Published on: Monday, April 30, 2012
Is Your Résumé Recruiter-Ready?
More than half of the executive résumés that landed on recruiters' desks needed improvement before they could be submitted to a potential employer, according to ExecuNet research, which could cause your application to be delayed or rejected.
Your résumé may be complete, but is it optimized for the right opportunities? This topic evoked an active discussion on ExecuNet's member blog, and the executive community shared their tips from both candidate and hiring manager perspectives:
"Highlight RESULTS. The bottom line is simply answering what in your history shows that you are the one who will make that recruiter look like a hero by finding the one person who will make the decision-maker's life easier."
"Your opening statement should directly imply or state what opportunity you are looking for. If you are a jack-of-all-trades don't expect a recruiter to figure out your career objective. Say it!"
"Today's effective résumés are different than five or even 10 years ago. They're personal marketing documents that brand, package and pre-sell you. At the same time, they are telling a compelling story, are reader-friendly, skimable (written in bullets not paragraphs), focused on accomplishments with metrics and use 'keywords' so you're easily found by recruiters."
"Provide a good chronology of employment. Trying to hide gaps in employment only brings attention to them. Instead, accept reality and have a good explanation. Your honesty and forthrightness will be appreciated."
"You have less than five minutes to catch a recruiter's attention. Quantify your experience wherever possible. Cite numerical figures, such as monetary budgets/funds saved, time periods/efficiency improved, lines of code written/debugged, numbers of machines administered/fixed, etc. which demonstrate progress or accomplishments due directly to your work."
"Although many people are totally capable of writing their own résumé, I would definitely recommend talking to a professional résumé writer to find out what companies are looking for today in your résumé."We've collected the best advice, suggestions and tips from senior-level executives in this white paper:
Peer Point-of-View: How to Make Your Résumé Recruiter-Ready.
Click here to download it with our compliments and let us know what you think.
Robyn Greenspan
Robyn Greenspan is ExecuNet's Chief Content Officer, where she is responsible for setting and driving the editorial content engagement strategy across the private business network's publications and expert-led programming. She is also a Huffington Post blogger. You can follow her on Twitter @RobynGreenspan
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