Does Your Resume Tell a Story?

This post about the importance of story-telling in blogging reminded me that I haven't written about this subject for a while.

If I could get all my readers to make just one change to their resume, it would be to add stories. As the post points out, stories allow you to make a connection. Your reader can understand what you're saying, and feel connected to you much more closely when you tell a story than when you just recite facts.

Not sure what I mean? Here's an example.

I received a resume today from a potential client. She's a mid-level marketing manager and she's looking to advance her career to the next level. Her resume included a series of concise bullet points outlining the impact she had made on her company.

Here's one of them:

• Helped increase sales by 10% through new marketing campaign.

Well that's good, right? Actually I'm not sure. Is a 10% sales increase good in her industry at this time? She hasn't told me. Maybe the whole industry is up 30%! And what was the new marketing campaign? Without knowing more about it, how can the reader know whether such results would be possible at his or her company? For example, if his company is struggling and his marketplace is sluggish, he may read that bullet point and say "well, that's nice, but it's not possible here. Things are too tight."

But what if our candidate told a story instead:

• Repositioned outdated service provider by adding and promoting 3 market-leading services - drove a 10% increase in sales after 3 years of decreases. (Increase was achieved despite an overall market decline of 5%.)

Well now our manager would be NUTS if he didn't sit up and pay attention!

Context is key when you are convincing someone else that you can help their company. So go through your resume to check whether you have told a story about each of your accomplishments, as opposed to just listing them.

You'll find an amazing difference in your response rate if you make this change.

Comments

[Mohamad E-Sadek]

Hi Louise,

Your article is interesting. It also makes a lot of sense. As you said, putting things in context will give the recruiter a better understanding of the accomplishments you made within the environment and/or external factors you were facing. It makes a lot of sense, and I think the common thread here is to be precise, concise, but add lots of information. Vague generalities definitely don't lend more credibility to your resume. You definitely want to be focused and clear about the message you are presenting. The less confusing the message is, the less the chance the recruiter will be fed up and ultimately throw your resume away in the trash can.

Kudos to you for a good story.

Mohamad El-Sadek
The Amazing Resume
TheAmazingResume@rogers.com