Get Your Resume Noticed

What used to work won't get you where you want to go.

I love resumes. I mean, I LOVE resumes. When I'm stressed, I will often jump over to reddit and see who's asking for a resume review and give them notes. Yeah, I'm that kind of weird.

It's New Year's Day, and way too many people in my timeline are looking for their next gig, so I thought it would be useful to write up the lessons I've learned to writing a more effective resume.

Caveat: I don't write "standard" resumes. Professional resume writers tend to argue with my approach because they are trying to make a resume fit in instead of standing out. They want you to look "professional." They follow a model that was effective in 1987 when people had to type their resumes (and cover letters) by hand.

This isn't that.

So here we go.

Rule One, Your Resume Will Never Get you A Job (So Change Your Focus)

I spent almost twenty years packing my entire professional history into my resume. I played with fonts and design ideas purely to shoe-horn in even more info about me. I included references and the phone numbers for past employers. I listed every project and every metric. I mean, I was a MESS.

The problem was that I was pretending (though I never would have admitted it out loud) that a properly written resume would get me a job. That the recruiter would see it, think, "They've checked all the boxes, so I'll give this to the hiring manager right away." The hiring manager would say, "gosh, why bother interviewing them? This is who we want. Send an offer!"

Of course, that's not how things work.

You want to know what gets you the job? The offer.

How do you get the offer? Have a great set of interviews.

How do you get the interview? Impress a recruiter in the phone screen.

How do you get phone screen? Have a great resume.

All a resume can do is get you the phone call (or email from the recruiter to set up the phone call). That's ALL it can do. The worlds greatest resume cannot do anything more than get you the call.

Why does this matter? Because once you embrace this idea, you realize that a great resume isn't filled to the gills with metrics and project titles and awards and and and and. A great (read: effective) resume says just enough (and no more) to get the recruiter to put their coffee down and immediately send you an email asking to set up a conversation. This means you can leave some stuff off your resume because you'll want to bring it up during the interview to further impress your potential new boss.

This change in perspective leads us to the next rule...

Rule Two, Your Resume Is A Commercial

Resumes are not legal documents. They are not HR-based copies of your permanent record. They are marketing documents. They are marketing how amazing YOU are.

So what does that mean? Look at a car commercial. Have you seen any commercials where they talk about the size of the wheels? Or how easy the air filter is to replace? Do they specify windshield size? Or the seventeen color and trim packages available? Of course not. They have 30 seconds to get you to think that this car is... one thing.

It's reliable. It's safe. It's sexy. It's tough. It's innovative. It's comfortable. It's affordable. It gets great mileage. It will impress your neighbors/co-workers/attractive person. It has amazing re-sale value. It's fast. It saves the environment. It will make you look smart.

Not all those things, just one thing. Volvo spent Sweden's GNP over thirty years telling us how safe they were. Nothing about reliability, cost, value, attractiveness, etc. That was for the conversation in the dealership. They had one message: We're the safe car.

You are likely competing against 100+ other people. You should assume every single one of them has at least equivalent experience, schooling, outcomes as you do. The way you get a recruiter to put their coffee down (our litmus test for resume quality) is to be crystal clear about what kind of employee you are.

Here's a painful truth. You know those stories that recruiters only give a resume 30 seconds? That's an average number. What're really happening is that the recruiter gives your resume 5-6 seconds to show why it shouldn't get tossed into the "meh" pile. That's the only way they can review 100 resumes for each of the 30-40 requisitions they have and stay (semi) sane.

That means you have 5 seconds to not try and list every good thing you did, but to become crystal clear about who you are.

Which sets us up for the next rule...

Rule Three, Framing: Effective Resumes Tell The Recruiter and Hiring Manager How To Look At You

Have you seen the movie Titanic? It earned $2.195B, so yes, of course you have. Imagine that you've never seen the movie, but you're about to walk into a theater to see it. Imagine that right before the movie starts, someone leans over to you and says, "this is the most amazing action adventure movie I've ever seen." That person has just told your brain to look at Titanic as an action/adventure movie. Which it is. And you liked it.

But imagine that instead they said, "this is the most romantic love story I've ever seen." New frame is set. Same movie, but you are looking at it differently. And you liked it, but you effectively saw a different movie.

One more time, what if they said, "this is an amazing comedy"? Sure, the movie has some fun bits, but as a comedy. it will seem long and slightly tortuous. Same movie, but you saw something very different.

So here's the recruiter sitting down to look at your resume. You can let the recruiter make up the story of what kind of employee you are based on your resume. And I'm going to tell you that with 100+ resumes to look at, they are looking for a reason to toss you away to get to someone who is more clear about their value. Wouldn't you like the chance to whisper in their ear as they open your application, "this is the hardest-working data scientist you'll see." or "this person has a unique combination of data science and plumbing skills you won't see anywhere else" or "this person sees nursing as a calling and they are devoted to it" or "this person is taking their management skills running a massive kitchen to a project management space." Or whatever story you want them to see?

This is called framing. You want to set that frame on your experience and skills intentionally or else your asking the recruiter to do it for you (and they aren't on your side yet).

How to set the frame? Look at the old school "professional statement." I notice that when you boil it down, they all say the same thing: my objective is to get a job. No one cares what you're "looking for." They all say the same things. They just the same phrases and over-polished (read: generic) language to look like everyone else.

Instead, what if you thought about this space as the first line in your commercial? In 7-10 words (yes, get it that tight. 5-6 seconds, remember?), tell the reader what makes you special. What's your unique super power? How do you want to be seen? Hardworking? Smarter than others? Someone who does whatever it takes to win? Someone with a passion for collaboration and teamwork? Someone who got bored in college and started a TEDx?

Smack the reader in the face with what you do and how well you do it. That's what gets a recruiter's attention.

Once you set your frame...

Rule Four, Everything In Your Resume Exists to "Prove The Frame."

If you were told Titanic was an action movie, the only way to make it better would be to remove the bulk of the love story and add in more action, right? And if you saw Titanic as a love story, did the action scenes make it any better? Or wouldn't you have enjoyed another few scenes of Jack and Rose together?

Once you set the frame, the rest of the resume is only there to prove that your frame is valid. Anything that doesn't directly support this idea is getting in the way. If I'm hiring a lawyer to keep me out of jail, is it useful for me to know that they like to row in their down time? Or that they are the vice president of their local bar association? Of course not. All I want to know is how many people they successfully defended! Over the course of the trial, I might get to know them better and that information might be interesting. But when I am looking at a list of 20 lawyers who I could call for support, that kind of information isn't just unnecessary, it dilutes the core message.

So once you've figured out your frame, and you've crafted it into some very tight language, look below the statement to everything else in your resume. It's time to trim. It's great that you got a "team player" award three years ago, but do you want to be known as a team player or an innovator? It's great that your work drove more social sales, but is that telling the recruiter how good you are at strategic thinking?

After you've trimmed, you need to adjust everything left to fit the story you're trying to tell. Look at every bullet point. You can write it to be generically positive, but you can (and should) also write them to support your core idea. You could say that your work increased web traffic 17% or you can say you worked with other teams to build new content that increased viewership by 17% without spending any more budget. Each bullet had the same "metric," but they supported different stories. They weren't both supporting and proving the frame.

Not lets get into the nitty gritty...

Rule Five, "Power Words" (and other "tricks") aren't secrets.

For a long time, I read every resume/job seeking book that came down the pipe, and I hate to tell you, they were all 80% the same. My favorite thing they would all say was that using "power words" increased your resume's success rate by some obvious perception. I'm going to challenge that.

First, I bet in 1987, "power words" were useful because those ideas were new. Most people were following old school (to them) ideas about resumes and power words were cutting edge thinking.

No longer. Every resume I've seen in the last 3-5 years has clearly been influenced by this thinking. Which means that using them isn't an advantage, it is the baseline thinking.

The game goes for keyword stuffing (sticking a pile of sexy-sounded keywords into your resume to that "the bot" thinks you're a perfect match) and phrase-matching (using the exact phrases from the job posting in your resume to sound like a perfect match to the bot). These are tricks that might have had value at a handful of companies for a hot minute, but no longer.

Here's a handy rule of thumb: the easier a "hack" or a "trick" is to implement, the more you can count on the fact that everyone else is doing it, obviating any potential value.

The only hack that matters is showing value. Understand what the hiring manager values in the role and show it to them in a human and clear way.

Rule Six, There Are No Rules

What's the best format for showing off past experience? Should you put your education at the top or the bottom? What's the best format for listing dates of employment? Where should your skills and awards be listed?

Wrong questions. The only question that matters is "does this validate and support the frame?"

Current thinking is that you should push your education to the bottom. But what if you went to Harvard Business School and was mentored by Michael Porter (if you're in business, this is the equivalent of getting guitar lessons from Jimi Hendrix). Obviously that's such an amazing line that can support a bunch of different frames that you should put it (and Porter's name) at the top.

Current thinking is that the most important part of your resume are your last ~3 jobs. What if you did amazingly stellar work at companies no one is impressed by? Why not just list all your accomplishments and push your chronological employer list to page two? Think this is crazy? I've been doing it for almost a decade.

There are jobs where the skills list might be the most important thing (people who have expertise in deeply uncommon skills, for example), but for most people, the fact that you know how to use Microsoft Word isn't something that needs to take up space on the front page.

If you're trying to avoid conversations about a three month gap in your resume, list your employment dates by year only. If you want to show off that you're someone who gets promoted a lot, stack all the titles up to make those promotions more obvious.

Use color. Pick a font that isn't Times New Roman. Pick a design that shows you off.

The truth is that there are NO RULES to building your resume. Nothing is cast in stone. There is no right answer to format, order or structure. The only thing that matters is that you are judiciously selecting and presenting information that makes your frame feel more real. Heck, I bet we could come up with a really interesting case where you don't put your name on your resume (if you've got killer skills and you want to create excitement and mystery).

The more you follow "resume rules," the harder you make it for a recruiter to figure out that you're amazing. And recruiters (even when they are lovely) don't have the energy to "figure you out."

It's Time To Make Some Changes

Remember that trying to fit in doesn't serve you. It only makes it easy for the recruiter and hiring manager to compare you to others. It gives them control.

Instead, stand out and take more control of your own destiny. Show them the most amazing you that you can. That means:

1. Knowing what makes you amazing
2. Being willing to focus on your amazingness

Your resume can say and be anything. So make it useful.

Good luck!