• Overview
• Career Management
  • Career Planning
  • The Resume
  • The Resume Cover Letter
  • Interview Process
• Working With A Recruiter
• Relocation Services
  • Relocation Tools
• Capabilities Assessments
• Career Opportunities
• Submit Resume

Candidate Services

The Resume

• Resume Template

The resume is your first chance to show a potential employer or recruiter that you are a highly polished executive in your industry. Remember that a well-written resume won't get you the job, but a poorly written resume will assuredly eliminate you. We recommend that you develop a resume keeping in mind the following guidelines.

Resume Preparation

Top-level candidates have career direction. They accept new positions; take on new responsibilities, and even volunteer for special projects at the office because they understand how it will impact their careers. Your objective is where you can showcase your career direction to potential employers. Try to keep it no longer than two sentences.

To help you develop a strong career objective that you can be committed to, think about:

• Where to do you want to be professionally 5 years from now?
• What skills will you need to develop to get there?
• What projects, positions, teams, or companies will allow for you to develop those skills?
• What skills need to be developed first?
• Why is this career objective important to you?
• Have you talked about your career objective with your family? Are they behind you?

Career Path

For most positions, we recommend that you put your chronological career path first.

Some people like to put education credentials first. We feel that it depends upon the industry. Typically, with highly technical positions, or with career paths that require advanced education levels to excel; it will make sense to put educational credentials and accomplishments before the career path.

Your career path information should be chronologically organized starting with your present employer and position. Try and use no more than two or three sentences to outline your basic duties and responsibilities.

Employers do not want to have to hunt for information that will tell them why they should hire you. Therefore, use bullet points to outline your major accomplishments. Most executives are looking for individuals who can make an immediate impact.

Executives think in terms of three basic impacts:

• Maximizing profits
• Optimizing cost structures
• Increasing revenues.

Decision-makers will be looking at the impact you brought to your past positions in terms of quantifiably documenting your progress from /to in what time frame. For example: Increased revenues from $ 100 million to $ 120 million, and improvement of $ 20 million or 20 % over three years.

To help you develop a list of accomplishments, consider the following:

• What major projects have you worked on that no one else wanted? What was the end result ?
• What problems or challenges did you face that stretched your skills and permitted you to grow?
• What projects did you work on that helped your company generate revenue? What was the amount?
• What projects did you work on that helped your company control costs? What was the impact?
• Have any people that you managed excelled?
• Have you been honored with any company awards? Describe what helped you achieve the award.
• Have you been honored with any industry awards? Describe what helped you achieve the award.

Limit your bullet points under each position to two or three that reflect the skills and abilities that you feel identify with what the employer is looking for in a candidate. If you are working with a recruiter, they can help you in this area.

Education

Organize your educational path chronologically starting with your most recent formal education first. Be sure to include any specific accomplishments, awards, or clubs in which you participated.

List any continuing education classes you feel appropriate. You might want to list various computer training you have had, night school classes you have taken, or even seminars you have attended.

Hobbies

What do you like to do outside of work? Employers like to see well-rounded people. Workaholics do not always make the best candidates. Rather than just list the activities or groups you are involved with, try pulling out specific points of responsibility that relate to what a company may view as being of value to their organization. For example, if you are the Treasurer for the local 4H club, be sure to highlight your fiscal responsibility.

Resume additional thoughts

• Use short sentences.
• Be direct.
• Use bullet points to isolate specific points of interest.
• Highlight position titles and company names.
• Don't try to fit too much information on one page. It will look cluttered and be hard to read.
• Use a clean font that will fax with clarity.
• Have several people proofread your document.
• Have a copy of your resume ready to e-mail as a Word document.
• Use descriptive words that help to paint a visual picture of what you can do and who you are.
• Don't put your resume in a fancy cover.
• Spell check your document.

References

Be sure to provide at least three business references. If you don't want to list anyone from your current employer, think about customers, vendors, or competitors that you may have dealt with at one time or another.

If you are considering a career change and would like to discuss your career objectives, please use our online Resume Submittal Format.