Do you know how long you have to make an impression on a
recruiter?
20 seconds. That’s it. 20 short seconds. Why? Recruiters get hundreds of
resumes
for an opening. They can’t possibly look in detail through each of
those hundreds of resumes. So to make their job more manageable, they
first look to rule candidates out (not in) and get to a more manageable
list of 10-20 resumes that they can examine in more detail.
STOP!!!
That took you 20 seconds to read what I just wrote. Do you think your
resume made a good enough impression to get through the first cut? I’m
betting not. Doesn’t sound fair does it? How can a recruiter possibly
see all the great things you have accomplished in 20 seconds? The short
answer is they can’t. But we live in the real world, not the perfect
world. But just because the odds are stacked against you, doesn’t mean
you can’t win.
It starts with structure. Your resume needs to be
structured so that recruiters can scan it quickly and the important
pieces of information pop out at them. Here is an abbreviated version of
how to structure your resume so the important things shine.
- Use Bullets.
It is impossible for recruiters to scan a resume quickly if it full of
paragraphs. However, recruiters can quickly scan bullets for the pieces
of information they are looking for.
- List most important accomplishments first.
Recruiters only scan the first couple of bullets for each work
experience. If your most important accomplishment is in the sixth bullet
for a job, they will never see it.
- Put your most recent work experience first.
No one wants to read what you did twenty years ago. And if you put that
on the first page, you are just cutting into the twenty seconds a
recruiter is going to spend on your resume.
- Quantify Accomplishments. I go into detail on this below.
2. Quantify Accomplishments
Ultimately, everyone does one of three things in their job:
Make Money, Save Money, or Improve a Process.
Technically
if you improve a process, you are saving money but let’s not split
hairs. Candidates that get the interview and ultimately land the job
offer understand this and they do a fantastic job of thinking about and
quantifying the value they bring their employers. So the first thing you
need to do is to quantify your results. For example:
- Reduced supplier base by 31% resulting in savings of $4 million through design engineering and standardization
- Improved logistics route efficiency by 20% generating a cost savings of $2.6 million annually
- Grew sales territory from $600,000 to $1.4 million in eight months
- Streamlined audit process resulting $1.3 million in annualized savings
Now
I know, this is where I start to lose people. They say “Jeff, that
sounds great but in my job, I don’t do anything that I can quantify. I’m
just a truck driver or administrative assistant or a banker. I just do
the same job every day.” I hear these comments all the time. Most people
don’t think they can quantify any results from their job. And if I was a
betting man, which I am, I would say you’re probably saying the same
thing right now as you read this. But the good news is, their wrong.
EVERYONE has accomplishments they can quantify and I can prove it.
A
while back, I was helping a kid graduating college re-write his resume.
He wasn’t getting any interviews and he figured his resume was the
problem. He was a good kid but didn’t really have any professional
experience yet. He did however have a summer job with an auto loan
processing company. His job was to make copies of loan files all summer
long. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? I digress. Anyways, the reason he
wasn’t getting any interviews was because his resume was not impressive
and there were no results listed. I challenged him to quantify his
accomplishments, but he was quite resistant. He said “Jeff, all I did
was make copies all summer long. How the heck am I going to quantify
that?” He was quite dejected thinking he was never going to land an
interview. I like a challenge so I started quizzing him about his job.
That is when the conversation got interesting.
Jeff the Career Coach: “I know all you did was make copies all summer but did you change anything about your job for the better?”
College Student:
“Well now that you mention it, the process they had to make copies was
really inefficient. I determined that if I changed a few things, I was
way more productive.”
Jeff the Career Coach: “How much more productive?”
College Student: “I don’t know”
Jeff the Career Coach: “Ok, how many files per hour do you think you copied using the old process?”
College Student: “Probably 15-17 per hour”
Jeff the Career Coach: “Ok, and how many files could you copy with your new process?”
College Student: “I’m not sure but at least 24. I also taught the other employees that were making copies as well”
Jeff the Career Coach: “Great, how many employees were making copies?”
College Student: “Five counting me.”
Jeff the Career Coach: “Ok. One last question. How much did that job pay per hour?”
College Student: “$10/hour”
Ok,
now we have something to work with. Let’s start at the beginning. He
increased his and the team’s productivity from 16 to 24 files per hour, a
50% increase (The # of additional files: 8 divided by his old rate of 16). But that’s not all. He saved the company a ton of money.
Each
person makes $10/hour. However, they cost the company a lot more
because the company need to pay for benefits, taxes, etc. A good rule of
thumb is a 40% increase (remember that number). Therefore, the cost to
the company for that person is $14/hour ($10 for wages and $4 for
benefits & taxes). On an annual basis, each employee costs
$28,000/year ($14/hour times 2,000 hours). Also there were five of them,
so the cost for all five was $140,000/year ($28,000 times 5). Now, he
increased their productivity by 50%. That means he
saved the company $70,000/year
($140,000 times 50%). Why did he save $70,000? Because now they can do
50% more work which means they could either eliminate half of the
positions OR do 50% more files with the same amount of staff.
Remember,
when this conversation started, all this college student did was make
copies all summer long. Now we determined that he saved this company
almost
three times his annual salary not to mention all the work he did in his normal job. With this new information, we changed the bullet on his resume.
Old resume:
- Made copies for auto loan files
New resume:
- Redesigned auto loan file process increasing efficiency by 50% and generating an annual savings of $70,000/year.
Each
of these bullets describe the same person. However, after reading it,
which candidate would you want to interview? If a college student that
spent a summer making copies can find a way to quantify his
accomplishments, so can YOU!!!
Armed with this knowledge, it is
time to go through your experiences and ask yourself how you Made Money,
Saved Money, or Improved a Process. It might seem hard at first, but if
you ponder these questions, you will surprised at what you find. By the
way, I go through all of this in great detail in my webinar series.
3. Resume Secret
If
you thought the first two tips were good, this one will blow you away. I
call this one the Resume Secret. It is the absolute key to getting any
interview you want. I will give this game-changing tip for free. All you
need to do is fill out the form below and I will give you access to
this special report.
Why do you need my email address?
Let’s
be candid with each other. You are looking for help to write a great
resume and ultimately land your dream job. I am the #1 expert in the
world at job search
Visit My Bio.
I am not one of these sites that only dangles great content but never
delivers. I will give you a lot of great stuff for free. I only ask for
three things in return. First, your email address. I have to be able to
send it to you and the only way I can do that is with your email
address. Second, if you like the content on this site, tell your friend s
about it. And finally, after I have delivered a lot of great stuff, I
will invite you to attend one of my paid webinars. At that point, if you
think it’s worth spending a few bucks to land your dream job, great. If
not, you can still enjoy all of the other great free content on this
site. I think it is a fair deal. What’s the worst that can happen? You
get a few emails from me that you don’t want? You can always hit the
delete button or unsubscribe from our email list.
What I do
promise is I won’t hammer you with spam and crappy content. That’s just
not my style. If you are still not convinced, I will make one last
guarantee. If after reading The Resume Secret, you don’t think it is one
of the best pieces of job search advice you have ever received, email
me at
jeff@jeffthecareercoach.com,
and I will send you a personal apology for wasting your time. No
automatic response. No email from my executive assistant. I will take
time out of my busy day to personally write an apology to you. That’s
how strongly I feel about the content in the Resume Secret.
So
here’s what happens next. Fill out the form below. After that, you will
receive an email confirming your email address is valid. If you don’t
see it in your inbox,
check your junk folder. Click on that link to confirm and the report will be yours.
Deepening and Strengthening of existing Public Financial Management (PFM) reforms and initiation of new reforms to promote efficiency, accountability and transparency in PFM in Bangladesh. This is intended to promote better public service for enhanced quality of life and also to create a more aware pool of Bangladeshi citizens who take ownership of PFM and can sensitize a demand for better PFM on behalf of the Government.
Strong, transparent and accountable public financial institutions, improved public service delivery and a pool of citizens who are aware of their stake in public financial management (PFM) and can press for better PFM and enhanced service delivery.