Positioning Statement – A Key Part of Your Resume.
Phillip Powell
I help people find the job they want. Best Resume. Enhanced Interview skills. Power-up Job Searches. Networking for jobs..................................... Mr Job Tracker ( the book) available at Amazon Books.
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Everything in your resume is important, ?but the key to someone’s understanding of you and your background is the Positioning Statement that should appear at the top of your resume. This is the one you should invest time in preparing as it is the “first impression” part of the document which should encourage the reader to look further into your background.
This is a statement about how you want to be seen by the market. This could be a headline and/or a paragraph incorporating a broad overview. For example:
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Senior Executive – Investment Banking
Substantial experience in all aspects of researching, building and managing large scale institutional investor funds.
I have wide experience across the Financial Services sector, with career strengths in industrial and financial research as well as Institutional Banking. I have experience and achievements through the full product lifecycle process for investment products, including high achievements in Business Development and Capital Raising.
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?Note: While the above statement is about a senior executive, the same principles apply exactly to anyone no matter what level, job type or industry you are in.
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Ideally, this statement talks about both your background and your marketable skills – the latter emphasising the particular elements of your skills and experience that are likely to appeal to your target market. This statement should also give some indication of the nature of your ideal job and the benefit that you would bring to an employer.
A Positioning Statement serves the purpose of clarifying for your reader, how you want to be seen by them. The alternative (i.e., no positioning statement) invites the reader to make up their own mind about how they see you, your attributes and your direction. Including a Positioning Statement in your resume is helpful in another way. It is human nature for resume readers to “put people into boxes”. As unfortunate as that may be for individuals with diverse capabilities, it is going to happen anyway, so you might as well define your box rather than have the reader do it for you.
?In a fast moving/high-volume recruitment environment, resumes are often scanned and reviewed by software before they are seen by a real person. The real person may only spend 20 seconds on reviewing the resume in the first instance. The positioning statement and keywords will help to enhance the readability of your resume and make it stand out in a crowded market.
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The Inclusion of Keywords.
Keywords are specific words or phrases used by employers & recruitment consultants as search criteria when looking for candidates in a database. Keywords are also used by recruitment software to match candidate backgrounds to specific job vacancies.
It follows that, in order to give your resume maximum visibility, it needs to contain keywords which reflect the skills, knowledge and attributes you possess and which are also likely to be of relevance to your ideal job and therefore have appeal to the employer or recruitment consultant.
To find the keywords that are relevant for you, write a list of all the skills, knowledge and attributes you possess. Then review job advertisements and job descriptions for positions in which you have some interest – these are likely to contain relevant keywords.? Remember that keywords can work at a high level (e.g. Merchandise Manager) and at the micro level (e.g. Excel skills).
There are two main categories of keywords:
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When employers / consultants search databases they tend to use technical rather than general keywords. So, make sure you are well represented with keywords in both categories.
It is a good idea to put most of your important keywords into the Positioning Statement. This is because you want your resume to have visual appeal once it gets beyond the computerized filters. See the example below (showing the top of the first page of an example resume) in which I have underlined the main keywords.
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Senior Executive – Investment Banking
Substantial experience in all aspects of researching, building and managing large scale institutional investor funds.
I have wide experience across the Financial Services sector, with career strengths in industrial and financial research as well as Institutional Banking, I have experience and achievements through the full product lifecycle process for investment products, including high achievements in Business Development and Capital Raising.
Key Competencies
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Your Positioning Statement is a vital part of your resume so when you have prepared this statement, look online and look for resumes or look at other people’s LinkedIn profiles to get a comparison of what you are saying compared to other people who you respect. Then you might want to even show it to a friend or colleague who knows a bit about your professional discipline to get their impression of how well your Positioning Statement communicates the things that you want to get across.
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That’s all for now? ….? Have a great week.????????????????????????????????????????????? Phillip Powell
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1 天前Great insight brother Phillip! How we position ourselves is so key in terms of landing the job.