by Louise Kursmark, MRW, JCTC, CEIP, CCM
Award-winning resume writer, career consultant, and author (18 career books), Louise Kursmark helps executives in transition develop powerful, distinctive, and highly strategic career marketing documents. She is a frequent speaker to corporate, peer, and jobseeker audiences, a regular contributor to top executive sites, and a founding Board member of Career Masters Institute. Among her multiple certifications, she was the first person worldwide to earn Master Resume Writer status. Contact her at LK@yourbestimpression·com or www·yourbestimpression·com.
A good executive resume is concise, focused, well organized, and contains powerful accomplishment statements. What’s more, a good executive resume clearly communicates areas of expertise and is easy to skim for essential details such as work history and education. It is a useful tool for recruiters and hiring authorities to assess initial match with an available opening, and it is a handy reference for networking contacts.
As a job seeker, you are competing with other talented executives who have worked hard to produce an effective resume. In fact, many executive resumes fall into the “good” category. Wouldn’t it be better, then, to advance your resume from “good” to “great”?
A great resume stands out and grabs attention both at a quick glance and then a deeper, more thoughtful review. A great resume tells more than where you’ve been and what you’ve done – it communicates your executive brand, tells why and how you’ve accomplished what you have, and clearly distinguishes you from competitors who have equally strong backgrounds.
Other articles in this e-book address how to write a great positioning statement, communicate your brand, and tell the accomplishment stories that will sell your capabilities. In this article, I’d like to address one small way that you can create a big impact – by using context as a key element of your position descriptions and accomplishment statements.
Context Sets the Stage
Have you ever arrived late at a play or a movie and found y ourself puzzled by what was going on? The rest of the audience gasps or laughs or otherwise reacts while you sit wondering what you’re missing. This is because everyone else was there for the “stage-setting” parts of the show, the initial introduction of characters and situations and relationships that make all the difference to understanding the rest of the plot.
Similarly, in your resume, if you don’t provide context information to your readers they won’t fully understand the meaning and impact of your a ctivities and accomplishments.
Consider this accomplishment statement:
- Increased revenue 4% yearly for 4 straight years.
On its own, this is a clear, clean, straightforward accomplishment. It’s certainly worthwhile to include in a resume. But let’s see w hat happens when we incorporate context that more fully edifies readers as to the meaning of that accomplishment. You can see how it really ramps up the impact.
Scenario 1: Relates internal challenges and more fully explains what you did.
- Inherited a downward-spiraling operation with 6 straight years of deepening revenue losses. Led a comprehensive marketing/sales overhaul that halted slide within 6 months and generated 4% annual revenue growth every year from 2003 to 2006.
Scenario 2: Magnifies impact by comparing a seemingly modest achievement to industry and competitors.
- Increased revenue 4% yearly for 4 straight years – while industry as a whole sank 1%–5% yearly and closest competitor averaged 10% annual loss.
Context Helps Readers Understand Scope
In the chronological work history section of many executive resumes, each position often begins with a brief description of scope of responsibility – perhaps something like this:
Managed P&L, new business development, product development, manufacturing engineering, strategic planning, and sales forecasting for $60M, 300-employee division producing climate-control systems for major automotive accounts.
Again, this is a crisp, clear description of job responsibilities that is helpful to readers – it lets them know the size and type of organization you have been responsible for.
Yet it gives no indication of what you accomplished in the position. We have no idea if you were good, bad, or ineffective on the job, what kinds of challenges you faced, or what was going on with the company at the time you took the job.
Consider how much more interest and impact you create by adding context – one short sentence at the beginning of that same position description:
Turned around unprofitable business unit, aggressively applying Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma methodologies to reduce costs and increase both productivity and profitability in a QS 9000 production environment. Managed P&L, new business development, product development, manufacturing engineering, strategic planning, and sales forecasting for $60M, 300-employee division producing climate-control systems for major automotive accounts.
Below this high-impact introduction you can add individual bullet points that describe the specific initiatives that produced the turnaround; but immediately, in just a quick skim, readers understand that you led a successful turnaround and that you have an expert grasp of in -demand methodologies (Lean and Six Sigma).
Make Room for Context
You might be concerned that adding context will overload your resume with details and create an unwieldy, unnecessarily wordy document. That’s a legitimate concern – you certainly want to keep the resume readable. Here are some strategies that will allow you to make room for the critical conte xt information.
- Trim details of job “duties” and “responsibilities.” Provide a brief scope, then use your accomplishment statements to convey information about the activities you were engaged in.
- Strike out achievement statements that are vague or non-specific. Fewer but more meaningful accomplishments are more beneficial.
- Be sure you are focusing on information that is relevant to your current goals.
- In general, edit from the bottom up, as the oldest material on your resume is usually the least relevant.
Remember, resume writing is really story-telling. Context helps you tell your story in a way that is interesting, exciting, meaningful, and dramatic. You’ll capture your readers’ attention from first word to last!