I’ve been
told time and again that my resume allows recruiters to immediately see my
value-add when it comes to my communications experience. I do this with my
front page of my resume where I share my “profile” through short bullets of who I am.
What this
front-page section does is allow the recruiter to immediately know if I have
the experience and skills they need for the particular job they are trying to
fill. You won’t be surprised to learn that I crafted this first section of my
resume with my three stories, all which fully support my dream job.
For
example, using the example story from before, I can identify four items that
are perfect for my profile.
I was brought in to drive an
international team of communication professionals on a large-scale project that
impacted over 4,000 team members. The goal of my communications team was to
make sure all team members were kept up to date on the progress with effective
and creative communications. One day, our very seasoned PM left the program – unexpectedly
- and our replacement was a sales rep who did not understand that the changes
he made on the fly had a downstream impact on my team. We couldn’t stay up with
all the changes he was making on a daily basis – and for some unknown reason, he
refused to document the changes. My team was threatening to leave the company
due to the issues this created for them. I wish I could say that my team and I
were able to resolve the issue quickly, but it took a while. Eventually, I was
able to introduce an overly simple change management process that helped him
track the changes, allowing my team to know exactly what they needed to
communicate. Happily, no one left my team and the PM eventually understood the
benefit of tracking changes.
- Drive large-scale projects that impact thousands of employees.
- Manage global communication teams on large-scale initiatives.
- Collaborate and work as part of a team, while also leading.
- Resolve conflicts, never giving up even when there are roadblocks and setbacks.
Now I want
you to go back to your stories, and pull your “personality” from your stories,
showing your qualities and skills you have that make you a great candidate for
your dream job. List out as many as you can find to begin with. Don’t judge
anything at this stage, just collect bullets that might be used in your
profile.
You can see
now why we built these stories around your dream job and not just what you have
done in the past, as the CAR methodology has a tendency to do.
Another
great trick to building a strong profile is to do a search on your dream job
title. From those job descriptions, you can see what traits and experiences are
important to the hiring team. Go ahead and grab a few of these items that may
be missing from your profile.
The final
step in crafting the profile section of your resume is to see what bullets can
be combined or perhaps deleted. I’m going to share a few of my profile bullets
to give you an idea of how this can look:
ü 15+ years demonstrated
ability in achieving sustainable and effective global internal and external
executive and employee communications in global, complex, dynamic and
results-oriented organizations.
ü Senior Executive
Communications Leader, supporting executives with speaker opportunities, media
and investor briefings, presentations, town halls, social media, employee
communications and organizational changes.
ü Drive comprehensive
internal communications strategy and provide day-to-day support for key
employee communications initiatives across multi-functional organizations.
ü Outstanding analytical,
interpersonal, and written and oral communication skills, producing clear and
influential communications for broad and diverse audiences.
These four
bullets tell a recruiter a lot about me, very quickly. You’ll notice, they are
not about the projects I worked on, but what I am capable of doing. They
answer the question for the recruiter: Can she do the job?
In
addition, in order to assist the recruiter in understanding that I can do the
job (i.e., my dream job!), I will pick up key words from the job posting and
add them to my profile. This solidifies my qualifications, which is always a
good thing.
How many
bullets you have under your profile will depend on the job you are applying
for. Too many, and the recruiter will
get lost in the black ink on the page. Too little, and the recruiter won’t see
your value-add. I would suggest at least six, but no more than ten. You can
combine the shorter bullets into other bullets to get your number under control.
In my next
article, we will be discussing ways to use your stories to craft your Job
Experience section of your resume.
No comments:
Post a Comment