How to write the best resume to get you the interview! “Results Driven Resume”

Results- Driven resume will give potential employers the impression you can bring the same or similar results to their organization.  You know who you are and what skills you bring, now I will help you develop the best resume to effectively tell potential employers that you are the solution to their problems”

Your resume is usually how employers "meet" you. And their decision to interview you -- or not -- is often made after a quick glance at this all-important document.

Here's the challenge: Most resumes look the same, read the same and, quite frankly, they're boring. Most are cookie-cutter exercises in mediocrity, even though each candidate claims to be "driven", "dynamic," "creative", etc. But empty assertions like these won't land you an interview. You must prove the claims in your resume to get an employer's attention.

Your resume is a marketing tool, plain and simple. Is yours so powerful that it grabs the attention of hurried employers, forces them to slow down, read on, pick up the phone and call you? It must! Because your resume has to get read to get you hired.

Warning! Just because you spent four hours writing your resume doesn't mean it will be read with care. As a hiring professional who's been at this for more than 20 years, I can tell you that your resume has less than 10 seconds to impress a reader enough to compel them to read it entirely. Ten seconds. Or less.

Results are things you did that had a lasting impact for your company or client. Typically they are things that you created, built, designed, sold or initiated. And they are absolute gold for resumes. Keep your duty summaries concise, and focus instead on unique accomplishments and you'll be miles ahead of your peers. 

Here's a two-step process you can go through to identify and write out achievements for your resume:

Step 1: Make a quick list of your accomplishments. To spark ideas, think about times when you have:

• Re-organized something to make it work better?
• Identified a problem and solved it?
• Come up with a new idea that improved things?
• Developed or implemented new procedures or systems?
• Worked on special projects?
• Received awards?
• Been complimented by your supervisor or co-workers?
• Increased revenue or sales for the company?
• Saved money for the company?
• Saved time for the company?
• Contributed to good customer service?

Step 2: Use the STAR process to expand each of your accomplishments.

• Situation or Task – What was the problem or situation or challenge?
• Action – What did you do to solve the problem or make the situation better?
• Result – What was the outcome? Where possible, include percentages, dollar figures, and other metrics.

Here’s an example:

• Situation or Task: Disorganized, inefficient warehouse
• Action: Redesigned the layout
• Result: Saved the company $250,000 in recovered stock

Take your time and do these steps thoroughly, creating as many S-T-A-R statements as possible.

Once you've completed your S-T-A-Rs, turn those 3-part statements into single bullet points.  There is no one best way to do this - it will vary from results to results - but one effective approach is to phrase the bullet as "action" + "result", with some slight integration of the "problem" and rephrasing of verb tenses where necessary. Using the example above, here's how this might look: "Redesigned the warehouse and improved disorganization, inefficiency and saved $250,000 in recovered stock”.

Do this for all of your S-T-A-R statements, and you'll have the essential ingredients for a Results-Driven resume that stands out!