Does your resume showcase the nuggets of gold?

Does your resume showcase nuggets of gold?

Does your resume showcase your value?

As I thought about recent clients I worked with,  and how the difference in how well-written the resume is has as much to do with the client’s ability to convey value to me in the interview or worksheet process as it does with my resume writing ability.

Clients who work with me in my face-to-face strategy always benefited from this process. The same process also works with my virtual clients too if the client is willing to invest some time in either doing the interview using Skype or WebEx.

What doesn’t work is when a client thinks that I can take an old resume with no other information and transform it. Those nuggets of gold make the difference between a value-propositioned resume and a dull history of the client’s past employment.

His “and then what?” style

In New Orleans at the Career Management Alliance Conference, Don Orlando drilled this home to me once again with his session on “Powerful Confident New Ways to Showcase Your Clients’ Value … and Yours!” Seeing Don in action in the session, focused even more my interview process with clients. His “and then what?” style has been incorporated in every resume I have written since coming home.

Resume showcase: I reminded a client of things she forgot she did, such as:

Wrote the “How-to” manual for using interactive television in the classroom for other instructors throughout the state and developed a presentation for summer workshops to teach the concept to instructors.

 Job seekers often take their talents for granted

Thinking, I didn’t do anything special? The manual referenced above was written for a college system when using interactive television was in its infancy.

Resume showcase: Another client was able to tell me how she was instrumental in transitioning her company from customer call-in orders to online ordering using incentives, leading to considerable growth for the company and we further showcased the growth by incorporating a chart in the resume.

Created customer promotions and incentives to generate interest in switching from customer service calls to online ordering systems, resulting in growth from 0% to 60% of sales through online orders.

I’ll never be a magician

I can’t write a stellar resume with no input from the client but if you let me search for your nuggets of gold — and I have always been able to find them — you will have the resume that gets calls and job offers!

Success like that comes from portraying your value in your resume and using job search strategies to find back doors into the job of your dreams.

What nuggets of gold are you hiding that belong on your resume?

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