Accomplishments August 13, 2008
Posted by hardly Resumes
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Everyone has accomplishments. Things they've done that indicate they did something for themselves, their team, their organization, their company.
A pet peeve of mine is the "Accomplishments" section on a resume. To me, they are redundant, muddle your story, and significantly reduce your crispness as a candidate.
Your accomplishments should be tied to the roles where they occurred. And, it is ideal if all roles have at least one significant accomplishment that is either operationally or financially tied to the business:
- Winner of Upselling Contest
- Reduced bug counts by 20%
- Improved Client Satisfaction scores by 25% and recurring revenue by 20%.
- Reduced team churn by 50%
- Increased deal revenue by 50% in my first year, and 150% in my second.
One of the side benefits of accomplishments is that when you go back and read them again, you get that big burst of feeling good all over again. Good stuff when you're pounding the pavement looking for a new job!
re: For ‘Confused in Austin’ August 8, 2008
Posted by hardly Resumes
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Louise Fletcher at Blue Sky Resumes has a nice post today about what makes for a boring resume.
Key sentence, "In other words, what are the unique blend of personality traits, skills and experiences that make this web designer different from the other people who sent resumes?"
Exactly.
Good example of a a video resume! August 7, 2008
Posted by hardly Resumes
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If you haven't seen it yet, here's Paris Hilton's ad for President.
I'm not bringing this up to be a whore for page-view attention. Really, I'm not.
I am bringing it up because it's a kick-ass video ad for a job. And, it's also the prime reason why we won't see video ads springing up everywhere. Why, you ask?
- You don't have drop-of-the-hat access to a camera & lighting crew that knows what it's doing.
- You probably can't hire a professional writer at a moment's notice to come up with great dialog.
- You probably can't read off a teleprompter and make it almost look like you're not.
- You're probably not as hot as Paris Hilton (hey, her words, not mine!)
But, if you did have all these at your disposal, you'd do it. In a heartbeat.
It would be, um, hot.
And I'm not using celebrity videos to up my page hits. Really, I'm not.
A little branding August 1, 2008
Posted by hardly Resumes
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What's more powerful than saying you worked for a famous company/organization on your resume?
Copying and pasting the logo into your resume.
Applying the Opposite Test July 22, 2008
Posted by hardly Resumes
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So, you read my post about the Opposite Test and thought, "Yeah, good idea for all those losers who aren't good at writing their resume (but I'm great, so I'm not going to worry about it)".
Read the following lines from resumes I've seen recently:
- I thrive on problem-solving, planning, budgeting, and supporting complex projects.
- Self motivated individual, with strong leadership, communication, and organization skills.
- Sound knowledge of Object-Oriented Programming and Concepts, Networks and Databases.
- Proven ability to consistently design and maintain secure, high-performance infrastructure in support in a scalable and highly available production environments
- Accomplished, entrepreneurial leader seasoned in spearheading the development and marketing of diverse software and web products.
- Highly motivated and creative technical professional who offers many years of accomplished experience in all phases of the software development lifecycle.
What do you think: Are these differentiating statements? Would you call any one of these people for an interview based on their ability to stand out and show you that they can do something great for you? That they are enthusiastic about your open position?
Put your thinking caps on boys & girls, because there's going to be a test. Send in your resume and see if you get called!
Apply the opposite test July 21, 2008
Posted by hardly Resumes
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Sometimes, you just need to say, "Yeah, vanilla is a great flavor." Or, "Gosh, didn't Toyota knock it out of the park w/the Prius?" And of course, "Guy Kawasaki sure knows how to write a good business book!"
I began reading "The Art of The Start" last week for a project I'm working on. While the book is ostensibly about what one needs to do to get a company going, there nuggets for everyone.
For those of you out looking for a job, one entry you should pay attention to is, "Apply the Opposite Test", pp 39.
Guy's point is that most companies describe their product(s) in terms that other companies use as well. So, you should describe your product in a way that is opposite that of the competition in order to stand out.
Here's the paragraph to pay attention to: "For example, it would be fine to describe your product as 'intuitive, secure, fast, and scalable' if your competition describes its product as 'hard-to-use, vulnerable, slow, and limited.' However, this probably isn't the case, so you're saying nothing."
Same applies for candidates resumes - you're a product, too!
“Before you write your resume” July 10, 2008
Posted by hardly Resumes
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Nice post by Billie Sucher about things to think about/do before you re-write your resume.
The one thing she did not state overtly, but it's heavily implied, is that your resume helps to brand you, helps to make you stand out from the rest of the Baking Soda on the shelf.
