Converting your resume to a marketing brochure

Whether you are a CEO or mid senior professional, you are lucky if you get 15 seconds quick read first time hiring manager or headhunter looks at your resume &/or LinkedIn profile. The more diverse & vintage experience you have, the more it becomes difficult & frustrating to communicate a compelling value which makes your career story standout amongst the entire pool of  candidates. Whether you hire a professional resume writer or write resume DIY, it should showcase value you have created for your current/previous employer at lightning speed.

Therefore  most resumes of senior folks & C-suites include too much information that outlines all aspects of job description with a handful of achievements. The end result is prospective employers find it difficult to evaluate a potential fit given that too much information is available & eventually decides to give the resume a miss.

Most of these job seekers missed out on showcasing big picture. Building a forward resume can be compared with selecting a car. When choosing a car to buy which in itself is a big investment, you look at price, Do the car has features which are considered as must haves? Does the car have airbags? What is the ground clearance? How big is after sales/service network? Ultimately you look at the big picture- Does car is rich in safety & entertainment features? Does it provide a premium look? If the print/online brochure tick the right boxes, you are seriously going to consider purchasing that particular model.

In essence, the decision to purchase a car is akin to linkedIn/resume reading. In both cases, big picture is what makes you give a serious thought after initial evaluation.

Converting a big picture into a resume & linkedIn profile means focusing on your achievements. For instance if you work in sales, showcasing how your actions helped increase sales by X % or improve market share by y % will help prospective employers evaluate how you can help them meet their annual business goals.

However if you work managing & directing team spanning operations, HR, administration & finance, you must dig deeper since the results/benefits you generated are often hidden & indirect.

How do you portray a big picture?

1. What achievements makes you proud:  

Recall your noteworthy achievements? Did you help the organization minimise losses/prevented the organisation from losing money? Did you achieve the same work with fewer people(productivity)? Did you help them develop an additional source of revenue?  All these achievements will showcase the reader how can make that big impact in your next role

2. Did you save money? 

Saving money is as important as making money! Did you help in getting discount while purchasing raw materials from vendors? Did you negotiate with financial institutions to reduce the finance cost? Or restructured a process which optimised the money spent- By converting savings into dollar terms or percentages, you can showcase how your actions made a considerable financial impact. This is specifically important when you are working in operations, quality or finance where benefits you generated are not clearly visible.

3. Did you save time?

Time saving is a huge value add for the organisation looking to improve their operational efficiency? So did you standardise or automate a process which helped in delivering the same results with less man hours.Such savings should be quantified & mentioned in your resume.

4. Did your improved customer/employee satisfaction level?

When employee morale is down or customer retention & satisfaction is taking a toll, readers would be excited to learn of your initiative in improvements in customer retention or fall in employee attrition. If you can somehow quantify these improvements/satisfaction level, it can be great highlight in your resume.

5. Did you make some transformational contribution to your organisation?

Although it is very difficult to evaluate an individual contribution to the financial & business well being of the company. Take a look at the company’s performance during your tenure with them in terms of revenue, market share, growth, ARPu, no customers. Did your company grow or remained as-is when the industry was down. Mentioning your part of team effort in contributing to companies achievement will portray your role.

I generally use these questions to uncover career potential of my clients & make their resume a marketing brochure.

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