Extreme Makeover

By Laura Egodigwe
Catherine Mackel, an information technology expert, is employed, but her current resumé hasn’t landed her any interviews. “My resumé isn’t working well for me at all,” says Mackel, 35. “[It’s] posted on at least five different resumé sites. Since January, I’ve had two calls.”

Though the job market is improving, the hunt for employment is more competitive than ever. According to Jeevan DeVore, vice president of operations for CareerPerfect.com, a global resumé and career services firm based in Bellingham, Washington, a resumé must accomplish three tasks: “It gets you in the door, it supports you during the interview, and it supports you in your absence when an employer is making the hiring decision.” It’s your “personal marketing document,” she elaborates.

Mackel prepared her resumé on her own. She’s an IT consultant with a Fairfax, Virginia, technology firm that helps the government use the Internet and other advanced technologies to improve productivity and information sharing. “As I objectively look at my current resumé, I realize that my bulleted lists do not speak to the vast knowledge that I’ve gained in the past 12 years.”

POINTS TO CONSIDER:
1 Many says that a resumé should be kept to one page, but forget the “one-page myth,” says Jeevan DeVore, vice president of operations for CareerPerfect.com. A resumé should have a brief yet compelling summary to catch an employer’s interest within the first 10 seconds, then have enough depth and detail to hold his or her interest. DeVore advises putting information where it is most relevant. People with a broad range of experience might want to consider having more than one resumé so that each resumé can target a specific industry or job, Buffkins says.

2 Resumé writers advise adding a summary or highlights section to quickly capture an employer’s attention with easily digestible information selling your skills, abilities, and experience. A summary also gives your resumé focus, and if you’re in a highly technical field, like Mackel, it can provide an area where specialized jargon will make sense. If you’re responding to a specific job listing, make sure your summary targets that position by including skills, training, and accomplishments that are related to that listing.

3 Hiring managers are less interested in titles and more concerned with job performance. How have you positively affected your company’s bottom line? When describing your employment history, don’t simply list your job description. Describe how you overcame challenges to complete a project or assignment. Quantifying your achievements in terms of percentages, dollar amounts, or timeframes “will give your accomplishments more authority,” says DeVore.

4 You can’t proofread your resumé too many times. Enlist a second -or even third -set of eyes if possible. Having to review so many resumés, employers look for reasons to eliminate applicants. “Once [employers] see that first misspelled word, that resumé is gone,” says Meldron Young, human resources practice consultant at the American Management Association in New York City. Even small mistakes lead employers to believe that a candidate isn’t conscientious, he says.

5 Employment-related Websites like Monster.com, Career Builder.com, and Wetfeet.com offer free resumé tips in addition to links to professional resumé-writing sites such as CareerPerfect.com. Like Buffkins, some resumé writers are members of the Professional Association of Resumé Writers and Career Coaches, a 14-year-old organization that trains and certifies experts. You can also find a resumé writer in your area at the association’s Website: www.parw.com.

6 Don’t just send it out randomly, Young cautions. “You have to protect your brand,” says Young. “Be selective about who you send your resumé to.” That means doing research on your targeted company and making contact with someone there for an informational interview before you send your package. “It’s important to build a relationship with someone in the organization up front … so when you decide to send your credentials, they already know who you are and will be looking out for that information

BEFORE

• Mackel’s current resumé runs three pages, which is long, wordy, dense with text, unfocused, and filled with jargon and acronyms.
• It fails to paint a clear picture of her goals or the industry or position she is targeting. “If an employer looks at this resumé, they’ll question what it is that she wants to do,” says Buffkins. “It’s just saying, ‘These are the things I’ve done -fit me in where you think I can be utilized.'”
• Mackel begins her resumé with highlights of her qualifications, including a mention of her “excellent interpersonal and management skills.”
• After highlights, she lists her education -a B.A. in sociology and anthropology from Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, and a master’s degree in health administration from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.
• After education, Mackel features her technical certifications and training, including software such as Microsoft Office Suite 2000 and PVCS Tracker, a specialized software used to track versions of software code and development.
• Mackel says she is ready to leave behind the “unstable” contracting business. Her work on contracts through the firm can last two to four years, but
  when a contract ends, the possibility of a layoff looms. She has been laid off once during her career. She is seeking greater job stability, as well as a shorter commute from her home in Silver Spring, Maryland, where she lives with her husband, Craig, and their three small children. Mackel has sent out about 50 resumés via e-mail, regular mail, fax, and Internet posting and has had no requests for interviews. Hoping to create a document that speaks well of her accomplishments, Mackel agreed to let LeRachel H. Buffkins, owner of Writing for You Inc., a resumé-writing business based in Laurel, Maryland, perform an extreme makeover.
• Most of Mackel’s experience begins with her job title, except the first listing, which begins with her status as a senior member of the technical staff.
• Mackel includes a lengthy explanation of a software system for a project on which she worked. She says she did so to help interviewers understand her past work. Because so much space is used on summing up a project, vital details of the actual work she performed became secondary.
• Bulleted points detailing the work she performed begin with the dates of employment.
• There are also a couple of typos.

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.”