The best executive resume writers use these strategies.
Looking for a new job is work in itself, but the most important element is your resume. Once you make the initial contact, there are many steps to take when you are pursuing a position. These might include making phone calls, sending emails, buying a new suit and getting a haircut. However, if you don’t have a professional resume, you may defeat your own purpose. Your resume has to be better than perfect for the position you are seeking. Some of the best executive resume writers suggest these three reasons you need to have the best resume possible.
Reason 1: Your Resume Is Your Professional Statement
You only have a few seconds to capture the attention of a hiring manager. One glance at your resume and they will decide whether they want to continue reading or place it back on the stack on their desk. Your resume is likely to be the first impression they have of you and it’s important to make it apparent you are a professional. If your resume is sloppy and appears to be thrown together, it is likely to be overlooked. Make sure to include an executive bio and communicate clearly your air of professionalism in every portion of your resume.
Reason 2: Your Resume Can Help You Get Known in Your Industry
It is likely you are familiar with other individuals in your own industry. Some of them may be colleagues but many may even work for competitors. They may be well known for any variety of reasons, and your resume can do the same for you in your industry. Like many professionals, hiring managers talk to each other about many things, and outstanding resumes are included in their discussions. A highly professional resume can get the attention of hiring managers and your name can come up in future conversations. It can be your ticket to becoming a recognizable name inside your industry or profession.
Reason 3: A Resume Can Address a Specific Need
Including some customization in your resume can get the attention of a hiring manager. Some portions of a resume can be used to list specific skills or qualifications that meet a company’s particular need. Your resume contains professional elements from your past that uniquely qualifies you for some positions and speaks to your high level of experience in the industry. An effective resume will directly address the needs of each hiring manager.
Your resume is your selling point and needs to be perfect. You may choose to write your own resume, but you can also hire a professional resume and cover letter writing service designed to help you reach a higher professional level. Having a strong resume and professional bio can be the difference in getting your resume seen and being called for your next interview.
Ensure your executive bio isn’t skippable.
Putting together an executive bio can be tough work, especially if it’s been a long while since you’ve hunted for a new position. The job market and its requirements are constantly shifting, so much so that what would have been fine to include on a resume years back is considered far less passable today. Regardless of how long it’s been since you’ve been on the hunt for a job, there’s a variety of things you need to watch out for when crafting your executive resume that often go unnoticed. Below we’ve gathered a list of items you should exclude the next time you update your resume.
Subpar Formatting
This is one of the primary elements that can make or break your resume. Potential employers have so many candidates to sort through they only have a few seconds to spare per resume. Make yours count by keeping it as readable as possible. If your resume is too difficult to decipher, it will automatically be passed over in favor of someone else. This is the absolute last thing you want to happen during your job hunt. Luckily, this problem can be easily fixed.
We first recommend saving your resume as a file type that can be easily opened by any computer. PDF files are often the safest bet because every computer comes with a PDF reader and your document is sure to remain uniform across all of them.
Make sure your information is listed in a way that’s easy to read. Bullets are a great option. Additionally, it’s okay to go over one page. Executive resumes can include as many as three pages of relevant information with no detriments.
Unprofessionalism
While there have been some well-received unorthodox resumes, such as those put together by talented graphic design employees, it’s generally not a good idea to add extra touches to your resume unless you’re in a field where skillful design is appreciated. If you have to include a graphic, such as a picture of yourself, we suggest providing a link to your profile on LinkedIn, where your information will still be presented in a professional format.
Go Into Detail
Being vague does you no favors, especially when it comes to listing your skills. If you’re going to talk about particular talents or industries you have major experience with, be sure to go into the specifics of them. For instance, if you’re part of the graphic design industry, you could say you’re proficient with Adobe Illustrator or InDesign as opposed to phrasing it as “graphic design programs.” At the same time, you don’t want to load your resume with buzzwords. Balance is key.
In addition to these three pointers, there are other, more subtle nuances to crafting a great resume. If you find you need more help, there’s no shame in looking up the best executive resume writing services near you to request professional advice. They can assist you with far more than just your resume. Many executive resume businesses also offer assistance with cover letters for resumes and much more.
A professional resume writing service can help you stand out
A lot of resume advice articles you’ve seen have likely told you to keep the fluff to a minimum. In most cases, this is true. Recruiters generally only have a short amount of time to read your resume, meaning you’ll have to make it count by marketing yourself and your experiences in an easily consumable way. However, there’s no reason to dress your resume up, especially if you’re part of an industry where creativity is a highly valued skill. In fact, creating an original design for your resume may be an excellent C-level personal branding tactic, depending upon your execution. We’ve gathered some ideas for your consideration.
Lead Recruiters Your Way With a Map
Whether it’s in the style of classic and long forgotten cartography or in the image of today’s Maps app, you can consider making your resume resemble a map that leads employers straight to you, with all of your experiences and other relevant information to guide them and a handy directional key. You can even tuck your contact info at the bottom to steer them toward how to get in touch with you.
Model Your Resume After Your Social Media Platform of Choice
This takes some clever graphic design skills on your part, but it’s a creative way of introducing yourself to a potential employer. You can do this with any type of platform that gives you a personalized space, whether it’s through a profile page or a blog, or with any site that’s well-recognized and widely used. We recommend not picking LinkedIn for this choice because it’s already formatted for job hunters. You’ll want to create your own unique take on a site not typically used for career networking.
Create Your Resume Out of a Unique Material
This can be an especially clever idea depending on the industry you’re in, such as textiles, fashion or something similar. While it may take some extra work, you can craft your resume from fabric, handmade paper or some other material besides plain, white Xerox paper. Just make sure the end result is readable and, if need be, easy to reproduce. You don’t want to make creating hundreds of copies of a plexiglass resume your new career!
Give Yourself Ratings
You can easily style this sort of resume fairly normally but with some more subtle creative embellishments here and there, up until you get to the final section describing your skills. For this section, utilize a ratings system for an easily readable way of determining your level of skill in any areas you wish. While this won’t necessarily give employers the most detailed idea of your skills, it’s certainly an eye catcher!
While there’s nothing wrong with the tried and true method of bullet points and short sentences in black, 12 point font, it never hurts to think outside of the box! For further tips, you can always consult a professional resume writing service. A top resume writing service will be able to fine tune your resume, regardless of the format.
The top resume writing services can help you change careers.
Change can be a scary thing, especially when the change directly affects your future. This is why so many people hesitate when it comes to shifting industries. Those in this process may be transitioning into a new industry with little to no experience or with only indirect experience from their previous jobs. If you’re in this situation, you may be wondering just how to approach this change. First of all, we would like to congratulate you on this important first step! Second, recreating your resume to match your transition to a new field is not the easiest task, but it is certainly doable. Let us show you how.
Figure Out If There’s Any Way Your Previous and Current Industries Match Up
This will take a bit of thought, but it’s worth it in the long run when it comes to making your resume easier to approach. There may be elements of your previous career that sync with your potential new one and can be described in such a way that will catch the interest of prospective employers in your new field. This tip should prove especially relevant to professional executive resume writers with a long list of strong, eye-catching skills.
Rewrite Your Resume Entirely
Your current resume won’t be one size fits all. Your high involvement in your last field versus your smaller level of involvement in your current one will glare through unless you rework things properly. Take our last suggestion into account as you rewrite your resume to fit your new industry. Your skills likely still matter much more than you may think! Think about what the positions you’re applying for need and consider whether your skills still line up.
Don’t Be Afraid to Name Drop
If you’ve had the privilege of collaborating with high-ranking professionals during your time in your old industry, be sure to highlight this! Showing you are extremely qualified in one field and were able to perform well in another position will bode well in the eyes of recruiters in your new field.
Summarize Yourself
This will take utilization of all of the above tips we’ve mentioned. Make use of the impact you left upon your old industry and the skills you’ve developed within it and weave it into a descriptive paragraph that complements the current position you seek. This is a brilliant way to market yourself in any industry and lets employers know quickly and directly what you can offer to the industry and their company.
We hope this brief list will help professional executive resume writers as they transition into a brand new industry. This isn’t the easiest change to make, but it should prove worthwhile. If you need any more help or advice, feel free to reach out to your local executive resume writer services. There are a large number of top resume writing services that can help you reorient your resume properly.
Executive resume writers can help you craft a great resume.
Everyone who has written a resume knows the difficulties involved: listing out all of your adequate experiences and education, figuring out the most efficient way to format and, most importantly, doing all of this in a way that will catch the attention of any prospective employers. This is a challenge for every job seeker and especially so for those on opposite ends of the spectrum. For people with little experience, it’s a matter of not having enough things to list. For those in executive positions, there’s often too much. If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably part of the latter group. In this blog article, we’ve compiled a list of great tips to help executive resume writers craft the best possible resume.
Put Any Academic Information Last
This is only relevant for position candidates who have also recently graduated from school. It is also worth noting if you’re going to list where you went to school, your university is the only relevant information needed. If it’s been a while since you graduated, your work experience takes much larger priority.
Give Recruiters Access to Your LinkedIn or Similar Profile
There’s a high possibility your potential employer will want to see it in the first place. We recommend taking this step to prevent any confusion that could arise if a recruiter tries to search for you on their own.
Don’t Include Footers or Headers
It’s certainly pretty, but it can easily confuse most systems used for tracking applicants. The same goes for charts and other graphic elements people use for aesthetic purposes.
Keep Things Consistent
This is especially useful for those with common full names. You may want to go by a nickname, use your middle name or some similar method to help distinguish yourself. Whatever you decide, make sure you use it across every professional social media account you have to make yourself as easy to find as possible.
Keep Images Out of Your Resume
This goes for any kind of graphic, from graphs to portraits of yourself. Much like using headers, this can be confusing for the company’s tracking system for applicants. Using pictures of yourself presents other, more unfortunate problems as well, such as hiring discrimination. You want to give yourself as fair a chance as possible.
Always Provide an “Elevator Pitch”
This is of vital importance to executive resume writers. When you create an elevator pitch, you’re telling your prospective employer how you can benefit their company, why you’re interested in working with them and about your specific skills and talents. This section should be no longer than five sentences and no shorter than three, about a 30 second-long read.
Additionally, if you need a little extra help making your resume the best it can be, hire only the best executive resume writing service. They can help you revamp your application process in multiple ways, whether through resume advice or a cover letter writing service.
Writing a professional resume requires certain elements.
There are many common mistakes job seekers make throughout their searching process, especially where resumes are concerned. One of the most common is using the exact same resume for every position you apply for. Despite popular belief, your tactics for a job hunt cannot be one size fits all. Depending on the industry you’re in and the types of positions you’re seeking, you may have to adapt your resume to fit. This may mean having several copies for different purposes. Furthermore, there are many key elements to include while you’re writing a professional resume. Read on to find out just what they are.
Formatting Your Resume
The majority of the time, your resume is the first interaction a recruiter will have with you. You have to make it count. Poor formatting is one of the quickest ways to make your resume less effective. Unfortunately, it is also one of the easiest elements to forget about when you’re writing a professional resume. We recommend keeping these tips in mind:
- Keep your resume brief. We recommend no more than three pages maximum for senior level employees. It isn’t necessary to detail all of your experiences throughout your career. Just the most relevant information will do.
- Always save your resume as a PDF file. Everyone can view PDF files. There are few formatting differences between PDF reading programs, meaning your resume will stay uniform, no matter what computer has opened it. The same cannot be said for Microsoft Word files, where a number of factors can affect the appearance of your resume.
- Use the right email address. It’s always best to use your professional email address, but one that is maintained by you and you alone. Listing a company email address can create poor implications.
Additionally, certain pieces of information must be covered with respect to your previous positions. Be sure to include the name of the company or organization you’ve worked for, an explanation of what they do, the name of your position, the dates of when you started and ended working with the company, your specific responsibilities, any achievements and personal contributions you made and your professional reputation among your coworkers, supervisors and others.
Showcasing Your Best Attributes
Presenting what you can bring to a company is just as important to your resume as including prior experiences within your field. It’s an excellent way of introducing yourself in a positive manner. However, there’s also an art to personal branding for senior level managers.
Be sure to research the companies you’re applying to prior to composing your resume. Adapt your industry knowledge and your past contributions in a way that shows you can match what your prospective employer is looking for. You should always try to make your resume as pertinent to the position as possible.
If you need further advice, reach out to one of the many executive resume writing services available. They can make sure you’re including all the information you need and none of what you don’t!
Professional executive resume writers can help you avoid serious mistakes.
Just because one step of a larger process is the shortest doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the easiest. Take a job search, for example. The resume is often the briefest part of applying for a job. It’s often one page in length, and recruiters themselves only glance at them for a few seconds. However, the quality of your resume can make or break your ability to get hired. While you only have a few seconds, you should make them count. Figuring out how to market yourself to employers through your resume is the trickiest part. Luckily, our team of professional executive resume writers have helped us put together a list of ways you could be hurting your resume and your chances of landing your next position.
Don’t Include Jobs That Were Unpleasant or Didn’t Last Long
This will look dubious to employers at best because listing your shorter positions will lead to questions of why you weren’t there for long. Similarly, don’t include jobs that were nothing but an unpleasant experience for you. If you end up being asked about them during the interview process, you’ll likely have nothing good to say, which can impact this important first impression.
You Don’t Need to Write Out an Objective
Everyone applies to a job in hopes of scoring the position. Unless you are applying for a job in a completely different industry than what you’ve previously worked in, it’s fine to not summarize your intentions.
Don’t Write Fluff About Yourself
While you want to make yourself sound like the best choice, expounding upon all of your positive qualities is not the best way to go about it. When you make it to your first interview, your potential employer will size up what your assets are and what you can bring to the position and company.
Don’t Include Any Work Experiences That Don’t Pertain to Your Industry
Unless an otherwise irrelevant former position displays talents, skills or duties connected to the industry you’re in now, it would be a good idea to cut it out. It’s up to you to determine just how relevant your older positions are and whether they’re worth keeping.
There’s No Need to Include Your Photo
Most resumes will not ask for this, unless you’re in the modeling industry. If you’re in an executive field, you won’t need a picture at all. In fact, attaching one could, unfortunately, leave you vulnerable to hiring discrimination. We recommend avoiding adding photographs altogether.
Don’t Get Too Personal
You could easily get your potential employer in some hot water because they aren’t supposed to request certain personal details, such as your SSN, religion or personal traits.
Writing an eye-catching resume can be a tricky task. We hope these tips will be just what you need to help you write resumes that get you hired. If you find you need extra help, top rated resume writing services are available to help you improve your resume and land your next great job!
The best executive resume format will help you stand out.
Anyone who has endured or is in the middle of a job search knows the struggle of sending out resumes to hundreds of recruiters, only to be met with either no response or a response that comes months after applying with a rejection attached. When this is your situation, it is easy to feel discouraged. The job market is still difficult to navigate, and the number of applicants in today’s world makes it that much more important to stand out among the rest. One of the best places you can individualize yourself is your resume. Below you’ll find a list of handy tips to create the best executive resume format for your job hunt.
Make Sure Your List Is Easy to Understand
When you’re part of a certain industry, it is easy to fall into using the related terminology under the assumption everyone will understand it. While you will generally be applying for another position within the same industry as your previous job and, therefore, those who review your resume know exactly what these terms mean, it is better to be safe than sorry. There’s always a chance you’ll get a recruiter who isn’t familiar with every term. We recommend spelling out any positions you feel could come across as unclear.
Take Advantage of Text Bullets
The resume reviewing process is a fast one. You want your formatting to match, which is why the best resume writing services recommend using bulleted lists to help reviewers consider you more easily.
Downplay Any Relevant Experiences Older Than 10 Years
This is especially important for senior executives and is useful for avoiding the unfavorable truth of age-based discrimination. You should still include all of your relevant experiences on your resume because this is the type of information employers look for. The best way to do this is to still list your experiences, but don’t attach dates to anything that goes back 10 years or longer. This goes for all of your experiences, whether they are professional or academic.
The Resume Ingredients Guidelines Come in Handy
These particular guidelines were constructed by writer Donald Asher and continue to be endorsed by executive resume services across the country. What “resume ingredients” entail is organizing the details upon your resume by the order of how relevant they are to the jobs you seek. The general order is:
- Job position(s)
- Your employer’s name(s)
- Employer’s location(s)
- Your last employment dates
Keep Your Resume Concise
You should always build a resume with a goal in mind. A resume is, most importantly, a means of selling yourself to your employer. This means it should be written in a way that shows recruiters how you can benefit their company and what you have to offer. We recommend including a brief section summarizing your skills and qualifications.
