Picture yourself at the market after a long day at the office. You’re in a rush, and want only those items on your list, if they’re on sale. Hurrying into the store, you glance around for the weekly advertising piece that indicates what’s on sale. Trouble is, there’s no advertising piece, and no one to answer your questions. If you want to purchase the items you need at a discount, you’re forced to walk up and down each and every aisle until you find what’s available.
Doesn’t sound like an effective use of time, does it? And yet this is the same type of frustration hiring managers are exposed to every time an applicant submits a resume that fails to open with a well-written Qualifications Summary and/or Skill Set.
It’s a brief paragraph that showcases your most effective skills and experience. More importantly, it’s your chance to convince a hiring manager of the skills you can bring to the position. This is essential — hiring managers generally afford no more than 10 seconds to your resume, unless they’re compelled to read further.
So, how do you compel them to keep reading?
Let’s use this example: You’re an accountant who has worked at XYZ Company for nine years and been promoted every time you’ve come up for review. Because of your organizational efforts, the company is saving $2,500 monthly. You’ve passed the CPA exam. You’re skilled in Profit & Loss (P&L), audits, taxation matters, and internal controls. Now, you want a Controller position.
Rather than including all of this in the body of the resume, where the hiring manager would be forced to look for it (but won’t), the wise candidate would write something like this:
Results-oriented, detailed professional with comprehensive accounting experience. Background includes consistent promotions to positions of increased responsibility. Skilled in P&L, audits, taxation, internal controls, and streamlining procedures, effecting a monthly savings of $2,500 at XYZ Company. Recently passed the CPA exam; currently seeking a controller position.
In five lines, you’ve given specific examples of what you can do, quantified an accomplishment, indicated past performance, provided data on certification, and provided your career path. And you’ve done all of that in a well-written paragraph that’s easy to read.
Note that personal pronouns are not used here. In business writing, which includes resumes, personal pronouns such as I, me, or my are never used.
Fine, you say, but what about an Objective? In the modern resume, an objective statement is no longer used. Why? In the outmoded Objective, the candidate told the hiring manager what he wanted, whether that was a job at the company, room for advancement, a chance to use a new college degree, or any other reason an applicant could think of. The problem is that this can come across as self-serving.
On the other hand, the Qualifications Summary proactively declares what you can do for the targeted company, which places the hiring manager’s needs first. A wise applicant always uses a Qualifications Summary, either by itself or combined with a Skill Set.
