performed became secondary.
AFTER
- Mackel’s resumé is slimmer, less dense with text, and therefore easier on the eye. It’s one page shorter and more elegantly structured.
- A bold-faced headline touts Mackel as an “information technology expert” and highlights her combination of technical knowledge and healthcare administration experience.
- Buffkins added a bulleted section at the top of the resumé listing Mackel’s “core competencies.” They include her certifications and training, adding focus to her resumé and containing much of the formerly rampant jargon.
- In the section listing core competencies, Buffkins featured hard skills like technical writing, software development, and system testing. She eliminated soft ones like Mackel’s interpersonal skills.
- Many acronyms have been deleted or contained, and much of the jargon has been tamed. Mackel’s resumé is easier to read.
- The first page of Mackel’s two-page resumé now holds two full sections of her employment history, whereas only part of one had fit before. “If employers are not impressed with the beginning, they won’t continu
e [reading],” Buffkins notes. Now, she says, “by the time they get to [Mackel’s] education, they may be totally convinced to bring her in for an interview.” - Buffkins began each separate section of Mackel’s employment history with the employer rather than dates. That puts the focus where it belongs.
- Buffkins also broke out details of Mackel’s skill set that previously had been grouped together, making them hard to decipher.
- The wordy explanations of Mackel’s previous projects were excised.
- Buffkins eliminated two healthcare administration jobs from Mackel’s employment history to focus more strongly on the IT industry. These can be added back and can be reframed to focus on skills that transcend industries.
- Accomplishments such as consistently meeting stringent deadlines -which are missing in the old resumé -are now woven throughout.
- Buffkins moved Mackel’s education to the second page of the resumé because her anthropology and health administration degrees don’t strongly relate to the IT industry.
- Mackel says she is pleased with her new resumé. “I think it is more effective than the original version,” she says. “It more succinctly describes my qualifications without all of the unnecessary verbiage.”