Running On Empty

For this week's tip, first take a look at this excerpt from a resume:?

March 2019 to July 2020: ?Armored Company Commander?Led an armored company consisting of 90 assigned personnel and $36 million in military equipment as part of an Armored Brigade Combat Team. Managed the maintenance of the company's 20 wheeled and tracked vehicles over and above the Army's 90% readiness standard.?Responsible for the safety, health, well-being, and morale of all company personnel.

• Trained the company on basic fundamental tactics during a one month-long training exercise dispersed throughout three states in the continental United States.
• Created a very unique method to ensure equipment readiness, resulting in 100% accountability and no losses.
• Executed over 10 successful company-level training missions in a dynamic, high-risk environment with the end result being that the company certified for overseas deployment.
• Resolved over 50 previously delinquent organizational equipment maintenance faults within 2 months, ensuring the company’s compliance with Department of Defense published safety standards.
• Developed a new and innovative program to reduce excess inventory that resulted in 25 items of equipment being turned back into the Army’s pipeline, saving $1.2 million in government funds.

Does anything stand out? If you are like many people, you may not have noticed much that is inherently wrong. Yet it does suffer from a malady that we see quite often. It's the proliferation of?empty?words. When we say empty words, we mean those words that don't add value or additional information that is helpful to the reader. To illustrate this, we have put those words in bold in this version.?

March 2019 to July 2020: ?Armored Company Commander??Led an?armored?company consisting of 90?assigned?personnel and $36 million in?military?equipment?as part of an Armored Brigade Combat Team. Managed the maintenance of the company's 20?wheeled and tracked?vehicles?over and?above the Army's 90% readiness standard.?Responsible for the?safety, health,?well-being, and morale?of all?company?personnel.

• Trained the company on?basic?fundamental tactics during a?one?month-long?training?exercise?dispersed?throughout three states?in the continental United States.
• Created a?very?unique method to ensure equipment accountability, resulting in 100% accountability?and no losses.
• Executed?over?10 successful?company-level?training missions in a dynamic, high-risk environment with the?end?result?being?that the company certified for?overseas?deployment.
• Resolved over 50?previously?delinquent?organizational?equipment?maintenance?faults within 2 months, ensuring the company’s compliance with Department of Defense?published?safety standards.
• Developed a?new and?innovative program to reduce excess inventory that resulted in 25 items?of equipment?being turned?back?into the Army’s pipeline, saving $1.2 million?in government funds.

If you were to remove the bolded words, it wouldn't materially affect the substance of the resume. You might wonder why we would care. Several reasons come to mind.

1. Space is a premium on your resume. Generally speaking, it's best to keep your resume to one page. Sometimes eliminating a word or phrase here and there helps eliminate lines from your resume.

2. You want to maximize readability. Hiring managers don't want to waste time reading bloated resumes. Because of that, when it comes to words, less is often better.

To make your resume more readable, do the following.?

1. First, print it out - it's always best to work on a hard copy. That way you can quickly make marks as you go.? Plus you will be less likely to overlook issues on a hard copy compared to digital.
2. Read through each sentence in a slow deliberate manner.?
3. Circle all suspect words. In doing so, focus mostly on descriptor words (adjectives and adverbs) because those are the ones where most issues reside. Also, look for words that have been repeated unnecessarily.?
4. Read it again, this time focusing on phrases or groups of words that?don't add value.? Pay particular attention to prepositional phrases such as "of an Armored Brigade Combat Team" and "in government funds" as noted above.
5. Remove those suspect words and phrases and read the sentence out loud as you go. If it still reads well and contains the essential information, you have probably made a good choice.

Going through these steps can be a laborious process.? But doing so will pay big dividends in the end.