Your resume is your first impression to everyone who gets to decide how much you will be paid. Sounds important, doesn’t it? Today we begin with a look at what a resume is responsible for and what a resume is not responsible for. It’s important to get this out of the way because a significant amount of resumes floating around out there seem to be without purpose or geared towards things that you should not realistically expect a few hundred words on paper to do for you. If you were to spend your day editing resumes or combing over them to fill a position, you would get the impression that a resume is the most boring way to describe the most forgettable people who have never lived.

You may have heard people tell you not to write a (shitty) obituary:

My f-f-father was a great man…….he…designed websites for clients on a contract basis.

We’d need another casket If that’s how you chose to describe my father at his funeral. We will focus on what you should write in your work history next week, but for now do not expect a resume to get your entire life story, or your career,  on to one face of a sheet of paper (or 2, or 5). You are wasting space talking about irrelevant details if those positions or accomplishments have nothing to do with the job you are applying for. Ideally, every bullet on your resume should make every employer say “YES! I NEED SOMEONE THAT CAN DO THIS.” At the very worst, every bullet on your resume should only take a TINY leap of faith to make someone say “OKAY, I COULD SEE HOW SOMEONE WITH THOSE SKILLS WOULD BE SUCCESSFUL AT THAT THING I NEED DONE.”  If you can’t imagine either of these reactions, you have some phrases on your resume that could be removed or edited.

It Can’t Make Me Love You

You also might have a section or two that could be removed or edited. Have you ever heard someone say “I’m not trying to brag but….” only to hear them brag? There are tons of resumes with Skills sections that are full of people not trying to brag, yet describing themselves as team players or having strong business acumen or even being a *gulp* proven self-starter. PRACTICE TIME: If you have a skills section on your resume, replace “Skills“ with “I’m not trying to brag, but…” and see how hard you have to try not to punch yourself in the face. Too many Skills sections are just self-aggrandizing words that could not possibly be proved on a sheet of paper. Tell me again –how does that phrase prove you have initiative? The interview is where you would present and prove your soft skills. If you are an effective communicator, say it right the first time at the interview. If you are a self-starter, get the conversation going at the interview. If you can’t prove it on a resume, it’s wasting space on your resume. If your Skills section is mostly telling the employer what you think about yourself, its time to do something else with that space. Your resume is not for you, its about you.

It Can Make Me Need You

Let’s talk about what your resume is: the main document that someone considers when they decide if you should be invited to an interview. A successful resume is one that gets the interview. At best, it makes the employer say “I NEED TO LOCK THIS PERSON DOWN BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE DOES,” at worst, a successful resume makes them say “Let’s see if someone with all this experience could string a few sentences together” –even if they said they were a great communicator on their resume.

To make someone have either of these reactions, you should be showing them what they want to see. When you’re applying for a job, you know what they want to see because you already saw it –the job positing.  You know what position they are hiring for, what the job description looks like, and what the qualifications are. This is what they need to see: demonstrated success in the role they need and an applicant that clearly meets the minimum qualifications. Just regurgitate the job description using your experiences. Show them a reflection of the qualifications in a you-tinted mirror.  When your resume is targeted like this, it gives the employer the impression that you have always been moving towards this position and that they are lucky to have found someone who so closely matches what they need. So what if you haven’t actually been spending the last five years trying to be a lead barista? Your resume is not for you, it’s about you.

The next article will be the first in a three part series that details what needs to be on your resume and how to word it so that an individual is inclined to seek more information from you in the form of an interview. We’ll look at how the top third of your resume is key in making sure a potential employer reads the whole thing and at least gives you a chance to be considered.