Ask Liz Ryan: How do I jazz up my resume bullets?
Dear Liz,
I'm happy with my resume Summary but my bullets are boring and don't bring out
my abilities. Any suggestions? thanks,
Grace
Dear Grace,
Your bullets -- and everything else beneath the Summary on your resume -- make
up the meat-and-potatoes of your job-search brand. This is the information that
will let an employer know you're up for the challenge s/he is trying to
surmount. Let's take a few of your resume bullets and re-write them to get
across more of your power.
Here's what you sent me:
XYZ MANUFACTURING
Burlington, VT
Marketing Manager
2003 - 2008
- Oversaw Marketing functions including PR, marketing communications, trade
shows and product management.
- Supervised staff of three.
- Negotiated with and managed outside vendors including PR firm, ad agency and
website design firm.
- Maintained Marketing roadmap and calendar.
The trouble with these bullets is that they're about tasks, rather than accomplishments, so they don't
convey anything in particular that you launched, drove or improved upon. Taken
together, the four bullets say to the reader, "Here's what I did every day in
this job, exactly what anyone else would have done." That's not you, so we need
to pump up the energy level!
We can bring out a lot more of your talent and track record. Let's start with
the description of XYZ Manufacturing. We don't live in Burlington, so we've
never heard of these guys. We want to know - what sort of company is XYZ? How
large are they? Let's re-write the XYZ section of your this way:
XYZ MANUFACTURING
Burlington, Vermont
Marketing Manager
2003 - 2008
Family-owned XYZ is New England's second-larger distributor of maple syrup,
candies and flavorings with revenues of $58M/year. I led the Marketing/Product
Management charge, overseeing distribution, pricing, Marcom and sales support.
-----------------
Now, for the bullets. We've used up a bit more space with the two new 'framing
sentences' above than we used in your old resume, so we'll need to use our
bullet-space wisely. Let's focus on the problem at hand (what was going on when
you arrived) and your results:
- Arriving in 2003 after six years of flat sales, I cranked up the Marketing
engine to increase revenue 40% by 2006.
- Built a customer 'pull' loyalty program that increased online sales 85% in 18
months, and upped retail sales 14% in the same period.
- Launched our first social-networking strategy, attracting 4500 Facebook and
LinkedIn group members and 3750 loyalty-card-holders.
Your new bullets improve upon the old bullets in six important ways:
1) Reading the second version, we know the context for your job at XYZ - what
the company was about and what it was up against.
2) We know some of the things that you got done in that job.
3) We know that you understand the business impact of your accomplishments.
4) We get to learn some of the 'how' as well as the 'what' - for example, that
you grew the loyalty program via social networking tools.
5) We get a stronger sense of the human being behind the resume (for instance,
through your use of the vernacular 'cranked up' and 'upped').
6) Your new bullets are a million times more confident than the old, boilerplate
ones.
Hurrah! You can re-write your whole resume the same way.
Cheers -- Liz
Take me back to the home page!
Let me fill out a Contact form to reach Liz.
Take me to the page that describes Liz's services for job-seekers.
|
