14 Questions To Ask when preparing your resume.

1. Did you help to increase sales, productivity, efficiency, etc.? What was the percentage or dollar contribution? How did you do this? Did you have a unique approach or different results from others?

2. Did you save money for the company? What were the circumstances? How much more ($, %) than others? How were your results compared to others?

3. Did you institute any new systems or changes? What was the situation that led to the change? Who approved? Why was this system selected over others? Did it compete with others? What happened as a result?

4. Did you identify any problem that had been overlooked? What was the problem? What was the solution? Why was it overlooked?

5. Were you ever promoted? Why were you promoted? How long between promotions? Did you do something outstanding? How much more responsibility? Did you get to manage people? How many? Were you promoted by more than one party? Were you given significant salary increases or raises?

6. Did you train anyone? Did you develop training technique? Compare your results to others? Is your technique being used by others? Why is that?

7. Did you suggest any new programs? What were they about? What were the results? Did they increase efficiency or sales? Were they published or presented at any industry seminars?

8. Did you help to establish any new goals or objectives for your company? Did you convince management that they should adopt these goals or objectives? Why were they adopted.

9. Did you change the nature or scope of your job? Why or how did you redefine your position? Have others with similar positions had their positions redefined because of you? Were there responsibility changes because of this? What were they?

10. Did you ever undertake a project that was not part of your responsibility because you liked the problem? This is proof of job interest as well as the ability to take initiative.

11. Did you ever do anything to lighten your job or make it easier? (This could result in increased profits or productivity.)

12. What special problems were you hired for or brought in to solve? What did you do? How did you do it? What were the results?

13. Show any areas where you were creative (i.e., solutions, products, applications, markets, accounts, etc.)

14. What would you say would be the most important qualities for the position you seek? Put yourself in the shoes of your prospective boss. Describe six qualities and look for examples you have for each of them. How do you stack up?


Recommendations

1. Put full name, address, phone numbers, and e-mail at the top of your resume.

2. Clearly state your job objective – no more than one sentence.

3. List 3-4 career qualifications – FABs that immediately show your exceptional credentials.

4. In descending chronological order, list each company in the following format:



Company Name – brief description of products and services with revenue details and number of people in the company. Include if company is public and when established.

Dates (Month/Year) – Your Title – short description of responsibilities.


EXAMPLE
Famous Corp. – a public company listed on the NYSE with over 2,400people supplying aircraft engine parts worldwide.

July 1991- Present. Vice President Marketing: Responsible for all marketing and field sales including product support, technical service, order processing, and field service repair.

§ 22% revenue increase per year compounded since 1989

§ SG&A expenses reduced from 6% of sales to 4% since 1989

§ Launched 12 new product ranges increasing sales by 300%

§ Started new Service System improving response 100%

§ Developed LAMP for key accounts and reduced T&E 20%


Additional Guidelines

1. Education should include name of university, exact degrees, dates of graduation, major and awards.

2. Always have a cover letter outlining exactly where you fit in the job referenced.

3. State your relocation desires and your willingness to travel in your cover letter.

4. Whenever possible, tailor your resume to fit the job specifically.

5. You should use action words [coordinated, managed, etc.] & avoid long run-on sentences.

6. Never include your references, social security number, or salary history data.

7. Do not state reasons for leaving, but always show promotions within the same company.

8. Try working your FABs and PARs into your resume to highlight key achievements.

9. Always use "$"/dollar statements to add solid emphasis to your career results.

10. Try to edit out any extra phrases or extraneous sentences that are not significant.

11. Have other people read and critique your resume and suggest other key points.

12. Create a dossier of catalogs, recommendation letters, awards, and notable achievements.

13. Complete at least 6 PARS and 6 FABS for each job you have had.

14. Other credentials, i.e., CAD/CAM programs, computer software/systems, specialty skills or certifications can be included at the end of the resume.

15. If you have any special awards, military status or other interest point – list them.

16. Use white space to make the resume easy to read and use lists wherever possible

17. Individual pictures add nothing to a resume – they do not fax well and are problematic to transmit via e-mail.

18. Try to keep resume to only 2 pages and use no less than 11-point font. It is best to stay with one font style without mixing any other formats or sizes to the resume (Arial or Times New Roman is recommended).

Typos and spelling errors in resumes are an immediate turn-off to a hiring authority

 

 

 

 

 

Here is exactly what your resume needs to do, too. Not the laundry list / standard bio that talks about you, but the marketing piece that talks about the benefits to your future employer and how you fit into his or her needs and desires.

 

Please read on:

 

Larry Harris

 

 

 

Before he was famous, before he painted the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, before he invented the helicopter, before he drew the most famous image of man, before he was all of these things, Leonardo da Vinci was an artificer, an armorer, a maker of things that go "boom".

And, like you, he had to put together a resume to get his next gig. So in 1482, at the age of 30, he wrote out a letter and a list of his capabilities and sent it off to Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan. 




The translation of this letter is quite remarkable:

"Most Illustrious Lord, Having now sufficiently considered the specimens of all those who proclaim themselves skilled contrivers of instruments of war, and that the invention and operation of the said instruments are nothing different from those in common use: I shall endeavor, without prejudice to any one else, to explain myself to your Excellency, showing your Lordship my secret, and then offering them to your best pleasure and approbation to work with effect at opportune moments on all those things which, in part, shall be briefly noted below.

1. I have a sort of extremely light and strong bridges, adapted to be most easily carried, and with them you may pursue, and at any time flee from the enemy; and others, secure and indestructible by fire and battle, easy and convenient to lift and place. Also methods of burning and destroying those of the enemy.
2. I know how, when a place is besieged, to take the water out of the trenches, and make endless variety of bridges, and covered ways and ladders, and other machines pertaining to such expeditions.
3. If, by reason of the height of the banks, or the strength of the place and its position, it is impossible, when besieging a place, to avail oneself of the plan of bombardment, I have methods for destroying every rock or other fortress, even if it were founded on a rock, etc.
4. Again, I have kinds of mortars; most convenient and easy to carry; and with these I can fling small stones almost resembling a storm; and with the smoke of these cause great terror to the enemy, to his great detriment and confusion.
5. And if the fight should be at sea I have kinds of many machines most efficient for offense and defense; and vessels which will resist the attack of the largest guns and powder and fumes.
6. I have means by secret and tortuous mines and ways, made without noise, to reach a designated spot, even if it were needed to pass under a trench or a river.
7. I will make covered chariots, safe and unattackable, which, entering among the enemy with their artillery, there is no body of men so great but they would break them. And behind these, infantry could follow quite unhurt and without any hindrance.
8. In case of need I will make big guns, mortars, and light ordnance of fine and useful forms, out of the common type.
9. Where the operation of bombardment might fail, I would contrive catapults, mangonels, trabocchi, and other machines of marvelous efficacy and not in common use. And in short, according to the variety of cases, I can contrive various and endless means of offense and defense.
10. In times of peace I believe I can give perfect satisfaction and to the equal of any other in architecture and the composition of buildings public and private; and in guiding water from one place to another.
11. I can carry out sculpture in marble, bronze, or clay, and also I can do in painting whatever may be done, as well as any other, be he who he may.

Again, the bronze horse may be taken in hand, which is to be to the immortal glory and eternal honor of the prince your father of happy memory, and of the illustrious house of Sforza.

And if any of the above-named things seem to anyone to be impossible or not feasible, I am most ready to make the experiment in your park, or in whatever place may please your Excellency - to whom I comment myself with the utmost humility, etc."

What a fantastic piece of personal marketing! There's none of his famous backwards-mirror writing here — this letter was intended to be read and to persuade.

I'm a hopeless pedant, so of course I'm going to take this opportunity to let you know what you can learn from Leonardo's resume ...

You'll notice he doesn't recite past achievements. He doesn't mention the painting of the altarpiece for the Chapel of St Bernard; he doesn't provide a laundry list of past bombs he's built; he doesn't cite his prior employment in artist Andrea di Cione's studio.

No, he does none of these things, because those would be about his achievements, not the Duke's needs.

Instead, he sells his prospective employer on what Leonardo can do for him.

Now imagine being the Duke of Milan and receiving this magnificent letter / resume from the young Wunderkind of Florence. The specific descriptives paint a wonderful picture (that is, if you're a Renaissance Duke) of siege engines and bombardments and mortars and trench-draining and bridges to defeat the enemy. You can almost imagine the scenes that ran through the Duke's head as he held this letter in his hands and read through Leonardo da Vinci's bold statements of capabilities.

I mean, at that time, who wouldn't want "kinds of mortars; most convenient and easy to carry; [that] can fling small stones almost resembling a storm"? Sounds pretty enticing.

And that's exactly what your resume needs to do, too. Not the laundry list / standard bio that talks about you, but the marketing piece that talks about the benefits to your future employer and how you fit into his or her needs and desires.

So it turns out that even 500 years later, this remarkable fellow, Leonardo da Vinci, can even teach us something about the modern job hunt. What a genius. ..