations (if they are relevant to your professional goals). The purpose of this resume is to define your transferable skills, so don’t include data that will trap you in your current field.

A keywords section is a vital way to ensure that your resume will not be eliminated by computer scanning software. This is software that is used by many human resources personnel at large companies to eliminate a resume before a person reviews it. Here’s how the process works: Hirers gather nonelectronic resumes via fax and mail and receive electronic resumes via e-mail and job boards. These resumes are stored in a database where hiring personnel can use individual keywords to sort resumes and eliminate those which do not meet the criteria, reducing a potential stack of 1000 applications to a select few. If your resume does not contain these keywords, you probably will be eliminated from consideration.

Effective keywords include job titles, industry-specific jargon, and acronyms not already found in your resume. A career change keywords section can be modified according to every position you are applying for to maximize your success, but the areas suggested by keywords should be supported by resume content. This section is purely functional and does not have to follow the formatting of the previous sections. Keywords can be listed as a string of words at the bottom of the resume or formatted similarly to the other sections.

To find the most effective keywords to include in your resume, do a quick job search in a major newspaper or job board. The resulting job descriptions will provide a list of alternative job titles, industry jargon, and buzzwords that you can add to your keywords section. An effective career change keywords section for a communications professional might look like this:

K
EYWORDS

Associate Producer, Production Assistant, Editor, Associate Editor, Editorial Assistant, Personal Assistant, Television, Video, Media

Switching careers and industries can be a daunting goal in a job search. Before jumping in feet first, research the marketplace to find out who’s hiring, what jobs are in demand, and, more important, what jobs and fields would be a good fit for your background and interests. If you feel that now is the time, however, don’t let anything hold you back.