Is Your Resume Hurting More Than Helping?

Image Credits, Copyright:(c) Henrik Sorensen

By Tanuja Ramchal

On a weekly basis, I meet with students who tell me that they’re applying to jobs and are either not hearing back or are getting called for roles they’re not interested in. Understandably, this is frustrating. In cases like this, I start by looking at their resume. From a quick glance, I can tell whether the resume is effective or not. A strong resume is highly targeted, which boils down to marketing yourself the right way.

To better understand this, let’s look at an example of marketing done well. Consider the approach of Whole Foods. The chain is known for appealing to customers who are willing to pay premium prices for quality products. This is intentional in terms of branding. If Whole Foods, though, was not deliberate in its marketing and messaging, it would be viewed as just another generic grocery store that sells milk, bread and eggs. Without highlighting the specific needs it aims to meet for its specific customers, two things are likely to happen:

1. Whole Foods will attract generic customers looking for generic products, i.e. people who don’t care about quality and who in the end will most likely not choose the brand because their prices are too high.
2. Customers who want high-end, organic products will not necessarily identify with Whole Foods and will go elsewhere where they know for sure their needs will be met.

What does this have to do with your resume? A lot, actually.

For most people looking for jobs, they believe a resume is a generic summary of their professional experiences, skills, and education slapped on a sheet of paper. It’s one of the biggest misconceptions job seekers have which keeps them from getting roles they actually want and has them feeling overwhelmed in the job search process.
So, what’s a resume then?
It’s a targeted sales sheet (think of it as your advertisement) which highlights why you’re right for a specific role based on what’s important to that audience, i.e. you effectively demonstrate how you can meet their needs. Before you even put your resume together, two of the most important factors you must consider are the problem you’re looking to solve and for whom. Coming back to the Whole Foods example, the company is very clear about the needs it’s meeting and for what subset of the population. This allows them to speak to that particular audience, staying focused rather than going far and wide and wasting time and energy.

The same applies in terms of how and where you’re positioning yourself in the job market. To that end, let’s look at the steps of putting together a tailored resume that gets you noticed by the right audience and called for interviews.

1. What’s the problem you’re looking to solve and for whom? Do you want to help banks with audit issues? Do you want to glean insights from consumer data to help CPGs better serve their customers? Do you want to develop professionals in the healthcare industry so they’re operating at their highest potential? If you don’t know what problem you want to solve, spend time getting clear on this. Otherwise, you’re just shooting in the dark if your resume is a mishmash of experiences which appeal to no one in particular.
2. What’s the realistic next step for you to get there? In the online coaching program I run, I teach students how to be realistic in terms of the next step they need to take to get where they ultimately want to end up. For example, if your goal is to be an auditor with a Big Four and you have zero experience, by going for that right off the bat, you’re setting yourself up for failure. A more effective way to make that goal a reality is to start by moving your next target closer (maybe 5 feet in front of you instead of a mile away), so you can hit it before moving to the next target. For example, aim for an internship with a small CPA firm to gain bookkeeping experience. It’s about going one step at a time,where each step puts you closer to where you want to be. That’s progress. It’s why you pace yourself and not aim for a target that feels impossible, where you want to give up before you even start.
3. What are you bringing to the table that makes you stand out for the role you’re targeting? Here you need to understand how your qualifications match the requirements of the role you’re targeting. Do your research. Talk to people in the field. Look at job descriptions on job boards and the websites of companies you wish to work for. What’s the profile of the ideal candidate for the role? What qualities, skills, and experience do you have that match that?
4. What do you put on my resume based on what the ideal candidate looks like and what you have to offer? The issue students run into here is that they’re so attached to all the ‘important’ things they’ve done in the past which have no bearing to the role they’re targeting. They don’t look through the lens of their audience. You have to be discerning in highlighting what makes you stand out as a great candidate from their point of view, using language that’s relevant to them in your bullets. Consider this example. If I’m looking to paint my house and a plumber contacts me to let me know how great he is at his job and that he has won awards for plumbing, there’s no appeal there because that’s not what I’m looking for. However, if that same plumber lets me know he has painted four houses in the last three months, shows me samples of his painting jobs, and shares positive client testimonials, I’m sold because that’s exactly what I need. Do you see the difference?
5. Put the resume together so it appeals to your target audience and also keeps away those who it’s not meant for. Here you take the most relevant components, whether they’re from your professional experiences, class projects, technical skills, soft skills, education, to put together your sales sheet that allows your audience to quickly self-identify. That is, they see you as someone who is capable and qualified based on the needs they have. Be specific about what you’ve done (“Ran reports” versus “Performed monthly variance analysis of $10M+ sales for 5 subsidiaries using Excel and produced summary reports for Regional Sales Director to monitor trends and adjust strategy.”) And, just as Whole Foods doesn’t appeal to everyone, your resume should be so specific that it’s not attracting the wrong audience.

As you go through these steps, you may be thinking the process of putting together a resume requires time and effort. And, that’s certainly true. But here’s my question to you: if you don’t do this work, what’s the consequence? From my experience, it’s students settling in their career, taking any job they can get and lowering their standards. It’s the equivalent of Whole Foods becoming just another grocery store because developing a strong brand requires too much time and effort.

And in case you’re wondering what to do if you have different types of roles you’re targeting e.g. IT Audit and Business Analysis, you put together a separate resume for each of those roles following the steps above. There’s also room to further tweak your resume based on specific firms you’re applying to. For instance, it might work in your favor to be more creative with a resume you’re sending to Trader Joe’s as compared to one you’re using for Goldman Sachs.

This is how you take control of your career because when you’re not getting the results you want, the issue usually is that you’re not effectively demonstrating value to your intended audience and they don't have exposure to you. This means that the ball in your court and your resume is a great place to get started.

Resume Writing Resources:

Four Common Resume Mistakes

Guidebook: Write The Job Winning Resume