When writing your resume, it's important to begin with the end in mind. What do you want your resume to accomplish?
The purpose of the resume and cover letter is to land you a job interview. A secondary purpose is to pre-sell the interviewer on your value before you walk into the room.
Think of writing your resume as the opportunity to capture the perfect pitch that sells you as the right candidate for a job.
This is your chance to say all of the right things, without having to worry about whether you'll stutter, or hem and haw.
This is your chance to sit in a relaxed environment and create a miniature salesman - one who flawlessly delivers the perfect pitch - which you can send to hundreds of employer’s offices.
And it's your chance to do so in a low-stress environment – your living room – where no one else ever has to know that you didn't know how to get started or sweated bullets and suffered from writer's block.
Your Resume Should Sell You - in Print
Others have spoken of a resume as a marketing document, but I say that it is a sales document. Why? Because when people hear the word "marketing" they think of super-bowl-commercial-type marketing, not the give-me-what-I-want-now attitude that a good salesman has.
And that's fine for others; let them try to create a good image and personal brand awareness for themselves while you and I go out and get a job using good salesmanship.
We'll go into some specific techniques you can use to sell your value to an employer in print later, but for now it is sufficient to acknowledge that your resume has a sales job.
It must answer the question every employer asks when reading resumes: "What's in it for me?" Because, you see, every hiring manager has a reason she or he is looking for a new employee - and it's not because they want a new friend. If you can find out what their reasons are and show them how you deliver the results they want, then you will have success in your job search.
The following sales strategy will set you apart from 90% of your competition for a job.
When most people sit down to write a resume, their thinking turns inward – “How can I write about me?” is the thought in their mind. But a good salesman knows that a sales pitch is never about you, it's about the customer.
In this case it's all about the employer and what they want. Show them how they can have what they want by hiring you and you'll have the job.
This is the over-arching theme that should be running in the back of your mind every time you work on your resume – “What does this employer want to see and hear?”
Every sentence, every bullet, and every time you're not sure whether to include something, ask yourself "What do they want to hear?"
How to Write a Resume Conclusions
When you start thinking about how to write a resume, remember to keep your customer's interests in mind. Before you decide to include something in your resume, ask yourself how this piece of information appeals to an employers self-interests.
