As a Master Resume Writer, my passion lies in the value of a muscular resume that lifts careers to new heights.
Moreover, the fast-moving and intricately laced digital highway is quickly becoming clogged with an assortment of career messaging vehicles, only some of which provide value. Ensuring a stronger voice on behalf of quality, focused resume and career messaging content streams is vital to maintain communications integrity.
To help kick-off my blogging relationship with TalentCulture, I’d like to introduce thoughts on two topics: Clear Resume Messaging and Resume Length:
- Clear Resume Messaging is the result of a complex process of career introspection (unearthing your nuggets of career gold / value) in conjunction with a process of extrospection (researching and absorbing your target audience’s needs). As such, the results you ferret out from your introspective process should be clearly tied to the needs of the audience that you discovered through extrospection.
By doing so, you produce a compelling and ‘them-focused resume message.’ In creating a crisp, yet meaty message, you ease the hiring decision-maker’s mind by selling them on YOU as the solution to what ails them.
- Resume Length: Often perceived as a black/white issue with no shades of gray, the answer to the resume length question truly is customized on a ‘case by case scenario.’ As a general rule of thumb, early career resumes, including resumes for recent graduates and those with five or fewer years’ experience may consider a one-page format; however, that rule of thumb easily is amended when the experience showcased is replete with meaty, relevant achievements stories (in the case of new grads, this often means stories acquired via internships and/or on-campus leadership roles).
Meaningful stories that illustrate the problem-solving and influence skills that led to the results and which address the pressing needs of the buyer (hiring manager) = strong, relevant and engaging resume content.
As one’s career advances to 10 years, 15 years, 20 years and beyond, the resume generally expands to two, and even three pages. My rule of thumb is three pages maximum (and an occasional four pager for senior-level executives). Additional information that may require a deeper-dive story can be fleshed out in additional, addenda documents, as needed.
Simply put, when I think of TalentCulture, I think of my client job seekers (Talent) and the business environs within which they seek to apply their talent (Culture).
Initially, I envision two goals for my participation:
- Extend mine (Career Trend’s) and the TalentCulture’s reach, pragmatically, yet inspiringly articulating the value of how a targeted and compelling marketing / communications campaign (i.e., resume and beyond) fuels a stimulating and forward-moving career.
- Join forces with and extend the communication messages from other partners and contributors who focus on diverse topics that my readership and customers are interested in, yet which don’t comprise my career niche; e.g., employer branding, general workplace/HR, employee engagement, green jobs, sustainability, digital media… and more.
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