Forbes: If you’ve applied for a job recently, you’ve probably looked over that 8½ x 11” summary of your career more times than you can count—and tweaked it just as often—in pursuit of the perfect resume. But before you add another bullet point, consider this: It’s not always about what you add in—the best changes you can make may lie in what you take out.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Final Cut: Words to Strike from Your Resume
Forbes: If you’ve applied for a job recently, you’ve probably looked over that 8½ x 11” summary of your career more times than you can count—and tweaked it just as often—in pursuit of the perfect resume. But before you add another bullet point, consider this: It’s not always about what you add in—the best changes you can make may lie in what you take out.
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18 comments:
I think the most important thing that this article recommends doing is using examples in your resume. I know for a lot of people it can be difficult to talk yourself up, so instead of saying that you're so great, talk about what you've done that makes you so great. I think that in theater, our resumes are more about what we've done and other resumes focus on the time worked at certain companies. However I think that the use of examples and elaboration can be incredibly useful in your cover letter.
Ariel's perfectly down the right lines when it comes to examples in your application materials. The point that I get from this article is that SPECIFICITY is key, whereas most of the words they'd like you to strike are general, broad terms. The one suggestion I hear often from the career office is to try and punctuate examples and explanations with numbers and industry-familiar terms. "Stage managed five productions (two concurrently) in black-box and thrust spaces" says more than just the titles of the plays. You can definitely call these out and elaborate in the cover letter, like Ariel suggests, but I feel that you can describe what you've done in a more catchy way than purely play and job titles.
I think that this article gives shares a few really good pointers as to what one should say in their resume. It is so important to make a good impression and to keep up with the main selling points. There are definitely phrases that have gone out of style like, "people person", or "seasoned", that make others not want to hire you. Getting a job in this type of economy is hard and very competitive once your in the race so I think that the little details count. On top of that, it is also the way in which one conducts his/her self. As the article reinforces, you can't be the wall flower in person and the outgoing socialite on paper. It simply can't work that way and so the combination of a good all around attitude mixed with the proper wording on a well prepared resume makes all the difference.
This article has some great advice in it, and the resume recommendations are well backed up. I found the explanation of "Experienced" especially helpful because it's something I have always wondered - what does "Experienced" actually entail? Not using the word in a resume in exchange for actually describing what you did solves the problem. Keeping the resume quantifiable is another great piece of advice in the article I will follow.
I like the idea in this article of getting rid of the terms in your resume that are too run of the mill or too often seen on resume's. You want your resume to be alive and not feel like everyone else's. The part that i somewhat disagree with is the phrase "references available upon request". Yes, if they want to hire you specifically and you don't have references on your resume they will probably ask you for them. However, if you send your resume in somewhere and they look at it and it doesn't already have references on it, they might throw it out just for that. It may be a sign that you don't think you have anyone who can say good things about you, or it might just be too much work to get a hold of you to get your references when the candidate's resume behind yours is just as good. I think you either have to be really good, you have to know the person looking at your resume personally, or you have to be applying to a very small pool in order to get away with not putting your references on your resume.
I found this article truly very helpful. When writing proposals, trying to get a job, or better yet trying to get into a college, I was one of those people who over analyzed the writing resume process. But it's true! You are how you present yourself, and why not have every word working in your favor instead of against you or worse, not in any direction at all. I also what's highlighted most in this article: the less, the better. Of course you need enough substantial information/ references for an interview, but actions speak louder than words, and sometimes the things that define you most as a person are left unsaid, and instead- seen.
I think that the overall point of this article was that our resumes should use specific examples instead of general terms. Though it was helpful that the piece broke that concept down more specifically, ("Experienced," "Team Player," "Dynamic," and "References Available on Request"), I wish it had instead shown examples in context of a resume. Where do I insert that I have, in the worst of the article, “Created five customized weekly reports to analyze repeat client sales activity?" How do I appropriately incorporate that into the rest of my limited 8 1/2 by 11 space. That's what I have trouble with. I could also use a few articles about resume formatting, what jobs are important to include, etc. Just sayin'.
I enjoy that the article it both specific (when stating which words should be eliminated) and also broad so that people of all careers can find the importance of revamping their resume. I think that being specific when writing a resume is what will really make a person's work stand out from the rest of the resumes they compete against since, especially in theatre, everyone's experiences are vastly different.
okay yes yes I agree that you probably should strike words from your resume that don't really tell any pertinent information and are just self identified qualifiers. but I take issue with the last point, I think that you should always include references or at the very least include that you have them on request. It is important to know that you are not just claiming that you are great, but that other people can talk about you too. References maybe the thing that makes you look the most legitimate, they are an outside perspective and also the person hiring you will think you are dumb if you don't include or allude to references.
The underlying thing continues to be "show don't tell." To that end, I add that portfolios are important in our industry, because people are fond of putting industry standard softwares and methods on their resumes when perhaps they've only briefly been exposed to them. In this case, having actual product helps. It's also likely that people reviewing resumes looking for specific types of experience will ask the employer where you've had that type of experience how you did, in which case shortcomings will reveal themselves. The "references available" bit is redundant, though I agree that sometimes you may want to withhold references either because the resume is on a public webpage or for space.
I have never put a career objective on my resume. It's always seemed like a huge waste of space. That sort of information either belongs on a cover letter or it is too obvious to bother stating at all. It's also important to use language that makes you stand out; when someone is reading a thousand resumes in a row, they're going to get sick of people saying they're "team players." It's better to make your resume tailored to your own personality than use buzzwords.
Besides the obvious good advice from this article about antiquated terminology and general expressions, the link towards the end of the article to other buzzwords and phrases to avoid proved more interesting than useful. Perhaps it's a generational gap, but I had never seen most of them used professionally, or even heard of them. Additionally, I agree with Brian R. that it's important to be specific and use industry specific words on your resume and in interviews. Not only does it show your experience, but your knowledge of the industry.
This article seems to say let your resume speak through experience, and not your personality. A resume is supposed to show your experience and what you have specifically done. Specifics is what I find is the most important on a resume. In our industry I agree with others that our resumes show what we have done and the cover letter definitely elaborates on us as in individual and our personality. Editing your resume is all about cutting out what you don't need, when you edit you get rid of all the verbosity. Depending on what type of resume you are doing, one where you need to be more descriptive of your position versus just saying what the job was, will help decide how much to include.
I completely agree with Daniel in the notion of "show don't tell." Unfortunately, a resume must stand alone. Without any sort of narrative, your resume must be able to speak enough about you to get the interview.
That being said, it in no way is supposed to be in place of an interview. If you tried to cram everything about you into a resume it would be an E sheet or larger in 4 point font. So, the balance is between needing to grab their attention and trying to present yourself concisely. This balance is shifted with each application.
This article was a nice surprise amongst the immeasurable articles about resume tips. I've often read that resumes should be brief and broad so that you come off as a best candidate for all areas of the job. However, this article states that examples and specificity is key to success in the resume. First time, people are saying "cut it" rather than "fluff it". I, like Zoe, do not agree with the point about references. If a person is looking at a resume and does not see references, they could jump to negative conclusions about why the references are nonexistent. Also, people need visual reminders and if the references are not on the page or if a sentence stating that references are available makes that aspect of the hiring process void for the hirer.
This is an incredibly useful article. It's much more useful to use specific examples rather than trying to give yourself vague and all-encompassing labels. Even though the point of a resume is to sum up all the work you've done, this article clarifies the common misconception of trying to summarize too much, which may make you sound like an inadequate candidate for the job who's trying to overcompensate.
I find the contradiction regarding references to be interesting. We are told repeatedly in theatre that there must be three references at the bottom of a resume, but here, as in may other places, not only are we told that we shouldn't take up the space with the references, we also shouldn't even mention them. As in many other things, one source says something is mandatory, another says it's as good as prohibited. With so many conflicting sources about what should and shouldn't go in a resume it seems like the only way to proceed is to read them all, consider the ideas, and then throw out 90% of what they say.
It is WILD that I am now starting to tailor my resume to get actual big girl jobs!! I’m not going to lie, this article is very intimidating for a newbie-resume-crafter. I know my cover letter includes words like “experiences/ excitement” that this article explicitly says to omit. The “References Available Upon Request” was something I (shamefully) had on my past resume when applying to colleges because I needed the extra line space. But now that I understand why its vague and seems annoying, it totally makes sense why someone should strike that. I now list my three references with position titles and emails, two work/school references and one personal. I do have something about being a “team player,” and although not exactly phrased that way, I think this point is essential just based on what positions I am looking for in technical theatre.
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