Fear and Loathing in Your Personal Resume Your Experience - Part Three

?????????????I’ve posted 9 resume hints to help those of you who need to spiff up that document a bit during these challenging times.?And for those of you who have waded through these first nine, the gem is here.?In this post I share the third part of your accomplishment bullet that almost no one ever includes in his/her?resume.?It is the most important item that links your accomplishments to your skills and to your summary statement.

?????????????The secret??The piece missing from almost all resumes (90+% of those I have seen self-written AND professionally done)?is “HOW did you accomplish that?”?Think about this for a moment.?If you can convey exactly how you did something, it gives the prospective employer an idea of how you might operate in his/her company.?It is not enough to tell them what you did and how many dollars you saved them.?It is more important to let them know how you achieved those great things.?They have to work with you 8 hours a day!

?????????????So now I have given you the secret sauce.?I should be done.?However, this part of your accomplishment bullet is just as hard to write as your overall summary statement.?You need to look in the mirror and unbiasedly determine how you performed.?Like the summary statement, most people cannot figure out how they did something and how to write it.?This is where a good listener, colleague or intuitive writer can be of great help.?Let me bring the examples from my last post forward to detail this further.

?????????????In the case of the sales accomplishment, you might state this: “Increased sales by 45% by coordinating and leveraging various vendor expos and views by prospects.”?You just did not get lucky.?You worked via communications, relationship-building, cross-selling, etc.?The reader will infer you did these things just by reading this statement.?Nice!

?????????????For the money-saving effort you want to share, you might say this:?“Saved $1m via the reallocation of staff to other departments and outside companies that met budget and personnel policy initiatives.”?You just did not fire people at will!?You did your best to get people into other jobs – even into other companies!???

?????????????And for the library work, you might have done this:?“Wrote all company procedures, endorsed by staff and management, as critical instructions to implement the new system with no delay in customer services.”?Seems to me like you wrote these so a third grader could read them and make sense of them.?Good for you!?You must be one of those rare birds who can take techno-speak and translate it into English!?You're hired!

?????????????Each accomplishment you attained must contain a “how.”?Your assignment is to find out what that was.?And, it will be hard!?When I explain it to clients, they nod their heads and tell me that they will get this done by tomorrow.?Then, I get a call the next day with “I can’t do this” or, “I have no idea what I did.”?Honestly, I hear this almost 100% of the time.?The only way you can get most of this to the surface is from unbiased questioning and role playing.?Some people find this annoying but most of them learn something else; this is a great way to practice interviewing!?Take the time to get this piece right.?It is too important to ignore.??

?????????????When the prospective employer actually reads your resume in detail, he/she is attempting to validate your skill sets.?The reader wants?to understand and believe what you meant in your summary statement.?The only way you can convey such a thought is by constructing “how did I do that” in every accomplishment.?Do not let him/her guess or assume anything!?The person who does this correctly will be at the negotiations table.

Thomas Fleury is a small business advisor, a resume re-positioner and a facilitator of peer to peer groups for Small Business USA.?He can be reached at [email protected].?Details on LinkedIn at ThomasRFleury?