The Resume Success Zone

This blog and the resume course exist to enlighten people about the basic aspects of job hunting that I believe are important. The most important aspects of my work involve helping people to develop an individualized, long term career strategy. Before you can begin to work on something as comprehensive as a career strategy, you need to be adept at several basic functions. Writing and appreciating the nuances of what it takes to produce an effective resume are one of those basics. Interviewing and negotiating skills are next. On this blog I focus on resume writing issues.

I recently helped my wife revise her resume. Her goal is to effect a career change. So we went through to process of converting a well-tuned chronological resume and into a functional resume. If you’re not sure what that means. Stop reading this and sign up for my resume writing course. You’ve got some work to do . . . (Seriously. This is a major distinction in resume writing and it needs to be understood before you embarrass yourself publicly.)

Although at times she became impatient, she heeded my rationale that she treat the new resume as a multi-week task and not rush through it. Her result was excellent. After her first draft, we had exactly two focused conversations and she went through about four ad hoc revision sessions. During our discussions, I questioned a few specific points for clarification. Certain aspects were changed on my recommendations. Others were not after I fully understood the mindset of the intended audience. Her use of industry specific lingo seemed not only appropriate but a definite boost to her chances of landing the specific position she desired. In other words she wasn’t trying to show off or pack her resume full of jargon.

At the end of most of the editing, I re-read her resume and lo and behold, there they were, three instances of that dreaded phrase: “responsible for.” I even said out loud, “How did I miss that?” That’s because they usually make me gnash my teeth. The trouble is that frequently when someone sees fit to include “responsible for” they use it a couple of dozen times. My wife spent a good deal of time working with my suggestions for spicing up or increasing the impact of points on her resume so the three appearances of “responsible for” didn’t stand out that much. This was a sign that her resume has impact and a good pacing. Now, the “responsible for”s are gone. We discussed each replacement specifically. I essentially drew from the Impact Words list included in the resume course. It’s never difficult to replace “responsible for” with something better. There are almost always several different ways to make the intended point. At least a couple of them will have much, much more impact than the ordinary, overused and meaningless “responsible for.”

If I haven’t impressed upon you the need to get rid of every occurrence of “responsible for” on your resume then think about this. The phrase robs your valid experience of impact. I’ve seen this on the resumes of highly educated people. It comes from learning to write resumes when you were working part time during college—or soon thereafter. You used the same formula to explain the details of all your post college jobs. Perhaps they were menial jobs and didn’t seem to warrant the effort to make them captivating. Nonetheless I guarantee that even those descriptions can have impact.

Now, ten or fifteen years later, you’re still using the same formula to write a professional’s resume. It doesn’t work anymore because the competition is more serious. Your list of daily tasks can’t hold a candle to someone with a comparable skill set that lists aggressive accomplishments on their resume.

If you’ve never had anyone tell you this before then click on this Google link and check out the first several links.

Google search: +”responsible for” +resume

The bulk of the 35 million entries found include links to live resumes. But there are hundreds of articles and blog postings that say exactly the same thing I do. Using the phrase “responsible for” saps energy from your resume. It bores the reader.

Here’s an example I found doing that search. How about turning “Responsible for agreements with outsourcing partners . . . “ into “Negotiated contracts with outsourcing partners . . .”? I know what you’re thinking, suppose they had nothing to do with setting up the contracts in the first place? OK then, how about “Managed the requirements and itemized work orders with outsourcing partners covering 9 CRM projects spanning a two year contract”? And that may not apply either but “Responsible for agreements with outsourcing partners . . . “ says nothing to me.

While you’re at it be sure and remove any alternate mentions like “responsibilities included” or “duties included.” They can take an excellent resume and turn it into a boring mess.