When Should You have a Resume? Can a Master Resume Hurt You?

When Should You have a Resume? Can a Master Resume Hurt You?

Have you ever thought about the process of buying supplies and equipment for a company? Simply put, the company determines it needs something, develops a Request for Proposal (RFP) that communicates the specifications of what they seek, and advertises the RFP. Then they receive and review the proposals sent by companies that want to do business.

When a company posts a job ad, they essentially follow the same process: advertise what they need and then compare the proposals (resumes) that are submitted, to find the best ones.

To win the opportunity of an interview, a resume must address every specification listed in the job ad. That includes more than the training and certifications and the required years of experience. Most job ads list the duties or tasks to be performed by the person to be hired. Most job ads also embed clues as to the personality and work traits that they hope to find. In business lingo, they are listing KSAOs – knowledge, skills, abilities, and other (personality, work traits, tech-savvy).

Your task is to identify every item (KSAO) in the ad and then list how you match what they seek in your resume.

Here is an example: The company states they want someone with three years of experience. You have 16 years. What do you show on the resume that you are preparing for that opportunity?

You have 3+ years. Sixteen, if you listed your total experience, is not three. The company may use a computer system to look for matches, and you just lost out.

Another example: The company states they want someone who can communicate in a specific language. The language is English, and you are writing your resume in English, so you assume that demonstrates your ability. If you do not describe your skills in English, you may miss the requirement, and that may result in a lower score.

A third example: the job ad lists 23 activities the company wants the new employee to do. Do you have a resume that lists where you have done similar things or taken training that prepared you to handle each responsibility?

Chances are, if you have a ‘master resume,’ it does not match the exact specifications of any one job ad. Your ‘master resume’ may harm your chances. In fact, master resumes may eliminate you from consideration because you did not know what to feature that matters to the reader with a specific need in mind.

So, let’s retire the idea of having a master resume that you copy and tweak, deleting and revising as you go.

Today, you could be better off having a business card with a link to your LinkedIn profile for use when someone asks if you have a resume before you have read the description of the job they are trying to fill. (Informal conversations, job fairs, and social networking opportunities can all be times when you are asked if you have a resume. Just say no!

Exchange business cards and ask if the company has a job description you could see. Offer to prepare a resume in response to their needs. Then, do a thorough analysis of the job - remember that you are reading a Request for Proposal, and your task is to respond to every characteristic (KSAOs) that is mentioned.

By the way, as you analyze the job ad, pay little attention to how the ad is designed. There may be clues in the first paragraph, the footnotes, anywhere. Sometimes the ad is laid out with section headers that focus your attention. You are better off ignoring the headers and reading every word to find words describing the ideal candidate!

I recommend that you design a two-column table. Title the first column YOU SEEK. Enter each characteristic found in the ad in a row. Review your analysis to ensure you picked up everything mentioned in the ad! Now, title the second column I OFFER. For each item, describe what training you have had or what experience you have had. Be detailed – when did you do it, what did you do, and how can you quantify what you have done?

When you finish this two-column table, you will have assessed how well you fit. Then, use the table to know exactly what to put in the resume you will create for this one opportunity. Please avoid the temptation to use an old resume with the hope that you can alter it sufficiently to meet the needs of this one particular search! Your task is to know what the company seeks and to describe yourself in terms of what they seek – not what you think is most compelling about yourself.

So, if they seek two years of experience and you have 12, indicate that you have two-plus years. If they prefer that you are bilingual in Spanish and English, you describe your volunteer work or workplace role translating and list that business English classes you took online or in school or college. Remember that you are documenting, not just claiming that you can communicate.

If you will gather all the history of your training and things you have done (not just what you have accomplished in paid jobs) in one document, you can use this as your resource guide each time you evaluate a job ad. This autobiography should trace your life from your early teens to the present. No experience is too random – capture all your memories, add all the accomplishments listed in your evaluations, include every course taken formally and through self-study, and retain all results of assessments such as the Onet Interest Profiler and others. Make sure your autobiography is fact-checked and spell-checked. Then, when a job ad lists something, you can consult your autobiography for an item to copy and paste into the proposal (resume) that you plan to send. Now you have a good chance of qualifying for the next step – the interview.

Here is the process:

1.????Build your autobiography and delete that old master resume, so you are not tempted to make a new copy to edit.

2.????Excel at analyzing job ads and creating a two-column analysis.

3.????Write a proposal (resume) that is freshly crafted for this one ad (RFP).

Now you are using a business-savvy way of showing how you can meet the needs of someone who seeks your time and talent.

Contact me if I can assist you in this process.

--Dr. Mary M. Rydesky, SHRM-SCP

https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/mrydesky/