The heartbeat of your résumé…
How would you fill in this blank regarding your resume?
The heartbeat of your resume is ___.
Is it your immediate value offered section?
Is it your experience section?
Or, is it the education section?
It could even be your certification section.
What if your education doesn’t match up with the requirements on the job announcement?
What if your education doesn’t match up with the requirements on the job announcement, but you have 8 years of direct experience, just not a degree.
Should you apply to the job? Or, do you let imposter syndrome set in?
Recently, we had a client with 12 years of direct experience in the area to which she wanted to apply, but she was missing the education according to what she thought was the requirement on the job announcement. After further review, I noticed the requirement was a Bachelor’s degree OR 8 years of related experience.
Did you catch that?
- Two little letters. Not three. Not AND.
She believed she was too old to apply because she thought the job announcement was written to target millennials.
Even worse, she didn’t know how to convey her value.
Does volunteer work go on your resume?
She said she had only volunteered while she was raising her family. She was depressed and didn’t think she had anything to offer.
After a coaching session, she learned she could leverage her age to showcase her expertise. During the session, she mentioned she won several awards. She never thought to mention those to validate her skills and the impact they had.
She made an off-the-cuff remark that she spends a minimum of 40-60 hours a week in this ‘volunteer’ role.
Wait. What?
That’s really great, but 40-60 hours a week is more like a job!
I encouraged her to list it as Experience and treat it like a job on the résumé including the responsibilities and accomplishments.
She discovered she could leverage her years of experience and her certifications to substitute for the degree requirement!
She learned she could use her accomplishments for evidence of work and the significant amount of time she spent ensuring she did her job with near perfection.
Then, she found out she could use quotes of praise from her supervisors, stakeholders, and the board of directors.
All of the sudden, she could see that all she had done was significant.
Her entire countenance shifted from depressed… to hopeful! I could tell she was now on a mission.
She went from believing she had only been a volunteer and had no experience that could be counted in the workplace to realizing she was actually very well qualified for the position.
She started writing down all her skills, assets, awards, and third-party validation of her skills including certifications that took months to complete, and she assembled documentation showcasing her work. Before she knew it, her résumé was retargeted for the Six Audiences™ who would read and score her resume.
MAGNETIC TIP: Leverage what YOU have to offer. Leverage YOU. The heartbeat of your resume is…YOU!
If you want to figure out the best way to leverage what you have to offer, start here!
For more than 25 years, I've been trusted by all levels of professionals to senior executives in the Federal Government to collaborate with them and strategize, coach, and write not only their single most important document—the resume—but all of their career marketing that propels them upward in the ranks of the Federal Government and private sector. And, I would love to meet you and help you with yours! Thank you for stopping by!
You can find out what's killing your chances of landing federal jobs here: Take the 1-minute quiz and get valuable insight to your situation.
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