Searching...

Most Popular Articles @ Boost-Your-Career.com

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Top Tips For Writing A High-Impact Resume For Senior - Level Executives

2:37 AM
Considering that you are a senior level professional, well settled with a job, there are high chances that you must not have looked or thought about a resume for a long time. Although it is a healthy sign for your professional life, this also means that you are unaware of how much resumes have changed in the past few years. What if you do find a lucrative job opportunity and cannot resist the opportunity? Such a situation calls for an updated resume. However, before you brush off your old resume, updating it with your latest contribution and recent career history, you need to get aware of the prevalent resume 2.0 trends.

Before you think about creating new resume, you will need to lay the groundwork with targeting and personal branding.

Essentials for creating a new resume:

Target a niche audience:


As a senior level executive your resume should address the requirements of a niche job market. If it doesn’t targets a specific audience, recruiters won’t connect it with the job that you are trying to fill. Any irrelevant information in the resume is surely going to create a bad impression and your chances of getting an interview call are automatically reduced. Everything that you include in the CV should align with what the recruiters are looking for in candidates. You can refer to job descriptions of positions like VP Marketing or VP Finance to find the best fit when writing your resume. 
       
Create and communicate a personal brand:

In the bad job market, personal branding has acquired more importance than ever. Think of the resume as a personal marketing communication. Therefore, you simply cannot ignore branding these days. The factors differentiates your unique selling point from your competitors is what will sell you. In addition to academic qualification, companies look for key personal attributes such as vitality, competitiveness, ability to work in team, willingness to learn, passion to create amongst others. Branding generates awareness and makes you come alive on the paper, digital and web page.

Do not include an objective statement:

After all these years into corporate, you don’t want to come across as an inexperienced and naïve candidate, because that’s what recruiters will think of you. Employers simply don’t care that you want to achieve a “position where you can grow and simultaneously utilize expertise for the organization’s benefit.” They want to know what you will do for them. Objective statements are a wastage of valuable real estate on the resume, and don’t attract attention of recruiters.

Strategic positioning for impact:

Busy recruiters only allow themselves an average of six seconds to view a resume.  With such little attention span, a resume must not only be crisp, but each of its sections should be strategically positioned for the maximum impact. Everything related to your personal brand statement should be on top third or quarter of page one. Since recruiters seldom go beyond page one, make this section as strong as possible. In digital world, search engine pay more attention to relevant keywords at the top of online profiles and rank web pages with better keyword density higher. To make the top section more effective you can add a powerful quote from a colleague or a boss.

Keep it attractive and readable:

Although it is good to include a few ornamentation to make your resume visually appealing, you must take care that it doesn’t become too flashy and illegible, which will ultimately defeat its very purpose.  Keep the formatting attractive but consistent and clean. Using more than 2 different fonts isn’t advisable. There is little need to underline text.

Do not forget to include your achievements:

If you really want the recruiter to hire you it is important to let them know how you rocked your previous organizations. This includes showing them how did you make things happen, or how you were able to capture profitable advances. Tell them how your actions led to growth of your organization, and added to the profit margins of your company’s annual turnover. Your achievements are what makes you special and you shouldn’t shy from explaining them to the recruiter. After all, it might be the only chance that you have to get a call for the interview.
Share:

0 comments: