When a hiring manager looks at your resume, does it present you in the same way that you would present yourself, your job, and your responsibilities in person? I recently read an article that was rather comical yet had some great things to say about this very topic. In most cases, we have learned through education or some other avenue, that what a hiring manager wants to see are words that jump out to them, makes your resume stand out, or LARGE words that describe your responsibilities. Is this really the case or does it make you sound pretentious or even sound as if you are lying?
In most cases, we would never think to describe ourselves in person as we do on paper. Take my current career for example. I would never describe what I do as “Passionately and successfully managing the sourcing, delivery, and staffing of incredibly qualified candidates to fulfill client’s needs.” Believe it or not, I see resumes all day that have statements like this ALL OVER THEM. To some, that may seem like a great resume “bullet point.” Statements like that do nothing but make me 1) laugh 2) think you are trying way too hard 3) move along to the next resume. I would much rather see a statement that reads “Manage sourcing, delivery, and staffing of qualified candidates to fulfill client’s requirements.” To me, it just gives the statement and resume more integrity when I see statements that I know are not stretching the truth. A part of the article speaks to straying away from 10 specific words in a resume. Although I believe that some of these words can be used in a resume to portray you accurately, the author has a great point. In most cases, the words we use to describe ourselves in resumes are accurate when others describe us, but when we describe ourselves it makes us sound very arrogant.
The list of words the author dives into are as follows:
Motivated, Authority, Global Provider, Innovative, Creative, Curator, Passionate, Unique, Guru, and everyone’s favorite…… Incredibly
Some of these descriptive words may seem like they would be a good idea. As I described earlier, in some cases they may be, but take a look at the article as it goes into more detail on his reasoning. One thing I did take away from this article is that if you are able to accurately depict what you are doing in your current and past work, and you truly are a (Motivated, Authority, Global Provider, Innovative, Creative, Curator, Passionate, Unique, Guru, and Incredible resource), hiring managers will be able to see that simply from your experience and responsibilities.
Here is a link to the article. I think you will enjoy it!
http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/10-ways-you-should-never-describe-yourself.html