First-time resume? Time for a lesson in Marketing 101
Tuesday September 6, 2011 9:08 AM
Dear Sam is Samantha Nolan
Dear Sam: I need help constructing my resume. I have owned a small business for four years and want to transition back into an employee/employer role. Most of my experience lies in customer service and administrative positions, but owning my business has given me exposure to managing employees as well as sales and marketing functions.
I read in your Dear Sam blog on your Web site that I might need to take out any education that I did not finish and perhaps remove any education that does not relate to my job search. An associate also suggested that there was a better way to showcase my abilities instead of listing each job followed by my job duties. If you have any advice I'd appreciate it!
- Lori
Dear Lori: It's often difficult to make the sales pitch to convey that, after being an entrepreneur, you are ready to reengage in a more traditional employee/employer role. The following approaches will aid you in this transition and help you sell yourself as a viable candidate.
Define your target. You have to realize that as an entrepreneur and small business owner you were essentially a one-woman-show, Jill-of-all-trades, etc. While this is wonderful for providing exposure to different operational functions, you rarely will find a position in corporate America that requires such a diverse skill set. Because of that, and because the market is incredibly saturated with qualified candidates, you have to define your target position before you sit down to craft your resume.
Understand your audience. With your target defined (administration, customer service, office management, marketing, sales, etc.), you need to figure out what message to convey to your audience in order to prompt action. To do this effectively, review multiple job postings of interest from your targeted field, and become intimately familiar with the language they speak. By that, I mean study the skills, experiences, credentials and all other requirements of these positions, so that when crafting your resume you can speak that same language in the presentation of your background.
Define your approach. With a clear understanding of your target audience and messaging strategy, it's time to figure out what format your resume should be. If you have no breaks in your experience or the chronology of your career, then a reverse-chronological resume likely is best. If you have breaks or want to minimize the appearance of certain recent or less-relevant positions, then perhaps a combination format would be the way to go.
Craft your content. Your contact is correct in that your resume should focus on your accomplishments or the areas in which you excelled versus narrating your job description. While it is critical to convey a certain amount of your job duties, it is much more important to focus the reader's time and attention on how you added value to your role. Think about ways you impacted efficiency, productivity or organizational effectiveness. How did you outperform your peers? How can you differentiate yourself from the competition who might have held very similar roles?
Select value-added information. You also are correct in that you do not have to include everything on your resume. You certainly can omit dated experiences that would perhaps unnecessarily age your candidacy and overqualify you for your target positions. Likewise, you also can omit incomplete educational pursuits if they do nothing but highlight what you don't have.
For example, if you went to a trade school that has nothing to do with your current pursuits, then omitting this information helps present a more targeted image of your candidacy to potential employers.
Likewise, it is often smarter to omit partially completed college degrees - especially if you completed only a year or two of general education courses - as this tends to tell an employer, "I don't have a degree" rather than "I have completed half a degree." You have to make that decision based on whether the job of interest requires or simply prefers a degree. If a degree is required, highlighting the fact that you do not have one is not a wise approach. However, if it is simply preferred then you are not likely to be disqualified for not possessing the credential.
Refine your formatting. Taking the time to create a strong visual aesthetic if often overlooked in today's resumes. With hiring managers reviewing hundreds - if not thousands - of resumes for each open position, taking the time to make your content strong and your presentation attractive can go a long way to improve your screening time. With the screening process being as short as four to seven seconds (according to recent surveys) I am sure you can see the importance of not only making your content convey the right message but making the package compel readership and hold interest. I am certain that when you follow these steps - a reflection of the basic principles you learn in Marketing 101 - you will present the right image to potential employers, improving your chances of being seen as a viable candidate to transition back into an employee role. Check out samples on my blog, www.ladybug- design.com/blog , for an illustration of each step of the above process. I wish you job-search success.
Samantha Nolan is a certified professional rsum writer and owner of Ladybug Design, a full-service resume-writing firm. Do you have a resume or job-search question for Dear Sam? Reach Samantha at dearsam@ladybug-design. com. For more about Sam's resume writing services, visit www.ladybug-design.com or call (614) 570-3442 or 1-888-9-LADYBUG (1-888-952-3928).
Dear Sam: I need help constructing my resume. I have owned a small business for four years and want to transition back into an employee/employer role. Most of my experience lies in customer service and administrative positions, but owning my business has given me exposure to managing employees as well as sales and marketing functions.
I read in your Dear Sam blog on your Web site that I might need to take out any education that I did not finish and perhaps remove any education that does not relate to my job search. An associate also suggested that there was a better way to showcase my abilities instead of listing each job followed by my job duties. If you have any advice I'd appreciate it!
- Lori
Dear Lori: It's often difficult to make the sales pitch to convey that, after being an entrepreneur, you are ready to reengage in a more traditional employee/employer role. The following approaches will aid you in this transition and help you sell yourself as a viable candidate.
Define your target. You have to realize that as an entrepreneur and small business owner you were essentially a one-woman-show, Jill-of-all-trades, etc. While this is wonderful for providing exposure to different operational functions, you rarely will find a position in corporate America that requires such a diverse skill set. Because of that, and because the market is incredibly saturated with qualified candidates, you have to define your target position before you sit down to craft your resume.
Understand your audience. With your target defined (administration, customer service, office management, marketing, sales, etc.), you need to figure out what message to convey to your audience in order to prompt action. To do this effectively, review multiple job postings of interest from your targeted field, and become intimately familiar with the language they speak. By that, I mean study the skills, experiences, credentials and all other requirements of these positions, so that when crafting your resume you can speak that same language in the presentation of your background.
Define your approach. With a clear understanding of your target audience and messaging strategy, it's time to figure out what format your resume should be. If you have no breaks in your experience or the chronology of your career, then a reverse-chronological resume likely is best. If you have breaks or want to minimize the appearance of certain recent or less-relevant positions, then perhaps a combination format would be the way to go.
Craft your content. Your contact is correct in that your resume should focus on your accomplishments or the areas in which you excelled versus narrating your job description. While it is critical to convey a certain amount of your job duties, it is much more important to focus the reader's time and attention on how you added value to your role. Think about ways you impacted efficiency, productivity or organizational effectiveness. How did you outperform your peers? How can you differentiate yourself from the competition who might have held very similar roles?
Select value-added information. You also are correct in that you do not have to include everything on your resume. You certainly can omit dated experiences that would perhaps unnecessarily age your candidacy and overqualify you for your target positions. Likewise, you also can omit incomplete educational pursuits if they do nothing but highlight what you don't have.
For example, if you went to a trade school that has nothing to do with your current pursuits, then omitting this information helps present a more targeted image of your candidacy to potential employers.
Likewise, it is often smarter to omit partially completed college degrees - especially if you completed only a year or two of general education courses - as this tends to tell an employer, "I don't have a degree" rather than "I have completed half a degree." You have to make that decision based on whether the job of interest requires or simply prefers a degree. If a degree is required, highlighting the fact that you do not have one is not a wise approach. However, if it is simply preferred then you are not likely to be disqualified for not possessing the credential.
Refine your formatting. Taking the time to create a strong visual aesthetic if often overlooked in today's resumes. With hiring managers reviewing hundreds - if not thousands - of resumes for each open position, taking the time to make your content strong and your presentation attractive can go a long way to improve your screening time. With the screening process being as short as four to seven seconds (according to recent surveys) I am sure you can see the importance of not only making your content convey the right message but making the package compel readership and hold interest. I am certain that when you follow these steps - a reflection of the basic principles you learn in Marketing 101 - you will present the right image to potential employers, improving your chances of being seen as a viable candidate to transition back into an employee role. Check out samples on my blog, www.ladybug- design.com/blog , for an illustration of each step of the above process. I wish you job-search success.
Samantha Nolan is a certified professional rsum writer and owner of Ladybug Design, a full-service resume-writing firm. Do you have a resume or job-search question for Dear Sam? Reach Samantha at dearsam@ladybug-design. com. For more about Sam's resume writing services, visit www.ladybug-design.com or call (614) 570-3442 or 1-888-9-LADYBUG (1-888-952-3928).
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