A Resume With An Attitude

If you want to get an employer's attention, you need to write a resume with an attitude. You can bet other job candidates are writing excellent resumes, so you need to do so also. What does it take to write an excellent resume? I could say that it takes time and effort, but that is a given. Instead, let's focus on some important details that some resume-writers miss.

Attention-getting resumes are those that grab the reader's attention and hold it through the end of the last period on the page. What you have to determine is the words and phrases that are going to capture the employer's attention. You have to appeal to the employer's needs – and satisfy them with your qualifications and accomplishments.

Review the ad or job vacancy notice and determine what the employer is specifically looking for. Then, match your skills, point for point with those needs. Either speak to those skills with something within your resume or in the cover letter, but do not leave the employer wondering if you have everything he/she needs in an employee.

When writing or updating your resume to meet the employer's needs, you are focusing, or targeting your resume to that one job and that one employer. That is far more meaningful and beneficial than submitting a generic resume in the hopes that the employer can figure out what you are capable of doing.

Be specific and be bold, but also be honest.

One of the ways to be bold AND honest is to state not only what you have done for previous employers, but also how you accomplished your goals, if you had to overcome obstacles to achieve those goals and specifically how those goals helped the organization for which you worked. Specifically – state how you saved the company money, improved efficiencies, or increased revenue.

Employers want to know the bottom line. Give them the bottom line. If you managed a $500,000 operating budget and found a way to decrease overhead by 18%, then be specific and state that. Those numbers carry more weight than any two paragraphs you could write about the tasks you performed.

You need a resume with an attitude – so inject some of that attitude into the resume you have or start by creating a new resume from scratch. Be bold. Capture the employer's attention and KEEP IT.