Anatomy of a Good Executive Resume – Advice from Recruiters

As a Certified Résumé Strategist, I like to take the “pulse” of recruiters and HR professionals to ensure that the documents I create for my clients are going to be well received by the target audience – the people who will make decisions on which candidates will get an interview, a recommendation, an offer of employment. Ordinarily I do this as part of my week-to-week networking activities, but I decided that, in the face of a rapidly changing employment landscape, it was time to take a more broad-brush approach. Thanks to the wonders of HARO, I can share these words of wisdom from leading experts in recruitment, staffing and career services from across North America.

The Objective Statement – The Recruiter’s Bain
David Lewis, best selling author of “The Emerging Leader” and certified Senior Professional in Human Resources advises, “kill the objective statement. It’s like installing linoleum in your kitchen and trying to sell a house – it’s not a good idea.” Almost every recruiter I spoke to agrees. Objective statements are typically self-serving and focus on what the candidate wants. However hard you try to word it, an objective statement tends to shout, “I need a good job that pays well, provides chances for rapid promotion, gives me the opportunity to look like a star without having to work too hard, and doesn’t interfere with my golf schedule.” The employer doesn’t really care what you want. They need to know what you can do for them.

Executive recruiter Paula Marks points out, however, that there are legitimate times to use an objective statement. For example, if you are a medical specialist who is seeking a position in a large teaching hospital where you can contribute to cutting edge research on lung cancer, it is okay to say so. Likewise, a successful (emphasis on successful) business entrepreneur could get away with advertising that s/he is looking for opportunities to help a start-up company take its business to the next level.

So what do you use instead of an objective statement? A specific job title. “One mistake I see frequently, in the effort to not close off any options, is not putting a specific job title on the résumé, so that it’s not clear for what position an applicant is applying or qualified,” says Sharon Rich, founder of Layoff Bounce Back. “If the résumé doesn’t tell a clear ‘story’ at first glance, it may not get a second look.”

Profile / Summary – The Only Thing that Gets Read? or, The new ‘Objective Statement’ in Earning Recruiter Disdain
With twenty years of corporate experience in the pharmaceutical sector, Clint Cora has had the opportunity to review hundreds of résumés from people who are interested in entering the pharmaceutical sales field. “One of the biggest mistakes I see is that people say right at the beginning that they are organized, smart, hard working, good communicator, etc. They have to realize that everyone else is going to be making the same claims about themselves so very quickly, all résumés start to look the same.”

In fact, Clint admitted that when he was actively involved in recruiting salespeople, he stopped reading the summary section altogether and jumped straight down to the career details. He could tell within a few seconds if a candidate is qualified, and only then would he give the rest of the résumé a more serious read.

A well-crafted summary statement or professional profile is, nevertheless, still regarded by recruiters as an essential part of a good résumé, and may be the only thing that gets looked at in the first stage of candidate screening by “live” recruiters. Why the emphasis on “live”? Because some large companies and recruiting firms still scan and store candidate résumés in a database, and use specialized software to select résumés based on specific keywords. If you haven’t used the right keywords, you will be out of luck.

Paula Marks advises dedicating about 20% of your résumé to a well thought out summary. What are the key elements of a good summary? It is job-specific, it is experience-specific, it is accomplishments-specific, it is keyword rich, and it is TRUE!!!. Anything you claim in your summary needs to be backed up by clear evidence in your job chronology.

Job Chronology and Accomplishments – The Meat and Potatoes
Be aware that many recruiters and employers are suspicious of functional formats because they too often get used to hide issues such as career gaps or job hopping. Many recruiters that I spoke to had a clear preference for reverse chronological formats, because it requires the least amount of time and effort on their part to see what a candidate has done with their lives.

Sharon Rich is seeing much more savvy on the part of jobseekers in terms of résumés that quantify accomplishments and focus on transferable skills. HR Consultant and author Sharon Armstrong agrees. “Executives, senior managers and professionals are really spending time highlighting their major achievements on their resumes. Not everything they ever did…just a few targeted ones…which they can quantify.“

However, there are still too many job seekers who haven’t gotten the message. “Uncertain of what will catch someone’s eye or what to include, they are trying to cover all bases,” observed Sharon Blaivas, a former recruiter with Goldman Sachs. “I think that people who have been successful in their field and are now looking for work, feel that all they need to do is document what they do (at length and in any format!) and people will be knocking their door down.”

“The chronology needs to be fact based and focused on results,” says Paula Marks. David Lewis advises that each responsibility be accompanied by a correlating accomplishment. “Don’t say ‘I sold advertising.’ Instead, tell me how much you sold and how good you were!”

For senior-level executives, Paula suggests taking it one step further. “Eliminate all ‘responsible for’ kinds of statements unless it isn’t obvious from your job title what you do. Concentrate instead on what you delivered.” Be strategic in what you include. Ask yourself why the next employer would even care about each statement in your chronology – stay focused on the achievements that are relevant for your next job. If you’ve had the same job title over a number of different companies, don’t repeat yourself. Instead, show how your knowledge and skills have progressed over those years.

Don’t Waste Valuable Résumé Real Estate
“If the top half of the first page is the most critical section, do you really think its wise to waste an inch and a half of space with your name in really BIG letters?” Keep your identification bar concise, and limit your identifying information to your name, address, telephone number and email address, recruiters advise. Keep in mind that if you are going to be using a recruiter, they will be submitting your résumé under their letterhead. Make their job easier and leave enough margin room for them to do so without having to completely reformat your document.

You don’t need to include your LinkedIn address on your résumé. “It’s the equivalent of a high schooler listing their MySpace page on a job application – somewhat tasteless and unprofessional,” according to career advisor and columnist Megan Pittsley. “If someone wants to find you online, they will.”

Likewise, you don’t need to include References are available upon request. Of course they are! Who other than Mary Poppins is going to tell a potential employer that they will not be providing references?

There has been an oft-repeated rule among professional résumé writers that your interests and hobbies have no place on a résumé, but recruiters are split on this. If your pastimes are reading and walking on the beach, then save it for your Personals Ad.

However, if you have “interesting” pastimes and non-work accomplishments, these can help to distinguish you from other candidates. If you have travelled extensively in other countries and are comfortable in cross-cultural environments, this can be an important “plus” to an employer who is looking to develop global business relationships. A candidate who has participated in Ironman competitions has obviously got the tenacity and self-discipline needed to set and achieve ambitious goals. Somebody who is extensively involved in the arts, charitable organizations or philanthropic activities will have a diverse network of contacts beyond work, which can be of great value to a company that relies on relationship selling to build their client base. It’s all about understanding the requirements of the target company.

Résumé Format & Structure
Give careful thought to layout. The most important information should be frontpage news, and there is no “one size fits all” solution here. Approach your résumé design in terms of what the recruiter / employer really wants and needs to know.

If you legitimately have a lot of information that is frontpage newsworthy, consider using side panels where data like credentials or production credits can be listed without distracting the reader from your chronology (thank you to Mitch Drew for sharing his successes with this format).

Be aware, however, that too much innovation in design can work against you. “I saw something that was supposed to be a résumé recently but it looked like a seismic graph – all colours and lines”, one recruiter told me. “I don’t have time to interpret something like that – all it says to me is, this guy has too much time on his hands.” Paula Marks agrees, and recommends sticking to conventional formats. “Our brains have been trained to read résumés in a certain way. It’s a visual tool, it needs to be laid out that way.”

Keep in mind that your résumé may be viewed in print, on a desktop, a laptop, a Blackberry. It may also be scanned using Optical Character Recognition software. Steer clear of fancy fonts in favour of those that are easy on the eye. The easier it is to read (by both humans and computers), the more likely it is that your résumé will be read and remembered. And be aware of the typesetter’s conundrum – sans serif fonts, which are easy to ready on the computer, can look boring on the written page, while serif fonts, which are common in books and magazines, can be extremely hard on the eye if looked at on a computer screen.

Great Résumé – Great Start. Now What?
Go back and look at it again. Make sure that every single word, sentence and structure is relevant and adds to the picture of who you are. Think short and sweet. “I don’t have time to read long paragraphs, so cut out the fluff.” But unless you are a new graduate, a one-pager probably won’t do. “One page résumés have gone the way of the dinosaur. If you are experienced, there is no way you are going to be able to cover everything I need to know about you in a single page.”

Customize your résumé for each target job, is Paula Mark’s recommendation, but don’t reinvent the wheel. You may need to create a list of 10 or 12 different summary bullets, so that you can pull out the six or seven that are most relevant for the specific job.

Finally, Caroline Ceniza-Levine, who has recruited for corporations such as Accenture, Citibank and Disney ABC, notes that “too many candidates are still dropping off hundreds of résumés and thinking this is a comprehensive search.” It isn’t even close. The job market is saturated with highly accomplished and highly qualified candidates, and the people who are succeeding in this environment are the ones who know how to network strategically.

Not sure how to network for a new job without feeling like a snake oil salesman? Have a look at Sharon Graham’s case study of what executive-level networking looks like in today’s job market. It’s all about harnessing information, building connections, and taking advantage of available resources to “position yourself above the competition and remain at the top.”

Tags: Certified Resume Strategist, Executive Resume, how to write a resume, Karen Siwak, resume strategy

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 3:33 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.