Is your Resume positioning you as the leader who can command their next $200k+ leadership role or attracting roles below your market potential?
Your Resume is like first impressions. And as a hiring manager for dozens of roles at both SLB and Amazon, it has taken me less than 6 seconds to make a decision on whether to move the candidate forward in the application process. This means your Resume can literally make or break your job search.
You don’t need a degree from Harvard or work at Google to land an interview for your dream job. Instead, you can use my signature PERFECT Resume framework to create a winning Resume that catches a recruiter’s eye right away and 10X your chances of moving to the interview stage.
THE PERFECT RESUME FRAMEWORK FOR CREATING A PERFECT RESUME (no pun intended)!
Your Resume is your most important brand asset. Which means it should be professional, clean, clutter-free, error-free, and ATS-friendly. Here are my top 5 tips to make your Resume look professionally done:
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Limit it to 2 pages
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Font size no smaller than 10
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Lots of white space, including at least 0.5 margins
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No photos or sensitive information like SSN or DOB
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Proofread, proofread, and then proofread some more
Your Resume is not your career history. It’s a marketing asset that must quickly prove how your experience and skillset relate directly to the requirements of the role. This means removing experiences older than 15 years and rewriting every role you’ve had to highlight how that experience is relevant to the role you are applying for.
As a hiring manager, I am not interested in your job responsibilities. Instead, I am interested in how you took on the responsibilities and created out-of-the-park results for your past organizations.
Here is a simple yet powerful format you can use to write each bullet point on your Resume as an accomplishment statement:
Action verb + Action you took + Quantitative or qualitative result.
Example: Led a team of program managers to develop an offshoring strategy to reduce Amazon's global recruiting costs by $27M.
One of the lowest-hanging fruits on your Resume is the job titles you use for your past roles. The job titles for your past role must match the industry-acceptable titles for the industry and the level of roles you are applying for.
Here are some examples of job titles that can be used interchangeably:
Data Engineer / Data Analyst / Business Intelligence (BIE/BI) Analyst
Product Manager / Product Development Manager / Solutions Manager
Program Manager / Project Engineer / Project Manager
Your Resume must demonstrate an exceptional skillset in all four skills areas: Domain, Functional, Technical, and Leadership. To learn more about these four skill areas, stay tuned to the upcoming newsletters!
Never led P&L?
Don’t have people management experience?
Haven’t used data analytics software in your previous roles?
Do not let the lack of a table-stakes skill or experience stop you from applying for your ideal job. Take the online course, do some pro-bono advisory board work, or start a 1-person business to bridge the gap. The best candidates do not lament the lack of experience; instead, they create their own!
The quickest way to prove that your experience is relevant to the role is to use role-specific keywords and industry-specific jargon. For this, you can use automated tools like JobScan and ChatGPT, but nothing beats manual keyword search where you review 30-50 job descriptions, identify top, role-specific job titles, skills, and industry jargon, and incorporate it organically throughout your Resume.
Once your PERFECT Resume is created, simply copy and paste the Resume into your LinkedIn, and voila, you now have a PERFECT, keyword-rich LinkedIn as well.
Ready to make your next career move, below are 3 ways I can help.
