Add some pow to your resume
My mom recently asked me to review her resume, and so did some of her friends (one of the joys of being a recruiter). These are all very accomplished healthcare executives, but their resumes lacked the pow that I find in resumes of candidates I usually choose to move forward with. It wasn’t because they weren’t stellar professionals, but because they didn’t present their skills in the most advantageous way.
For most of us, when we sit down to work on our resumes, we think to ourselves, “What do I do in this position?” While this is relevant information, you can share it in a way that has that extra “umph” recruiters want to see. When you’re looking for what to put on your resume, instead of thinking about what your job entails, think of what you’ve accomplished. I’m not saying leave out the day-to-day tasks of your job, but what speaks louder is what you accomplished.
In other words, you want to call out what you “Made, Saved and Achieved” (MSA):
• Made the company (money, sales, etc.)
• Saved the company (money, time, etc.)
• Achieved personally (awards, recognition, etc.)
Here are some examples:
| What you did | What you did with pow |
| Developed a test automation framework | Developed a test automation framework reducing company/team testing time from 3 days to 12 hours |
| Managed and optimized online advertising campaigns | Optimized a poorly performing ad campaign resulting in a decrease of cost per action by 50 percent |
|
Streamlined development |
Enabled our development team to ship our product one month early by streamlining our development process |
MSA also plays well in interviews. In this competitive market, employers want people who are able to produce results. Don’t be shy – wow ‘em with some pow!
-Ryan
P.S. - Shout out to Sue Danbom, a national trainer at Volt for teaching me all about MSA!
8 Comments
crappy said:
arent you guys layed off already, you should be ..? This is like a waste of time, microsoft is the worst place to work now ..This is another marketing trick trying to prove that MS is a good place to work. i am myself tired of being here, though i have not be layed off i guess i would never like any of my friends to work here, so cut the crap and stop this. let the world know the truth. look at <a target="_blank" href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com">http://minimsft.blogspot.com</a>
jobsblog said:
Many of us love Mini's blog, too. He also encourages those who are tired of being at Microsoft to leave. Good advice we also agree with. :)
-Gretchen
College News said:
Results are so important in a resume and it applies to any kind of job! Employers want to see that you're able to make something happen, rather than just talk yourself up. Great tips!
The site College Careers might help you out. It has info on writing a resume, in the article How to Write a Resume. Good luck everyone!
Venom Viper said:
I've heard of these advices before, I don't understand how you are supposed to get access to these quantified results to defend these statements on the resume. How does one get these figures precisely? All of these percentages and reduction of time and savings of $$$. Where's the proof to backup the claims?
BlogMS Weekly Articles Published – 4th May to 10th May said:
242 Microsoft Team blogs searched, 118 blogs have new articles in the past 7 days. 314 new articles found
q said:
Does it look suspicious when there's a "Made" or "Saved" entry, rather than an "Achieved personally" point?
For example, consider the "Developed a test automation framework reducing
company/team testing time from 3 days to 12 hours". If it saved the company so much money/time, why wouldn't they have an award to back it up? Would it make recruiters worry that maybe there was a problem with the automation framework )and hence did not merit any awards/recognition)?
There is at least one alternative of course: maybe their previous company wasn't very good at recognising employee contributions - and that's why their employee is job hunting - but what would be the first or main impression?
UK jobs said:
Ideally, a good resume should say what your skills are, what you have done/achieved and then it needs to be backed up.
Good luck!
Ryan said:
Good questions - I don't think it's critical that you have an award to back it up as "evidence." Instead, be prepared to discussthe details about what you accomplished in the interview. That is how the interviewer/company will validate what you've said you've accomplished.
I don't believe a recruiter, or hiring manager, would focus on why you didn't get an award for a specific accomplishment.
-Ryan