Are you having trouble getting interviews for that next job opportunity? Do you feel that no one is interested in reading and responding to your resume and cover letter? Then you should seriously consider thoroughly reviewing and rewriting your resume.
Why? Well, let’s look at the process from the company’s point of view.
What Sets You Apart?
Why should a company select your resume, interview you and possibly hire you, when they may have a few hundred candidates to choose from? What can you say that will make your resume stand out? How can you create the necessary wording in your resume to help provide a mental picture for the reader showing your potential capabilities? How will you be able hold the reader’s interest in order for you to get past that first critical step of being short-listed for a possible interview?
You must provide the most comprehensive picture of your capabilities in order to catch the attention of the reader. You must ensure that you’ve thoroughly reviewed all aspects of your job, your experiences and your successes and included these in your resume. The consequences of not doing this could result in your resume ending up in the waste basket.
After rewriting your resume, carefully read each statement you have written about your experience and deliverable and then ask yourself the question, “So what?” If you’ve made your statements as dynamic and descriptive as you can, you have a better chance of catching the attention of the reader and improve your chances of getting a job interview.
Here are a couple of the several “So what?” examples contained in George Snyder’s new book Mapping Your Dimensional CV that can help you improve the quality and content of your resume:
Deputised as Team Supervisor (So What?)
Instead, you could write:
Deputised as team supervisor for a team of 5 staff and lead the team in successfully completing a $250,000 project in upgrading the company’s sales order entry system. This resulted in an annual company operational savings of $65,000.
Call Center Team Leader Responsible for Inbound Call Center Staff (So What?)
Instead, you could write:
Team leader managing a call center team of 8 staff and was responsible for a 6-month cycle of process improvements covering the analysis, creation and delivery of a new inbound call center customer handling process. This process improved overall customer call answering efficiency by 10% and raised overall customer satisfaction ratings by 4%.
Which is more interesting and descriptive to read?
There are many, many more practical examples in this ebook, and if you apply even some of the suggestions, you will significantly increase your chances of being invited for interviews. I particularly liked the section about how to identify your tangible achievements on your resume and how to develop your personal statement.
Does your resume pass the “So what?” test? Share in the comments!
This post originally appeared on Interview Coach.
Image: Flickr
