RESUMES: Four elements of a good summary statement

RESUMES: FOUR ELEMENTS OF A GOOD SUMMARY STATEMENT
Overview vs. Objective and other ideas above the fold

NAKED BACON is probably a terrible thing to have at the top of your resume as an attention grabber, but maybe it works in blog posts. A well crafted description of who you are and what you specifically offer is like a banner headline of a newspaper.

In this post I’m going to touch on length of resume, objective vs summary statement, four elements of a good summary statement, accomplishment language and a few other odd resume ideas.

The problem with most resumes is they’re all about you. It is, by its very nature an extremely self-centered document. It is one reason most resumes don’t get attention in the form of an interview or even a rejection email. Your resume needs to be tnereffid and stand out. Look at your resume from the hiring manager’s perspective. Your audience isn’t concerned about “filling a position” as much as they are trying to solve a problem. They are evaluating you to see if you can fill their big, specific need so they are most often looking for two things: qualifications and fit.


LENGTH OF RESUME
You have two pages* at most to sell yourself and in most cases, far less than that. Most experts say you have between five and forty-five seconds to hook a reader. Therefore, err on the side of caution and hook them in five seconds by focusing on the top half of the top page as your lone opportunity to sell the rest of the resume.

* Two pages is probably right unless you are a super expert, a senior executive or have technical or other expertise that requires more space to explain. Experts refer to a resume that has three or more pages as a “brick”. A new college graduate should have a one-page resume.


OBJECTIVE vs. SUMMARY STATEMENT
From an earlier post entitled “Seven things to do upon losing your job”, I wrote a sample summary statement that – to me – is a masterpiece of futility which reads:
“Hard working, forward-thinking, professional, dedicated team player seeking employment with solid company where I can apply my skills and abilities to make a valuable contribution.”

If your summary statement of qualifications sounds anything like this, I’m going to personally punch you in the job you didn’t get. Those are great qualities, but they don’t differentiate you. They don’t speak to need. What job seeker wouldn’t say those things even if they are a lazy, short-sighted goon, who doesn’t work or play well with others willing to settle for a crappy job with a questionable company in hopes of flying under the radar? You are none of those things so be sure your banner headline makes someone say “I want to know more”.

For a new graduate or changing fields, an objective statement might be in order to state clearly what you are looking for. Some professional resume writers say you should never use an objective because that is focused on what you want as opposed to what you can do for a prospective employer. In most cases a summary statement may be more effective to keep your audience reading.


FOUR ELEMENTS OF A GOOD SUMMARY STATEMENT
1. [Job title] – All of the best summary statements I have seen start with the job title. It guides the reader and lets them know right up front how you can help them. Some resume experts suggest adding this title after your name at the very top of the resume. Both tactics serve the same purpose: guide the reader. Examples include: “Human Resources Generalist”, “Certified Project Manager”, “Sales manager”, etc.

2. [speak to outcomes] – Where possible, use numbers later on in the document to back this up but tell them what happens to departments or businesses where you are involved. You can’t promise success in a job you are seeking and don’t yet have, but you can use past success at other companies as an indicator of what a prospective employer can expect from you. If there is a common thread of success, that’s your banner headline. Won contract extensions, increased sales by X%, completed projects by an average of X% under budget, etc.

3. [touch on skill set] – What do you have that others don’t which make you a better asset? Using my skills as a polished presenter, creative problem solver, etc.

4. [speak to organizational fit] – Are you a strong team player who thrives on camaraderie and competition or an independent, task oriented self-starter? There is a place for both in an organization, so don’t pretend you will be content taking orders on the phone all day when you’d rather be out connecting with people (or vice versa). You should tell a prospective employer what type of environment allows you to deliver the greatest return.

Here are a few real examples of summary statements that I think are good, with each of the above elements noted.

“Human Resource generalist(1) skilled in the development and maintenance of a well-functioning HR department(2) as a value added, strategic partner(4) to the business.”

“Highly creative and recognized computer analyst(1) with a reputation(2) for complex logistical problem solving(3) and a passion(4) for quick response, lean process and high quality.”

“Energetic sales professional(1) with a proven history of closing and growing key accounts(2) that leads as a team contributor(4) and thrives presenting in person(3) .”

Some jobs are easier to quantify than others, so in some cases you may not be able to speak to outcomes as well as others. If you can include as many of these elements in your summary statement, it should encourage people to keep reading.


ACCOMPLISHMENT LANGUAGE
Experts that advocate this say it is not enough for you to take your existing resume and just add in accomplishment statements. They advocate starting over entirely. Accomplishments tell stories and help people remember you. If you’re going to go this route, start by making a list of all the contributions you have made in your previous jobs. To start it can be as simple as “big Atmos sale” or “HSBC upsell”. Your list should have at least 15 and could have many more. Once you have your list, expand each one to tell the situation, action and result/outcome.
Situation – when, company situation, etc.
Action – What did you specifically do?
Result – what was the positive outcome for the company?
If you are seeking a sales or sales management position you might have a group of accomplishments under the “Sales Management Accomplishments” header and others under “Sales accomplishments”. By adding these right after your summary statement you are giving your audience strong information about you early in the document. You can also move up something important in your resume that would otherwise be lost on page two.

One big caveat to accomplishment language that I hear consistently is HR people hate resumes like this. Therefore, if you have an accomplishment resume, have a chronological one ready in case someone gives you a signal that they don’t like the format. If you are concerned about it, consider leading with the chronological resume and showing up for the interview with an accomplishment format.


FINAL THOUGHTS
· Consider placing your contact information at the bottom of the page, leaving more valuable real estate for something that sells you.

· Don’t cram your resume so full of text that there is no white space. Make your resume easy to read.

· Consider hiding keywords in a very small font high up in your resume. When companies scan in a resume and have a program that looks for keywords, this could be a good way to get noticed. I removed a graphic line under my name before my summary statement and added in a line of text at font size 2 with lots of industry keyword terms and words to describe me. It never amounted to anything that I know of but I can’t imagine it hurt. I could have made it even smaller text but I hoped a human reader might notice it and give me points for creativity.

· Have one or several people who don’t know you well review your resume and give you input. Anytime you ask for input – ask two or three specific questions like “what stood out to you the most?” “As a hiring manager, what would you conclude about what I can do for your company?” You can even guide them a little now that you may know more about resume than they do like “Because I’m trying to communicate that I can solve a problem instead of just fill a job, what line/part would you identify as a weaknesses that didn’t speak to a prospective hiring manager?” You can probably come up with better questions, but don’t just throw them your resume and say “tell me what you think”. Guide your audience, just like with your resume!


Thanks to Laura Smith Proulx for her answer to a question I posted on this topic on LinkedIn. There were lots of great answers but I graded Laura’s as the BEST.

The Perfect Job Description

This question is for triple the points, top four answers on the board. Here is the question: What are the essential things; the critical tools you MUST have prepared if you’re on a job hunt? “Well, Russ, I’m going to have to say: Resume.” (good answer, good answer.)




Most would probably say Resume first, but I don’t think it would be the number one first thing. My answer there is a personal plan or a goal in mind. So there are two answers, what else does a candidate need to have ready?

Another answer I think would come up is an elevator speech or “two-minute drill” to give someone a verbal overview of who they are, where they’ve been and what specifically they offer to a prospective employer.

1. Personal plan / goal. You want to land a specific kind of job, not just any job. Before you write a resume, you have to have the goal in mind.
2. Resume. The brightest star in the cosmos of the job search. Of course you must have a resume.
3. Perfect Job description. Often overlooked, this can be a useful tool – both to have and to go through the process of developing. Drafting this really helped me in my search and has been a useful exercise for many friends too. I would rank it right behind the resume among the critical tools for a job search.
4. Elevator Speech, a/k/a “Two Minute Drill” – I wrote about that in a previous post. You must be able to communicate – even to those close to you – what kind of job you seek and would do well before they can begin to help you.

My belief is that most job seekers would have gotten 1, 2 & 4 but may have missed #3, which is why I wanted to write about it. The first tool would be a personal plan or to go through a personal assessment to clearly identify the things you are good at and that you like. If you don’t have this clear in your mind and on paper, it will make your resume much more difficult to draft. That’s why this element is first in the process ahead of resumes. Personal assessments are a critical component of a job search and something I’ll hammer on later. Let’s assume you already have a good sense for who you are and what you offer a prospective employer.

Unless you are in HR, you may not have ever written a job description. Drafting what you believe to be YOUR perfect job description will help you identify and communicate what you’re good at, what you enjoy, whether you like change, structure, independence, teamwork, etc. A polished document outlining your perfect job description is also something that you can share with friends or at networking meetings to help clearly communicate what you offer and what sets you apart from others.

Where do you start? Let me tell you my experience.

I’m a sales guy with strong experience in transaction-based electronic payments, projects and account management. I have a strong desire to serve, have a creative bent, have grown up using computers and had some experience using social media and helping others make sense of that. After a careful search, no such job with all those elements exists. However, if I am hired in a primary capacity in sales, I can add value with my other experience and communicate my strong desire to serve and be a team player. What I’m really communicating by listing additional responsibilities is how I’ll fit and my willingness to serve.

To start, I took my resume header and cut out everything below my name and address. My goal was for this document to look like my resume. One page should be enough especially since it’s hypothetical. Some exceptions I can think of where you’d make it longer would be if you had a very specific or technical job in mind where you needed to go into great detail about exactly what you would do.

Next, start searching on your favorite job boards for positions that you would like. No doubt you have seen several that you liked, at least in part. Here is your opportunity to start taking the best elements from those job descriptions and adding them to your perfect job description. Whether you do this initially or after you’ve drafted something is up to you and probably depends on your comfort level with this process and the role you envision. Using published/existing job descriptions to come up with the building blocks for your document will ensure you stay grounded in reality and use the right terms to describe what you can bring or add to your next job.

In my first pass I wrote eight different numbered responsibilities and added a % number for the amount of time in a given month I would spend on that area. After further review, I removed those %’s because this is hypothetical and I wanted to communicate what I could do for a prospective employer knowing full well that they would modify my role at least in part.

How do you know if an item should be included in your job description?

Make a list of all the job responsibilities you have:
1. Performed in the past
2. Enjoyed AND
3. Did well – if you aren’t sure about this, think back about any feedback you received from managers or others.

List the things that energize you; your drivers. Being on a job search is like the beginning of a new semester at school. You have a clean slate and an opportunity to clearly identify the things that make you tick and get you out of bed in the mornings.

Having a clear direction about what your next job looks like enables you to clearly communicate your value proposition to friends, contacts and prospective employers. Don’t be the one to get the [X] (buzzer sound!) Best of all, you can do this without having to kiss Richard Dawson, Mr. Peterman or whomever is hosting Family Feud these days.

Have you written a perfect job description? How did you use it? What did the process do for you? I would welcome your coments.

NAMING EMAIL ACCOUNTS, RESUMES & RELATED DOCUMENTS

“There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.” ~ Dale Carnegie

Names are important – just ask my kids. We have three young kids and anytime a new stuffed animal comes to the family we try to have a naming ceremony for the animal. We place all the other stuffed animals in a big circle in the playroom. The kids then choose a few animals that either don’t have names or “need” new names, in addition to the new one, and bring them to me. I then solicit name ideas from the kids and suggest lots of others. They love this ritual and our oldest, John, now 7 ½ , remembers way more of the names than I do.

You want to be remembered – but in a good way – so I suggest you take some time to think through the names you use as part of your personal branding strategy. Every communication you have with a prospective employer is an impression. The way you set up email addresses and other things that employers see gives them another opportunity to form an opinion about you.

EMAIL ADDRESS

On the front end of a job search is a good time to think about your email address. Think about how many email exchanges you might have with the eventual company that hires you. You want to communicate that you are a competent professional who will fit with that company’s culture. This is a good time to consider a change in your email address. You want to make it simple, clear and professional. I think it’s best to use a free service like gmail, yahoo or similar because you can KEEP that address even if you move. What if you get upset with your provider and want to switch or decide the cable is an expense you can cut? Your brand – your email address – is then dependent upon that company’s name. So at the front end of a job hunt is a good time to set up a new account that is free, professional and portable. You don’t even have to abandon your @cox.net or @sbcglobal.net address for your other communication. This can be a gradual change.

It’s pretty easy to set up a redirect from that web based address (your new, professional one) to your existing one that goes directly to your outlook or other email program.

Think for a moment about your previous work email addresses. How were they styled? They were based on just your name “at” your company, right? Some of the most common that I’ve seen are:

FLast@company.com (where “F” is the first initial of your first name and “Last” is your last name.

First.Last@company.com

First.M.Last@company.com (where “M” is your middle initial. When there is no middle name many companies just use “X”.)

You can also use the “_” underscore as a divider between first and last name.

Therefore, I suggest you set up something similar @gmail.com or @yahoo.com.

Sometimes, this can present challenges if you have a common name like Bob Smith or Mary Jones, chances are you are going to have a hard time finding any variation available on any of the big free services. I have a friend with a common name who is in Tulsa and plans to stay here, so he set up his address as first.last.tulsa@gmail.com . Another similar solution would be to do first.last.sales@gmail.com or first.last.accountant@yahoo.com to clearly identify your profession.

Here in Oklahoma many people are passionate about their football teams so they may want to have “Soonerfan” or “GoPokes” in their address. Maybe this works in your favor if you’re applying to a like-minded hiring manager, but what if you’re applying at a company full of the other team’s fans? Don’t forget, most hiring managers are looking for how well you’ll FIT with their company’s culture as well as your competency. Are you willing to risk broadcasting you’re an ardent fan of the team they root against? I might offer one caveat to this if you actually played for that college team. Most Americans respect and appreciate the discipline and sacrifice associated with playing a sport at a high level – even for the enemy. Still, the safe choice is to stick to just your name.

Another common mistake is adding your birth year to your name to come up with your email address. Right now, I don’t really care that I’m 39, but in 10 years, I might really cringe if 1970 is in my email address. Your age might be something you’re working to conceal, so broadcasting it in your email address gives employers another opportunity to pass judgment on you. If you need to add a number, avoid numbers that could be read as dates of birth or graduation.

I’m also opposed to trying to do something clever with your name for your email address. Take my blog as Exhibit A. I would never put dangerruss as part of an email address that would be on a resume and I should probably change this blog name too. However, the name danger-russ came from some high school kids when I was in full time ministry. They started calling me that because I was the opposite of danger and they thought that was funny- and I agree. Thank you Edison Eagles! I still suggest you stick to the basics as best you can. Do as I say, not as I do!

What about hobbies? I’m a woodworker and you might be a skydiver but if you mention either of those someone in HR is bound to look at that not as “interesting” but rather as “higher insurance risk”.

What about something innocuous like “coolguy” or “prettylady”? Chances are if you are those things, it will be better for people to find that out themselves instead of you telling them. Using these might communicate something beyond healthy self-confidence.

Lastly, avoid negatives like “badatmath”, “techchallenged”, “notasalesguy” or “spealingchampeeun” because even if they’re funny or tongue in cheek, these aren’t things that best identify you.

RESUMES & OTHER DOCUMENTS

Most often, you are going to attach or upload your resume, including the file name to lots of people. Based on what I have seen, people do better in this arena, but deliberate thought here certainly can’t hurt as you seek to project your brand out to the audience.

One issue that I see quite a bit is when people have several versions of their resume for various types of jobs, so they add some differentiating word to the document name. For Example:

Russ_Knight_Sales.doc

Russ_Knight_Banking.doc

Russ_Knight_Manager.doc

Really, none of those would be bad. I prefer to use my name and the date only, like Russ_Knight_1209.doc, you could also use a specific date, like Russ_Knight_120709.doc and know that is your “sales” resume and 120609 is your Banking, etc. Whatever system is comfortable for you, use that.

Be sure to avoid using negative words like “non-manager” or “temporary” or “draft” for anything you ever submit to a prospective employer. You want to be sure you are putting your best foot forward.

The reason I’m writing this is I regularly see mistakes from my friends who are on the job hunt and I want to be an encouragement. As you can see, I am certainly not a perfect or even a good example of this. Please feel free to add your own thoughts, ideas and experiences regarding email addresses or document names if you think it would be helpful to others. Blessings to you in your search! I hope this has been useful in your search and in your web presence going forward.