The ICT Job Hunter Blog

We all know that a first-class resume is one of the most important marketing tools in a job search toolkit, and selling ourselves is at the top of our list of priorities when we sit down to create one.  However, after selecting the format of their resumes and filling in the basic contact details, many people then tend to turn the entire focus of their attention on telling potential employers just how wonderful they are.  They list every single skill they have ever attained, every accomplishment they can lay claim to, and every last aspect of their work experience.  Many then even go on to regale the recruiter with accounts of their numerous hobbies and interests.  What they forget to do though, is to remember the potential employer in all this.

One of the single biggest mistakes that many jobseekers make is to fail to relate their education, skills, experience and achievements to the needs of the recruiter in relation to the vacancy in question.  In their eagerness to impress with the extent, the number and the variety of their accomplishments, they seem to entirely overlook the fact that some are simply not relevant – or at least that any relevance may not be immediately obvious.  Why would a potential employer want to waste his time reading all about the tasks you performed in your role as a secretary, when the advertised post is for a manager of a retail store?

The real art to writing a resume that will stand out against countless others is to match your own unique skills and abilities to the employer needs – the key here being ‘skills and abilities’ rather than ‘tasks’.  To do this effectively, you need to make a blindingly obvious and direct connection between what you achieved for your previous employers, and how you achieved it, and how you could do the same, or more, for him.  If you can do this in such a way that it demonstrates how you are going to have him laughing all the way to the bank, then your resume will almost certainly attract its fair share of attention.

Let us say, for example, that you spent three years working as a customer service assistant and are applying for a job in corporate training.  At first glance, the two roles do not appear to have anything in common.  If, however, you think in terms of the skills required, both call for excellent communication.  The trick, then, is to identify precisely how you used this skill in your past employment to good effect, and demonstrate this in a way which leaves the recruiter in doubt that there is a direct connection with corporate training.  Basically, it is the difference between saying that you ‘worked as a customer service assistant’ and that you ‘employed excellent communications skills by explaining and demonstrating product functionality, thereby increasing repeat sales by 43.2% over a six month period’.  The first description brings to mind a cashier on the till at a supermarket, whereas the second suggests someone with training abilities – and a trainer who gets results.   

So, how do you know precisely what it is that the employer wants?  In the case of job advertisements, of course much of the guesswork is taken out of the equation for you, as employers generally make their requirements quite clear.  Job descriptions, informational interviews or your own personal research can, however, also provide you with any number of clues.  If, for example, a job advertisement states that the recruiter is looking for someone with excellent supervisory experience, you need to look at your range of work experience and draw out those achievements which clearly demonstrate this particular ability.  Do not think in terms of tasks, but in terms of the abilities needed to perform them, and then relate these directly to the vacancy in question.

Of course, there are bound to be some aspects of your previous work experience which simply are not relevant, in which case, leave them out.  A resume should be a short document which showcases your relevant skills, and wasting valuable space talking about things which have no immediate bearing on the current opportunity is very much a missed opportunity.  This does not just apply to work experience, however.  It also applies to hobbies and interests.  Whilst you might be very proud of your abilities as a first-rate quilter or saxophone player, if it is not relevant to the position for which you are applying, leave it out and use the extra space elsewhere to talk about something which is. 

The issue here is not that recruiters are stupid or lazy – far from it – it is simply that they do not have the time to sit there playing ‘spot the similarity’.  Effectively, you need to do the recruiter’s thinking for him and make that connection blatant and bold and ‘in his face’.