If you are a product then your resume is your marketing communication tool. Imagine the resume as being a brochure that will list the benefits of a particular service. The service being your time, talent and skills! When writing a resume, look at it from your employers’ point of view. Would you stand out against the competition (the other candidates)? In what way, can you meet your employers’ needs? What value addition can you bring to the organization? You’ve to ask these questions when writing your resume.
I read somewhere that resume is just like “toothpaste commercial” that means that an average employment manager devotes about the same amount of time to scanning a resume that most television viewers spend watching a commercial designed to sell toothpaste-about 30 seconds. But rather than advertising the features and benefits of toothpaste, a resume is designed to advertise the accomplishments and track record of its author- that’s, you.
Think for a moment about the concept of marketing. Marketing means taking a careful look at the needs of a certain segment of consumers and finding a way to satisfy those needs. A resume is, fundamentally, a marketing tool. The consumer is the employment manager or the person in the company who makes the hiring decisions. The needs of that consumer are the requirements of the position he or she’s trying to fill. You’re the product, and your qualifications for that job are the way in which you’ll meet that employer's needs. After Big Bang letter, your first form of advertising will be your resume.
Another way to understand what a resume should be is to look at what it shouldn't be. Obviously, if it’s a marketing tool, it’s not a chronicling of everything you’ve ever done or experienced with no regard for how that list meets an employer’s needs.
A resume, then, isn’t your entire life story, because your entire life couldn’t possibly be relevant to the requirements of a single job. It’s not amateurish or contrived. If you want anyone to read it, it’s obviously not a cluttered, wordy, unreadable mess. And most important, it’s never a work of fiction, full of exaggerations, inaccuracies, or just pure fabrications.
The fact of the matter is:
An average candidate with a stronger resume gets better results than a superior candidate with a mediocre resume.
So resume scripting is a serious business. It shouldn’t be taken casually or unceremoniously. Instead, one must have the passion and obsession to write and maintain a stunning and striking resume. You must derive the pleasure when you’re scripting it. Pleasure because it’s all about you; it’s more like venturing out your own self and exploring every nook and cranny of your personality, a rediscovery indeed. This piece of paper is description of who you’re, where’ve you been from, where’ve your contributed before; where’ve you been educated; what’re your belief systems; what stands possible and what appears impossible for you; what’s difficult and what’s challenging for you. What holds you back; what puts you off and what inspires you; what’re your motivators and what’re inhibitors; what’re your skill-sets; what your mind-set is; what your strengths are and what’re your hiccups and handicaps; what’re your ambitions and aspirations; what’re your dreams and what’re your career goals. Since it all relates to you, so it’s only YOU who can and should write your brochure. The designing and embellishment part of the resume can be left to others but as for as contents are concerned, as far as real stuff is concerned, as far as juice is concerned, it’s your basic and fundamental job. It can’t be delegated; it can’t be relegated; it can’t be outsourced.
My observation is that graduates take least interest in writing their own resumes. For them, it’s no less than drudgery, a monotonous, tedious and boring work. Writing a compelling, convincing and captivating resume shouldn’t be taken as something like filling an income tax return pro forma. This activity rather must be loved, enjoyed, cherished and treasured.
Selling yourself depends on getting noticed, standing apart and being different from everybody else. If at the outset you’re represented only by your resume and your resume looks like everybody else’s resume, then you look like everybody else.
I read somewhere that resume is just like “toothpaste commercial” that means that an average employment manager devotes about the same amount of time to scanning a resume that most television viewers spend watching a commercial designed to sell toothpaste-about 30 seconds. But rather than advertising the features and benefits of toothpaste, a resume is designed to advertise the accomplishments and track record of its author- that’s, you.
Think for a moment about the concept of marketing. Marketing means taking a careful look at the needs of a certain segment of consumers and finding a way to satisfy those needs. A resume is, fundamentally, a marketing tool. The consumer is the employment manager or the person in the company who makes the hiring decisions. The needs of that consumer are the requirements of the position he or she’s trying to fill. You’re the product, and your qualifications for that job are the way in which you’ll meet that employer's needs. After Big Bang letter, your first form of advertising will be your resume.
Another way to understand what a resume should be is to look at what it shouldn't be. Obviously, if it’s a marketing tool, it’s not a chronicling of everything you’ve ever done or experienced with no regard for how that list meets an employer’s needs.
A resume, then, isn’t your entire life story, because your entire life couldn’t possibly be relevant to the requirements of a single job. It’s not amateurish or contrived. If you want anyone to read it, it’s obviously not a cluttered, wordy, unreadable mess. And most important, it’s never a work of fiction, full of exaggerations, inaccuracies, or just pure fabrications.
The fact of the matter is:
An average candidate with a stronger resume gets better results than a superior candidate with a mediocre resume.
So resume scripting is a serious business. It shouldn’t be taken casually or unceremoniously. Instead, one must have the passion and obsession to write and maintain a stunning and striking resume. You must derive the pleasure when you’re scripting it. Pleasure because it’s all about you; it’s more like venturing out your own self and exploring every nook and cranny of your personality, a rediscovery indeed. This piece of paper is description of who you’re, where’ve you been from, where’ve your contributed before; where’ve you been educated; what’re your belief systems; what stands possible and what appears impossible for you; what’s difficult and what’s challenging for you. What holds you back; what puts you off and what inspires you; what’re your motivators and what’re inhibitors; what’re your skill-sets; what your mind-set is; what your strengths are and what’re your hiccups and handicaps; what’re your ambitions and aspirations; what’re your dreams and what’re your career goals. Since it all relates to you, so it’s only YOU who can and should write your brochure. The designing and embellishment part of the resume can be left to others but as for as contents are concerned, as far as real stuff is concerned, as far as juice is concerned, it’s your basic and fundamental job. It can’t be delegated; it can’t be relegated; it can’t be outsourced.
My observation is that graduates take least interest in writing their own resumes. For them, it’s no less than drudgery, a monotonous, tedious and boring work. Writing a compelling, convincing and captivating resume shouldn’t be taken as something like filling an income tax return pro forma. This activity rather must be loved, enjoyed, cherished and treasured.
Selling yourself depends on getting noticed, standing apart and being different from everybody else. If at the outset you’re represented only by your resume and your resume looks like everybody else’s resume, then you look like everybody else.
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