5 Strategies To Trim Your Résumé To The Right Length - CareerEnlightenment.com

The Diamond ApproachWhen I was learning to write essays back in high school, my teachers likened an essay to an hourglass shape: broad at the top and bottom to tie together the general ideas, and narrow in the middle sections to focus on each argument, point-by-point.When I’m detailing experience on a client’s résumé, I imagine a diamond shape.The top and bottom points (think home plate and second base, if you’re imagining a baseball diamond) are where you simply list things. The wide points in the vertical centre (first and third base) are where you get into the nitty gritty details.How does this work in practice? I use three different sections to give a résumé its ‘diamond’ structure:Professional Summary: A list of all jobs within the past 10 to 15 years, including title, company, and month/year dates of tenure.Experience: Detailed responsibilities and accomplishments for 3 to 5 recent and relevant roles, using bullet points.Earlier / Additional Experience: A list of early career jobs, including title, company, and years of tenure.The reason the diamond approach works so well is it allows you to present a complete career history without going into too much detail, highlighting the important information without omitting anything.Combine RolesIf you’ve spent a long time at one company, chances are you’ve been moved around from role to role, department to department.This is usually a good thing, because it demonstrates depth of experience, confidence in your abilities, and an ability to succeed across scenarios.But what if one or two of those roles just aren’t that significant within the grand scheme of things?Maybe budget cuts shut down the department after 8 months, or the mandate was quickly achieved, and you were moved along into another, more relevant role?With space (and a recruiter’s attention) at a premium, don’t feel like you have to detail less-than-memorable roles.Don’t omit it entirely, of course, but feel free to simply lis t it in the Professional Summary Section, and then combine it with the role immediately preceding or following it, explaining what you’ve done with a bullet point.Here’s an example:Head of Product Innovation, Home Widgets                                 Dec 2011 to CurrentTeam Lead, Home Widget Improvement Task Force                  Aug 2011 to Nov 2011ABC CorporationRole evolved from overseeing a 5-person continuous improvement task force to leading implementation of task force recommendations, spearheading innovation across the $3bn home widget division to capture share of market and increase revenue.Ultimately, your résumé is more a marketing brochure than a court transcript: present the information in the way that paints you in the best light, while (of course) still being truthful.Be Strategic About Consulting Contract Work.These days, it’s not uncommon for executives to have experience going from contract to contract, or spending stretches of th eir careers consulting for other businesses.Whether you were getting your feet into the Australian market after a stint overseas, or consulted after selling your start-up and before your next full-time role, jumping around for a period has less stigma than it used it, as long as you can present it compellingly.For consulting roles, I typically advise clients to treat it as self-employment on their résumé: list tailored consulting and small business owner duties in the Responsibilities section, and explain each engagement, including the impact you had, with two to three bullet points in a Key Projects section.For contract positions, there are a few options.If the roles were similar, consider listing each in the Professional Summary section, and then combining details in the Experience section, similar to how a Consultant might.For those contracts you’d like to downplay, don’t be afraid to move them to an Additional Experience section, freeing up space to focus on your most impr essive roles.Eliminate The FluffAllow me to be blunt for a moment.If you’re going after a COO job, recruiters don’t need to know that you’re PADI deep water certified, have completed every 100 Books to Read Before you Die list on the Internet, or are a champion cheesecake eater. (Unless, of course, it is COO of a diving operation, publishing house, or a cheesecake manufacturer, in which case go to town!)“Butbutmy personality,” you protest.And you’re right. Personality does matter to recruiters, just not at the initial résumé screening stage.Move that stuff over to your LinkedIn profile or, even better, your website (you have a website which showcases your personal brand, right?), and focus on what really matters in your résumé: all the ways in which you’re qualified to be the next (insert job title).While I’m on the topic, know that personality isn’t the only source of fluff on long résumés.Unending lists of professional development courses, skills, and techn ologies can have the same eyes-glaze-over effect on recruiters. I’m talking about things that are obvious, irrelevant, out-of-date, or lacking broad credibility:The Executive Assistant who lists Microsoft Word as a skill;The Data Entry Specialist who lists “Public Speaking for Marketing Managers” as a qualification;The CTO who lists systems they worked with 25 years ago;The VP of PR who lists every in-house, non-credentialed professional development workshop they’ve ever taken.Go through your résumé and (critically) ask yourself these two questions: Does this make me look out-of-touch? Does it seem like I’m padding my experience/qualifications?If the answer is yes to either, make use of your delete key.The Five Question TestAt the end of the day, everything on your résumé and I really do mean everything should serve a clear goal: communicating why you’re qualified for the job, and securing an interview.That means looking at your résumé through the (skeptical) eye s of a recruiter, and asking yourself whether you have what they’re looking for.While the details change for each role, recruiters’ high-level assessments don’t actually change all that much across functions or levels.To make sure my bespoke executive résumés communicate everything recruiters need to see in order to invite my clients for an interview, I’ve developed a 5 Question Test.If a résumé doesn’t answer every question, we keep working until it does.Scope: Have they managed teams, budgets, projects, etc. of a similar size, scope, and level of importance to the role?Experience: Do they understand the commercial drivers and impact of the function and industry, as demonstrated by what they’ve done, and the insights they’ve shared in their résumé?Skills and Competencies: Do they have the key skills and competencies needed to succeed in this role?Getting It Done: Have they proven they’re able to deliver on the strategic priorities and mandates of past roles?Pr ogression: Does their career make sense to me? Have they progressed logically and succeeded in roles with more responsibility and impact?If you find your résumé is too long, get out your red pen and cut out everything that doesn’t answer the 5 Question Test.If you’re anything like me, it can be legitimately hard to edit out roles and projects that were a significant part of your life, but with only 1-3 pages to work with (depending on your level of seniority) and with your résumé being the difference between getting an interview, and continuing to languish in the job search wilderness it’s critical that you invest the time to do it properly.