How To Customize Your Resume
The single most frequently question we are asked is, "What exactly does it mean to 'customize' your resume to each posting?"
This is a very simple example and one we hope will make sense to each reader regardless of profession.
Sally is an Import/Export Specialist within a small specialty chemical manufacturing company. Because this is a small company, many employees pitch in and help other departments when needed. Sally often helps the Sales staff with their presentations because she has a natural knack for graphics and is excellent with MS Publisher from her days as the Yearbook Captain in high school. There are many days she wishes she could be a full time Marketing Assistant rather than dealing with all the paperwork and documentation in Import/Export.
The owner of the company has announced that the company will be closing due to poor sales. Sally is faced with writing a resume. While drafting her resume, she finds this might be an opportunity to highlight her graphic and marketing skills. She chooses a bullet style format in the following order: First two bullets are about her soft skills of attention to detail, excellent follow-up, etc., next two bullets are about her graphics and marketing support followed by three bullets specific to her import skills and then three bullets specific to her export skills. Sally's logic is that every employer would need her soft skills so she starts the bullets with those skills. She followed with her marketing duties because Sally would love to use those on her next job and finally she felt six bullets dedicated to her import and export was sufficient to indicate most of her day was spent in import and export.
A job posting for an Export Coordinator for a cattle feed company is advertised and requires at least two years of export experience to Latin America, knowledge of Certificates of Origin, Certificates of Analysis, commercial invoices, NAFTA, embargo lists, and other typical export skills. Perfect match for Sally as she has all those skills particularly since she worked for a chemical company.
Our advice to Sally is to:
- DELETE the two bullets about her marketing and graphics; they have nothing to do with this posting.
- Move the soft skill bullets to last on the bullet list - everyone has those soft skills and they will not set her apart or impact the Recruiter to bring her in for an interview.
- Move the export bullets to the top of the bullet list
- ADD two more export bullets which clearly detail the frequent creation and documentation of Certificates of Origin, Certificates of Analysis, commercial invoices, NAFTA. The second newly created bullet should be specific to the various countries in Latin America.
- In her original resume, Sally's export bullets were more generic in nature...."Prepared documentation necessary for smooth export of our goods to clients in Latin America." We strongly suggest that she specifically name/list the "documentation" to mirror those in the posting.
In another scenario, if Sally applies to an Administrative Assistant role, she would lessen the amount of import/export bullets and keep them very generic in nature, add a couple of bullets about preparing correspondence, supporting Sales, following-up with customers, utilizing Excel for reports, etc. She would continue to include the two bullets regarding her marketing and graphics. Sally would also need an objective that clearly stated she was seeking an "Administrative Assistant role which will build upon my excellent software, documentation, follow-up and customer service skills....."
Keep in mind that in this market approaching 10% unemployment (and we all know it is much higher if everyone was counted), employers are looking for specialists and not generalists. Today, the Hiring Manager's mantra is, "Show me you have already done what I need you to do."
Hope this little story helps you
customize your resume to each posting!
