Rethinking Old Résumé Rules

Remember the old days of résumés – standard objective sentences (“To get a job utilizing my strong interpersonal and communication skills); lots of bullet points about what your jobs entailed (“Grow sales by 50 percent”); and making sure to squish it all on one page?

Forget those days. “Most people are better than their résumés,” claims Robert Dagnall, the Résumé Guru (www.résuméguru.com), a résumé writer with 16 years experience. “The problem is they don’t know how to portray what they have to offer.”

Find a New Focus

“Too many people write about themselves, about what they want,” Dagnall says. He points out that when an employer is reading résumés, they’re seeking to find the solution to a problem: there’s an open spot, how can I best fill it? Also, in today’s market, employers are reviewing more résumés than ever per position. How a candidate presents him or herself can make all the difference.

Wrote for your audience Dagnall says. “Everything on there should focus on the employer’s needs and interests. It should be written in terms of them, not an ‘I want.’ Show someone how they benefit from it,” he says

A first step is to brainwash yourself of what you know about objectives. The objective is not about what you want. It’s about what you can do. “You have to start out with some kind of specific and distinctive statement about how you can add value to the employer,” Dagnall says. If you can cite a specific position there, even better.

Make it Snappy

A key thing to remember, according to Dagnall, is that you have just a few seconds to capture an employer’s interest. Wendy Gelberg, owner of Gentle Job Search and author of “The Successful Introvert: How to Enhance Your Job Search and Advance Your Career” (Happy About, 2008) points out that many employers are reading these on a Blackberry or other small-screened device. Put the most powerful information at the top of the page.

“In the first few seconds… convey to them what you can do for them, how you can make more money, where you can make a contribution,” Dagnall says. Whether it’s called an objective, summary, profile or qualifications statement, “What it has to do is connect with them and gain their interest,” Dagnall says. “The rest of the résumé then reinforces that first impression with experience, training, volunteer work, etc. It’s all proof to what you said upfront.”

Don’t Fret the Format

Going back to those old days again, many of us had it hammered home that if your résumé is more than one page you’ll never get a job. “It’s important to have a clean and readable document,” Dagnall says. But, “Sweat the details of what you accomplished. I think people focus on appearances and worry more about the formatting than the content.”

He recommends “chunking” the information with small and focused statements. “There are no absolute rules except tell the truth,” Dagnall says. He suggests a brief statement then a few bullet points supporting how you accomplished results that are relevant to what the employer needs.

As for how long your résumé should be, “The content should drive the presentation,” says Dagnall. If your first job out of college was 20 years ago and irrelevant to what you’re doing now, perhaps you don’t need it on there. “The rule of thumb basically is what you need is whatever information supports your candidacy for the next job,” Gelberg says. She notes, however, if you’re re-entering the workforce after a hiatus, you’ll probably have those on there.

“Make sure you prioritize what’s most relevant,” Dagnall says. “Make your most important points on page one. Page two is supporting material, maybe your education, training, volunteer work. Page two is the rest of the story but the big guns should be done by the first page.”

And don’t just blindly chop off the bottom of your résumé. On his Web site, Dagnall illustrates “the coolest job description I’ve written,” which was his account of his experience as the “submarine captain” – driving a ride at Disneyland. “When I was young and thought I would be funny, I would end my résumé with the description at the end,” he says. “People went nuts for that. But humor can be a dangerous thing and you want to focus on the value you offer more than you want to be cute.”

That said, he notes, if you’ve done something extraordinary early on or on the side, it’s worth noting as supporting information but you don’t want to lead with it.

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