Resume: Your Version Of A Super Bowl Commercial

Your resume is your marketing material. When you hear of marketing, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Shiny brochures, marketing campaigns, flashy advertisements, etc. Why do we watch Super Bowl, apart from being fans of some team? Because these are the best ads of the year. Companies have about 30 seconds to make a lasting impression that are designed to make you want their product. Well, by that same token, your resume has just about the same limited amount of time to make its statement – and appeal to a hiring manager. So, when writing it, think “marketing”.

How do you do this? Well, as we discussed earlier, start with a blank page. Gather your thoughts, and start thinking like recruiters do. If you were a hiring manager looking to expand your staff, which advertisements (think – resumes) would you respond to best? What would you find more appealing? Use this as the basic guiding principle when creating or updating your resume.

It should not be just about listing every job you held. After all, this is what 99.9% of resumes do – and this is exactly what makes them the same and boring. Everybody lists their roles and responsibilities. Some people include achievements. But, most of the time, a resume is a generic document, which is not tailored to requirements of a specific position. As a result, it becomes generic, indistinguishable from other resumes.

So, how do you break this vicious circle? It is about looks and about content. Those are the only two things that are available to you. For looks, focus on the format that speaks to the job, and that presents you as the best possible candidate. If you are looking to become a store clerk, your resume should look and feel different than if you were to seek an assistant professor role in a biology lab. This is where you need to put on your thinking cap and put stereotypes aside. Just because everyone is doing it, does not mean that you should. After all, with hundreds of resumes per vacancy (including the poop scooper jobs) , you do not want to do what everyone else is doing!

You know about the infamous elevator speech example all the text books are using. The one where you hitch an elevator ride with one person, who can make anything happen, and you have about 30 seconds while the car is moving to get your point across – or forever lose the opportunity. Well, your resume is your story. You have about 30 seconds to make that first impression. Tell the story that best presents you. In these 30 seconds, you would probably skip the fact that your dog’s name is Marley or that you were a window shopper for 2 years. These things are irrelevant to the super-you that you need to present. So, with every line you are about to add to your resume, think: will it help? Is it relevant? When in doubt, throw it away.

As a result, you will end up with a resume that is full of powerful statements, describing your strengths, your achievements, all of the things that you are (and should be!) proud of.