The Résumé: A Professional Dilemma
Since most of us only have to prepare a Résumé a handful of times during a career, it is a document that evokes tremendous discomfort. French for “Summary,” it is generally a poorly prepared document that attempts to become a biography of sorts rather than what it should be; a vibrant piece of marketing collateral! The Résumé is, or should be, about MARKETING!
A Professional Summary (I hate the word “Résumé” since I have reviewed more than 30,000 during my 30+ years as a “Captain of Industry”) is not a joy to prepare and, as many of you know, is about the most boring bit of writing that one could possibly read. As such, the average DM (hiring Decision-Maker) spends only 2 to 10 seconds quickly skimming for portable skills, keywords and achievements. If none/few are found, into File 13 it goes. Then, to add insult to injury, a Cover Letter is not addressed to the DM, but to “Dear Ladies & Gentlemen,” etc. and another wordy biography is presented. Results: less than 41% of Cover Letters are read. This assumes that your documents passed through the Parsing Software made to reduce the thousands of resumes received down to a much smaller, manageable number based upon, or the lack of, keywords, zip codes, area codes, items that disclose your age, et al.
As a former DM and a seasoned Certified Professional Résumé Writer (CPRW), Certified Employment Interview Professional (CEIP), and Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC), I have worked directly with more than 700 clients over the past 7+ years from virtually all industries and professional levels. In short, EVERYONE needs some direction on the proper preparation and presentation of a true, Professional Summary!
I will provide more useful details about the correct presentation for an effective Professional Summary, however these are the major areas of detail:
1. The Visual Presentation and length/brevity
2. The Content and the usage of Active Language versus Passive Language
3. The Writing itself with poor choices of Style/Font, spelling, grammar, first-person versus third person, et al.
4. The Focus, or lack thereof.
Your Professional Summary is critical as it is the first shot at the position and if it is not prepared correctly and sent correctly to the correct person, then is becomes one of thousands. This has changed dramatically in the past 8 years, or so as a $1,200 ad in the Sunday paper used to draw about 50 resumes and now the Internet postings draw 10 to 12,000 in the first ten days! It’s a whole new world for the career seeker and you had better know how to play the game well as these poorly prepared résumés could stay on various hard-drives for quite some time and literally sabotage your chances of joining an exciting, vibrant organization any time soon. Food for thought… I promise to provide more detail.
Bruce W. Clagg, CPRW, CEIP, CPCC
Certified Professional Résumé Writer
Certified Employment Interview Professional
Certified Professional Career Coach
ADVANCED CAREER SOLUTIONS
Principal
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 281.701.0658
"The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." - Michelangelo
