4 questions to ask yourself when writing your resume

When I bought my new cell phone the other day, I mentioned I am a professional resume writer.

The young man setting up our accounts said, “I suppose resumes are changing.” He went on to say that when he was in high school, they told him one way for writing your resume and in college, they told him another way. He wondered how much it had changed.

There was no way I could answer him without spending a long time to teach him how a resume I write differs from anything taught in high school or in college. Most colleges barely touch on the resume and when they use it as an assignment, it is something that most students just do to get a grade. The models that most colleges use are 20 years old or stuck in the one-page resume hole.

Writing your resume to differentiate yourself

I had one client who told me her instructor told the entire class to follow the same formatting. Her grading is based on one format and so they are all supposed to look-alike. It was easier for her to grade.

Yikes!

I work very hard to ensure that no two of resumes I write for my clients look or read like the resume of someone else.

Differentiating the talents and skill sets of my clients is the major part of writing a job-winning resume. Though formatting is only one piece of the pie, creating a design to catch the eye while telling your story is critical.

Create your resume the way a professional resume writer interviews a client

He went on to say that when he was in high school, they told him one way for writing your resume and in college, they told him another way.What stories you ask? Here are a few questions to get you started:

How did I make a difference at the company?

• Perhaps I saved the company money?
• Or I created a new process?
• Did I launch a new product?
• Or did I spearhead a new IT project?

Were you selected as the team leader over your colleagues or team members to head a project? Why were you chosen? What did you do? How did it turn out? (challenge, action, result)

Did you increase sales or market share? How did you do that? And how can we measure or quantify your success?

How do you motivate and energize your department? Have you implemented any new training programs? What is the result of the implementation?

Asking yourself any of these questions will set you on the path to writing a better resume!