The Results-Oriented Resume

The Resume is Your Marketing Brochure

We’ve been discussing building your brand, and the resume is the marketing brochure! Your resume needs to focus on results, not characteristics. A results-oriented resume, regardless of format, helps employers reduce the risks that are associated with hiring because they see what you have accomplished as well as your attitudes toward work.

The risks that concern employers include such matters as whether you:

are a quality worker
have integrity
have excellent work habits
can get along with others in the workplace
may have something undesirable in you background that has created problems with previous employers

When these risks are removed, only the positives about you are left.

To reassure prospective employers, include examples of what you have done for other employers. Use your self-assessment to offer specific information about how you helped previous employers improve their:

Profitability
Recognition
Visibility

Whatever your line of work, your accomplishments in one or more of these three categories can be measured. When you provide examples, you are showing results of tests of your abilities and focusing on the needs of the employer rather than your own needs. If you have had several jobs, you should have enough material to fill several pages.

Avoid going into too much detail about individual goals or career objectives. If you do, the prospective employer is likely to get the impression that you are more interested in yourself than you are in the company. That can be reason enough to remove you from consideration for the job, even before a full evaluation of your credentials takes place. It is also a good idea to avoid lengthy statements about your character of the kinds of companies you worked for. Your achievements and what they meant to your past employers will be sufficient information for the reader.

Include a description of your accomplishments for each employer, setting them out in statements that easily read. Avoid hyperbole, but include as many facts and figures as necessary to substantiate achievements. It is important that everything included is factual.

Take credit for your role in a project you managed if others were involved. Focus on past work history rather than schooling, unless you are pursuing a position in the academic, technical, or research areas where advanced training is critical to successful job performance.