Welcome to the week’s Resume Writing Tip of the Week! If you haven’t noticed yet, I get fired up in providing this information to you. The blog content comes from working with thousands of unemployed professionals and helping them get maximum results from their resumes. The week’s resume writing tip of the week has come up hundreds of times in the just the past few days.
This week’s resume writing tip of the week is to have a clear message in your summary. Previously we talked about eliminating your objective and replacing it with a professional or executive summary. The summaries typically make a common mistake. The message includes a lot of big words that can prove confusing to your reader. Here’s an example:
“Proactive, hands-on, goal and results driven professional with a comprehensive work history characterized by positions of increasing scope and complexity. Leader recognized by senior Management for ability to collaborate with Corporate and Operations in the development of high impact audit solutions focused on cost management, process automation, and process improvement. These solutions have made a significant contribution towards Management’s ability to thrive in a competitive marketplace, whether during economic growth or contraction. Communication skill set specializing in creative problem solving, participating in and leading diverse cross-functional teams and listening proficiency.”
I like the content, but you have to study it to understand the message. You can make a strong argument that the structure of the message is intimidating. The mark of an intelligent person is not to talk above your audience, but the ability to relate to your audience. This message can be easily condensed to shorter, razor-sharp statements. The benefit includes a more interesting message, while taking up less space on your resume. Every word has to have a purpose and your document must look, feel and read as sooth as it can.
So how do you put this resume writing tip of the week to work? Grade your summary. Is it concise or is it lengthy? Is it full of words that require a dictionary and thesaurus, or is the message easy to understand? The summary is located just under your heading, which means it is one of the first parts of your resume to be reviewed. If your message does not set the proper tone and engage the reader from at the outset, the risk is high that the rest of your document will not be read. Avoid this costly mistake!
This information is designed to help you earn the desired results from your resume. Please check back next week for another helpful resume writing tip of the week.
