Is Your Resume TLDR Ready?

Owning your resume preparation process and why it's important.

With my graduation from full-time work, I embarked on a resume overhaul. While I am not a professional recruiter, I am keen to share some insights gained from this experience.

The Power of Personal Involvement

While hiring a professional resume writer may be tempting, I do not recommend it.

I found immense value in personally reviewing each draft.

Your resume is a narrative of your professional journey. With each revision you refine the story, deciding which chapters carry the most weight.

But how do you decide what’s essential?

When assisting others with their resume, I ask them to talk me through their jobs. By encouraging them to “dumb it down”, we strip away industry jargon and focus on identifying transferable skills.

Transferrable skills (i.e. transformation, business acumen, influencing) are particularly important for the board resume when making a jump from executive to non-executive roles.

Find a devil's advocate to stress test your drafts. This can be someone in your network, a professional, or even AI tools.

I was fortunate to have the support of Jesmin Tan-Chua (ICF-PCC) throughout this journey. Despite changing most of what we initially drafted together, her insightful challenges ultimately bolstered my confidence in claiming my achievements.

Engaging in multiple iterations (I found a minimum of three drafts necessary), not only refines your resume but also serves as valuable preparation for interviews. Through this process, your confidence in discussing the included points becomes palpable, allowing pride in your achievements to shine through.

Quantify Results to Showcase Your Achievements

Crafting a standout resume goes beyond generic descriptions. Experts emphasize the importance of quantifying results to effectively showcase achievements.

While I was able to articulate achievements within my function, I struggled when it came to claiming achievements in team projects.

For instance, as a CFO, I drove the financial strategy and I confidently state “Established working capital framework resulting in 20% improvement in cash conversion cycle.”

However, expressing team accomplishments such as “launched four new products and reduced the new products development project pipeline from hundreds to teens” gave me pause, as new product development was not my functional responsibility.

I had to examine the role I played in the process. I recognized our product launches were stuck, so I pulled a team together to get unstuck. It was the multi-functional team and compelling risk-adjusted business case that enabled the product launches.

Similarly, a friend in a chief of staff function found it challenging to claim his achievement in leading long-term strategic planning. He downplayed his role in coordination and consolidating inputs from the functional leaders.

How do you quantify results?

It’s much easier to capture the financial impact that lands on the financial statements. For example, sourcing strategies that resulted in $50 million in annual savings.

However, capturing efficiency gains takes a bit more thought.

Let's say you introduced a process that took preparation time from 5 days down to 4 days, that’s a 20% efficiency gain.

There is no global definition. Making an assumption is better than leaving it generic. You will have the opportunity to explain your claims during the interview.

Crafting Compelling Headlines

In academia, we are taught to structure our writing with introductory, body, and concluding paragraphs. In business, however, I advocate adopting a newspaper-style structure.

Use headlines to grab attention, then provide details based on the reader's interest. Even if they don't delve deeper, they'll still grasp the gist of your message.

TLDR Summary

Whether you choose a chronological or functional resume, there are three components to make a first impression.

• Headline: Captures your brand essence. For me, it’s “Purpose-Driven C-Suite & Independent Board Director”
• Introductory paragraph. Your elevator pitch, a chance to tell your story. Focus on the what and the why. Highlight three core skills.
• TLDR bullet points (too long, didn’t read). After refining my bio, I fell it love with it. Each paragraph told as story leading to my proud achievements. When someone told me that my one page bio was too long, I was paralized to make edits. I finally managed to showcase my three to five skills for busy readers.

It’s easier to come up with ten core skills, but picking just three is very challenging.

Beat the System

In our digital age, CVs are often processed through applicant tracking systems.

To ensure the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) captures the information accurately, use a readable fonts like Times New Roman and Calibri and avoid over formatting (underline, italic).

LinkedIn, as the largest professional networking site, is a must-have as your online resume and personal branding tool.

LinkedIn allows you to add up to 50 skills to your profile. Maximimze your SOE by filling in the maximum skills using keywords.

I thought it was hard to summarize my skills down to three core skills, it was equally hard coming up with 50 skills.

Use the System

While AI tools like ChatGPT aren't resume builders, they're excellent for stimulating thoughts and exploring action verbs.

Once your resume is completed, run it through Chat GPT and ask “what type of role be suitable for this resume?” For me it was was CEO, CFO, CSO.

You can also research profile of leaders in your field.

There are even tools to rate the friendliness of my profile photo. As a result, I selected a differnt photo for LinkedIn versus my Executive Bio.

The Final Package

• Executive Bio - this serves as the enticing introduction to you. It should remain sharp, results-oriented and captures not only what you do but why. Share this with people you already know and they can use it as a tool to make further introductions.
• Resume (CV) - I have a chronological resume but I also include a side bar of TLDR bullet of my core skills. Quantifiable accomplishments sounds more believable so put numbers behind the achievements.
• Cover Letter - This is where the customization happens. Use the language of the job posting to help you make it past any automated screening software. This is your opportunity to convince the hiring manager that you are interested in “the” job, not just any job.

Remember, these documents are ever-evolving. Tailor them to your ambitions and the audience you're addressing.

In today's fast-paced world, attention is scarce. Make sure your resume tailors to different types of audiences.

Be proud of your achievements and share your story with confidence.