Job search is simply marketing the assets, skills, and knowledge you have to a new employer. This month’s resume makeover study was a marketing professional but his resume was not doing the job of making him stand out in the crowd. The Before resume provided a litany of job duties but did not communicate the value the client could offer a new employer. The job seeker could not see his own performance value or communicate it aggressively in writing. We stepped in and examined his career history, digging for golden nuggets of information that he had overlooked. Our After resume version successfully positioned him for a step up the career ladder by leveraging his extensive background and accomplishments.

The before resume had been built using a standard resume format common in the market. It was boring and looked like about a million other resumes that cross hiring managers’ desks every day. We changed that up to be more striking to the eye with bold fonts and some conservative, yet interesting design elements. We wanted to catch initial attention then hook the reader with the content, especially in the summary at the beginning.

In the after version, we started with a branding line that clearly spoke to the client’s goal rather than starting with a sub-header like “Profile” as the Before version had. The Before version used three phrases at the beginning that were related but could also be very distinct in and of themselves – Business Development, Marketing, and Technology Campaigns. The role the client wanted blurred using these three phrases. We couldn’t tell right from the start the level or type of position he was targeting.

We built a strong summary focused on performance and then maximized keyword richness with an extensive core competencies section. The client had performed all of these things at some time during his career, and by showing them here, we communicated his depth of experience to support his leadership goal. We also employed a little formatting trick of arranging the keywords in an inverted pyramid, subconsciously guiding the eye down the page to the Professional Experience section.

The client led off with the education section after a short profile in the Before version. When the education is placed before experience, it communicates to the reader the job seeker is a new graduate (read “little experience”). That was certainly not the case with this client and the new degree was an advanced degree – an MBA. While an important asset for a senior professional, it is not the main qualification hiring managers seek. Experience is the main course and advanced degrees are considered “dessert”, so we relocated Education to the end of the document. Additionally, we removed the grade point average since it was not above 3.5 and the degree was not attained within the last 12 months.

The main content of the old resume was very focused on different responsibilities the client held at different companies. Missing were actual results of his actions. His information had not been quantified, nor were any performance measurements brought forward. We changed all that and brought in hard achievements with metrics to show the reader the client’s capabilities. For example, at Company 2, he mentioned “sold and developed new business” but we made that fact really pop by saying “Led sales team to exceed quota and business growth forecasts by 7%”. Employers judge future potential by past performance. We wanted to show how his abilities had made a difference. Performance-based information will be what makes this candidate stand out in the crowd of job seekers pounding the pavement these days.

A keen eye might see the job title for Company 3 in the Before version is misspelled. The word “manger” has been used instead of the correct word “manager”. The client didn’t catch it and the spell check function didn’t either. After all, “manger” is a perfectly spelled word, right? Spelling errors and other mechanical goofs are very easy to commit, especially when you have spent hours and hours working on a document as this client had. The brain doesn’t register errors but rather “sees” what it thinks is there. We made sure the final version of the After resume was proofread carefully by a professional proofreader who was unfamiliar with the client or the document. It’s a simple but crucial quality control effort that every job seeker should make with the resume.

The end result was a quick hire for the client not only in his targeted job type, but also at the level he desired. The overall lesson of this project is it is difficult to see the forest for the trees when preparing your own resume, even if you are a marketing professional by trade. We were happy to step in and help this job seeker get his career marketing on track to reach a successful end.

About the Author:

Alesia Benedict is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and Job and Career Transition Coach (JCTC). Her team provides professionals with customized, branded resumes and career marketing documents. Her and her firm’s credentials include being cited by JIST Publications as one of the "best resume writers in North America," quoted as a career expert in The Wall Street Journal, and published in a whopping 25+ career books. Her team has aided more than 100,000 job seekers since 1994. All resume writers on her team are certified writers. Use the form to the right to upload your resume for a free resume evaluation. Their services come with a wonderful guarantee -- interviews in 30 days or they'll rewrite for free!