Whether writing your resume, LinkedIn profile, job search letters, or other career communications, your goal is to tell your career story as you want it to be known.
Whether writing your resume, LinkedIn profile, job search letters, or other career communications, your goal is to tell your career story as you want it to be known. What does that mean? Consider the following example for someone transitioning from a military to a civilian career.
Candidate served in the USAF for 15 years, advancing through increasingly responsible leadership positions in ordnance training for military troops deployed worldwide. Suppose that candidate had the opportunity to pursue one of three different career paths:
Objective #1: Staff training position with a defense contractor where his knowledge in training related specifically to ordnance and explosives is the most important thing to showcase.
Objective #2: Mid-level managerial position in distribution, transportation, or supply chain management where the most important thing is the candidate’s expertise in ordnance, explosives, and other sensitive materials.
Objective #3: Staff training position in a new industry (manufacturing, technology, or automotive) where his expertise in training, development, instructional materials, and related skills matter the most and ordnance does not matter at all.
This candidate’s resume would differ widely based on the specific jobs and/or companies he is targeting. What he would write, how he would write it, what skills and qualifications he would showcase, and what the resume would look like visually would vary significantly.
Objective #1 requires an equal emphasis on both training and ordnance; objective #2 needs the focus primarily on ordnance; objective #3 demands a keen emphasis on training. That process is known as “reweighting” to put the greatest attention on the information that matters most to each candidate’s current career goals.
Once you’ve identified your objective and clarified the skills, qualifications, and more that you want to highlight, then you’re ready to write. Don’t forget to:
1. Showcase achievements, projects, honors, awards, and other successes.
2. Write tight, lean, and clean to keep your message on point.
3. Eliminate unnecessary and irrelevant information.
4. Integrate keywords that support your objective.
5. Create a visually appealing presentation.
- Job Front