Donald Burnsexecutivepromotionsllc.com › wp-content › uploads › 2014 › ... · ©2014– 5 • Donald Burns..... .....Email: [email protected]

© 2014–2015 • Donald Burns ...............................www.ExecutivePromotionsLLC.com ........................Email: [email protected] ..................................... Page 1

Donald Burns’

INTERIM

RESUME BLUEPRINT AND

EVALUATION CHECKLIST

The final blueprint is a “work in progress. I’ll release the final

version – a complete blueprint – no later than October 2014.

The following resume checklist led to my seven national awards

for exceptional resume writing.

I’m making my checklist public because “bootleg” versions are

circulating out there on the Internet. These pathetic copycats

have the nerve to put own names on my work – shameless! They

can copy my words, but they can’t copy my voice!

mailto:[email protected]


Good Morning!

Thank you very much for contacting me.

I’m Donald Burns, Executive Career Coach, and I'm a particularly good choice for your resume evaluation. I've rewritten over 1200 successful CV/resumes for CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, CTOs, and executives in financial services, advertising, marketing, manufacturing, IT, scientists, consultants, senior military and, especially, engineers (long time ago, I started out as an electrical engineer).

I’ve written numerous resumes, CVs, bios, and social-media profiles for high-profile business leaders you’ve seen on TV or read about in the business media.

You’ve Come to the Right Place

You’ve probably heard a lot of advice about CVs and resumes from all kinds of people, but my guess is that today is the first time – and maybe the last time – your resume has been evaluated by somebody who has won 7 competitive national awards in resume writing (that’s me).

I collaborate daily with a small team of career coaches and writers who’ve collectively written over 50 books on career advancement. I mention all this because I want you to know your resume evaluation is in good hands with me.

Please connect on LinkedIn http://linkd.in/X36jh8 or visit my site: http://www.ExecutivePromotionsLLC.com

Do You Know What You Want?

First question: What is your career goal? You would be surprised at how many people cannot answer that question. But focusing on a goal is hugely important in the 2013–2014 employment market. You need 3 things for a successful job search, and a clear goal is #1 (I describe the other 2 elsewhere in this PDF). Would you rather be working somewhere else? Would you rather be doing something else? Do you – gasp! – secretly hate going to work? Are you productively – and happily – employed, but wary of another crash like 2008? I’m 62 years old and I’ve enjoyed each of my 5 different careers – I don’t regret a single choice. But I do regret having wasted so much time while making each transition. I had to figure out everything on my own – trial and error – but you need not do that. Just tell me where you want to go, and I’ll show you the surest shortcuts to get there – starting with an unbeatable CV/resume!


http://linkd.in/X36jh8

http://www.executivepromotionsllc.com/


Resume Evaluation: Some Quick Background Info

If your resume is not winning quality interviews – or, worse, if the market is ignoring you completely – this checklist will provide at least some of the answers you’ve been looking for (i.e., the very answers that recruiters and hiring managers cannot share with you).

The 5~10 second rule: Most of my clients don’t know how quickly a CV/resume is “scanned” or “eyeballed” in the 2014–2015 market, and here’s where this resume evaluation comes in – it will get your CV in shape for the infamous, 10-second, “pass or trash” test.”

Multinational Career? Roughly half of my clients live outside North America. Some CV/resume style differences do exist among countries, but they're becoming surprisingly small (due to Internet, social media, globalization, and so on). This critique that follows rooted in the “multinational executive style,” so the resulting CV/resume is easily tweaked and adapted for worldwide use.

Resume Evaluation Checklist

Note: I’m known as one of the best CV/resume writers in the USA. I’ve won top awards in this field. This menu shows you about 70% of my “Secret Sauce” for

an award-winning, million-dollar CV that opens doors.

Item Problem Explanation

1

Missing or

ambiguous

“career

progression”

Did you win any

promotions?

Did you expand

your scope of

responsibility?

For long-term positions, did you have the same title for many years? Were you promoted? Did you expand your scope of responsibility?

If you weren’t promoted, did you take on additional roles and responsibilities? Expand your scope of influence and authority?

Promotions are usually a very good starting place for strong resume material – usually one of my first questions during the coaching call.

Unclear progression: If I indicated this as an issue on your resume, it means, “I think you might have been promoted but I can’t telll” That’s not good!

If you were promoted, are you showing the business reasons why they promoted you?

Maybe you were promoted because you turned



around a big problem? Made money? Saved money?

Right now, I have no idea because your resume doesn’t answer the most important questions about your career.

Focus on business reasons. If you were promoted because, “the guy before me had a heart attack and they needed a replacement right away,” that won’t help you. If you were promoted because you turned around a serious problem, that will help you.

2A

Resume is much

too long

Excessive pages

and word count

Your core

message and

results are being

“watered down”

and weakened by

too much

verbiage

The resume rambles on for too many pages. Here’s a general rule:

1~3 easy-to-read pages = acceptable. But 4 or more pages = big problem.

Almost always, I design for 2 pages, because many recruiters and company managers positively HATE a resume that exceeds 2 pages – so I very rarely exceed 2 pages.

Pay attention to the word count – not just the page count. As a rule, for typical resume, I like to see about 1000 words packed into 2 well formatted and easy-to-read pages.

If you stuff 1300 words into 2 pages – by playing games with the font size and margins – the result is difficult to read and looks amateurish.

A long newspaper article uses about 900 words – overly long resumes cause “reader fatigue” and boredom.

Key point: You’ve got LESS THAN 10 seconds to make your strongest points. Your target readers are usually busy people, so your resume must make a memorable impression – almost like writing a telegram (i.e., you pay a penalty for every extra word).

You might think that including many pages of text



shows how incredibly detailed and diligent you are. Maybe that was true in high school and college, but the very opposite is true for your CV/resume – i.e., the reader is thinking you can’t communicate clearly.

An excessively long resume will probably tossed into “NO” pile after page 2 or page 3 – an unfortunate reality of the current market.

An excessively long resume tells the readers that you do not respect their time. Worse, they’ll think you cannot communicate quickly and concisely (i.e., “this person sounds like a windbag”). I often hear harsh comments like these from recruiters and company managers at conferences and job fairs.

Another angle: Extra pages – adding extra text – will actually weaken your message. The extra pages dilute your message, like adding water to orange juice. Instead, you want a high-impact, concentrated message (see #5F– same idea).

So it’s smart to stay on the safe side – concentrate your strongest experience into 2 easy-to-read pages. Your CV/resume is not a autobiography – it’s only purpose is to open the door for an interview.

2B

Possible option:

CV/resume

addendum

Sometimes I’ll set up CV/resume in 2 parts: A high-priority CV/resume, and a low-priority “Addendum” with details of publications, patents, or other information.

I try to avoid the Addendum, but sometimes it’s useful.

Note: Clients often volunteer extra information because they think they are helping themselves. Wrong! In the early stages of a job connection, your target companies will use



anything they can to screen you out – i.e., too many people are competing, so their #1 priority is to cut down the pile of resumes from possible candidates.

3 Too dense,

too difficult to

read

“Too dense” means that your resume looks like the “fine print” on a phone bill. If part of your resume looks like it’s too difficult to read, readers will just skip over that part. If the whole resume looks like it’s difficult to read, it will probably be trashed.

This problem is often related to “Buried Results”: readers cannot see your best material, because it’s buried under too much verbiage.

4A

No results for

employer (aka

“achievements”),

or

too few results

for employer

Your current resume is focusing too much on job description (weak content) – instead or results for employers (strong content). Recruiters and potential employers use your past results as the #1 predictor of your potential value.

For resume purposes, a “result” – also called an “accomplishment” or “achievement” – is a useful benefit that you produced for an employer or client. This is often confused with “job description” or “task description.”

Here is a secret of the “million-dollar CV” that I write for my top clients: Turn the spotlight away from yourself, and turn the spotlight on the results you’ve produced for employers and clients.

BTW, this is “easier said than done” – and that’s the magic ingredient of hiring an expert to coach you on your CV. The difference is like night and day, because a competent resume coach can pull out the important content that you’ve forgotten or suppressed.



4B

Incomplete

results

Sometimes people show one or two data points that could be transformed into a great result, but they’re leaving out the all-important context. Use the “success story” technique to fix this.

For example, “increased sales by 20% year-over-year” sounds good. But it’s not enough.

But suppose your actual goal was 25%? Is 20% still an achievement? Maybe – but first you must tell the reader the complete story behind your result.

BTW, what unusual obstacles and challenges did you overcome?

What did you do to accomplish the result?

Was this result strategically important for the company, or just “business as usual”?

Note: if you’re working in a “cost center” or a “process” or “staff” position, you can use a “success story” to show important but non-quantifiable results. For example, did you create something new? Did you accelerate a process or remove a bottleneck?

4C Weak Results,

or

Buried Results

Sometimes candidates have good results, but their good results are buried where nobody can see them – usually under a pile of verbiage. This often happens when your resume is excessively long, too dense, or otherwise difficult to read (see #2A & #3).

5A Confusing

Format

This is difficult to describe in text. If I indicated “confusing format” on your marked-up resume, you’ve got a big problem that I can’t describe in this PDF. I’ll describe the problem as best as I can, right on the marked-up resume.

5B Amateurish

Format

Sometimes people try too hard to stand out, so they get very creative with graphics, lines, tables, and text boxes, whatever. Sometimes it’s the opposite problem – a primitive “cave man” format that looks like a homework assignment from HS or college.



5C Format with too

many boxes,

borders, or

tables

Senior executive resumes do not use a lot of tables, text boxes, borders, company logos, etc. Worse, the tables will probably mess up the applicant tracking systems (ATS) used by all top companies.

5D

Too many

consecutive

bullets or

presentation of

info is

monotonous

(boring for

reader)

Readers get bored quickly, so they will skip over a long sequence of consecutive bullets (use no more than 4 consecutive bullets). They often stop reading after the third bullet (or text line) and skip to the next section.

Here’s a useful rule of thumb: Don’t assume a reader will keep reading beyond “4 of anything” – i.e., 4 consecutive lines, 4 consecutive bullets, 4 consecutive paragraphs (a guideline).

This problem is often related to the “too dense” problem (#3). So be sure to break up the text with headings, sub-headings, and short bursts of bullets and text.

5E Format and

content

position you for

lower level

positions – not

an executive

resume

If you are a senior executive with a big career, you are held to a much higher standard – your CV/Resume must look and feel like an article in the WSJ or Financial Times, i.e., very polished (see #5G, Publication Standards). Sometimes senior technical people overload their resumes with technical jargon, which positions them for the wrong (i.e., lower-and-middle levels).

In my travels, I’ve seen some unbelievably amateurish resumes from very senior people, and it makes them look ridiculous – equivalent to showing up for a formal event in a bathing suit. OTOH, some people are so talented and well known to their network that none of the rules apply to them – maybe you are one of these lucky people).

5F Format wastes

space or too

much “white

space”

Insufficient white space is no good, and too much white space is also no good (sometimes called “exploded design”).

Excessive white space adds pages to your resume, bores readers, and dilutes your message; it’s like



“adding water to orange juice” (same idea as #2A – both excessive verbiage and excessive white space kill your message).

5G

CV/resume fails

“publication

standards”

This is a bad one – often the “kiss of death” for an executive resume. It’s hard to describe in text. The resume lacks the “look and feel” of executive level – It looks high school or college level – not executive.

If your native language is not English, please don’t be offended by this comment. I know you are fluent in English – reading and speaking – but the writing and formatting of your resume are not “publication quality” – not acceptable for the senior-executive level.

“Publication quality” means the writing, editing, and formatting are good enough to be published in a major newspaper like the Wall Street Journal. If you’re a million-dollar value creator, you cannot show your value with a $99 resume – it’s like showing up for the interview in shabby clothes.

BTW this is NOT a “translation” issue (for example, English-Indian, English-Russian, or English-Italian, and so on). Most of my executive clients grew up right here in the USA, and their own writing does not pass “publication standards.” It’s a different skill than talking or writing an e-mail!

6

Bad intro:

No headline and

no summary

or

Weak headline

and summary

Your resume must immediately indicate who you are and what you want. This note probably means that when I first glanced at your resume, I couldn't figure what you want – and I still don’t know the answer, even after re-reading your resume.

This is a huge weakness, especially if you send this resume to people outside your network. They’ll plow into the first page, get lost, and lose interest.

Solution: Start with a clear headline and a short-and-strong intro (see the example on last


© 2014–2015 • Donald Burns ...............................www.ExecutivePromotionsLLC.com ........................Email: [email protected] ................................... Page 10

page).

A strong intro is like the “lead” paragraph in a major newspaper – it telegraphs where the story is going, and distills the highlights into a few lines and stops.

7

Use success

stories to

make a

memorable

impression

Instead of a paragraph followed by some bullets, you should set up your various jobs as "mini business cases" – aka “Success Stories” –that showcase your top success stories (see examples on last page).

Resumes at top-executive level apply some version of this rule – an extremely powerful way to showcase your results and achievements.

Show a complete picture of what you accomplished, not a bunch of isolated puzzle pieces. You can make your resume memorable by showing context, challenges, actions, and results – all tightly edited so the reader can "scan" them very fast.

If you’re in a staff or “process job” – without a lot of quantifiable results – then use the “success story” tactic to fix that problem.

If you can implement this one suggestion, I promise that your resume will stand out from the average resumes.

8

“Jigsaw

puzzle”

problem

When your resume lists too many consecutive bullet points that have no context, they look like the disconnected pieces of a “jigsaw puzzle.”

This type of presentation quickly bores readers, so they lose interest and skip to the next section (see #5D).

Instead of a jigsaw puzzle, you should assemble all the pieces and show completed pictures of what you’ve accomplished (“success stories”) – there’s that phrase again – and show your success stories in context so the reader knows the years and the company you were working for



(i.e., put the story in context of your career).

When your resume shows complete stories, your readers will be impressed and you’ll be called in for more interviews (see example of “success story,” below).

9

No “sudden

impact”

When your resume lacks the “sudden impact” factor, it looks no different than the dozens of other resumes in the “pile.” Instead, your resume should stand out and grab the reader’s full attention for about 10 seconds. To make a sudden and positive impact, you needs four elements:

1. Great content – for example, results for previous employers, credible awards, promotions.

2. “High Impact” editing – fast, assertive, tightly written, and direct (also called “telegraphic” editing).

3. “Instant Branding” – a crystal-clear, half-second resume brand.

4. “CEO” formatting – takes control of the communication. Shows the reader you know where you’re going.

If your resume correctly implements this "sudden-impact" principle, I promise that you'll attract more interviews than you can comfortably handle.

BTW you can apply the “sudden impact” principle to any resume, bio, leadership brief, social-media profile, or any position– CEO, CFO, VP, etc.

10 “Teflon”

problem

This is a variation of “No Sudden Impact” (above): readers can re-read the resume a few times, but NOTHING sticks in their minds. To win admission into the “Pass” pile, your resume must make a memorable impression in 10 seconds or less.



11

Unbalanced

content

A common resume mistake: Showing too much detail for older, low-priority jobs – and not enough detail for your most recent jobs (high priority).

The most important “real estate” on your resume is your current job (or your most recent job). Your second-most-important piece of real estate is the second-most-recent, and so on.

As a general “rule,” focus on your most recent 10-15 years – after that you must summarize. In fact, you can remove really old jobs (or really short-duration jobs) entirely.

12

Age issue?

Do you think you look too old on paper?

Maybe you’re not as old as you think you are. Sometimes people become unnecessarily paranoid about age (and sometimes it’s absolutely justifiable – I’m over 60 – an expert on the “resume age” issue).

Sometimes it makes sense to delete the graduation dates from your resume, but that depends on many factors, including: your actual age, your industry, energy, and the “size” of your career.

For example, if you graduated from school in 1978, and your resume shows that you were working way back in 1978, it makes no logical sense to remove your graduation date (i.e., if you remove the date, your resume is saying you probably graduated much earlier than 1978 – maybe 1968).

If think you look “too old” on paper, then remove the graduation date AND remove all the jobs older than, say, 15 years. Removing the dates is acceptable, but you are still signaling an “age issue.” Resume reviewers tolerate these “black holes” – your missing years – but they’d rather see your whole story.

Your resume might have an unusual issue that’s not covered in the 70% of typical resume problems



13 Anything

else?

mentioned here in the “menu.”

I frequently update an index-card file that covers about 50 of these serious but relatively infrequent “oddball” issues. I’ll describe the issue as best I can on your marked-up resume.

Beyond the Resume – Additional Factors

1 How strong is

your personal

network?

How strong is your network of industry contacts?

SCENARIO #1, EASY SUCCESS: If you send your resume to people who already know you – or know about you via trusted referrals – you’ll probably be invited for an interview, no matter how bad your resume. In fact, the only purpose of a resume is to open the door for an interview.

SCENARIO #2, NOT SO EASY: If you send your resume to people outside your network – for example, to companies outside your industry, or to people who don’t know anything about you – your current resume will probably be trashed because it doesn’t stand out. It’s not working hard enough.

2 Instead of a

resume,

would you be

better served

by a

“networking

bio” or a “Bio

Flyer”?

Sometimes, you don’t need a CV/resume. Maybe you need a “Bio Flyer.”

For example, are you currently employed and only “thinking about” a job change? If you are not fully committed to an actual job search, your top priority should be the building of your network of contacts, which requires an exceptionally good Bio and LinkedIN Profile.

Later on, you can redo the resume when you commit yourself to an active job search. For now, a bio might work better than CV.



http://youtu.be/GNR2EH6uaMU

3

Personal

Branding

http://youtu.be/L-3rTjelSKk

Additional Options

1

Phone call or

Skype Call

(int’l)

If you’d like to follow-up with a personal resume evaluation, please send me an email, and I’ll explain the process.

My resume evaluation is a very detailed audit – starting with your career target. I’ll point out the “holes.” Then you can either fix the problems yourself – if you feel really confident in this area – or else you can hire me (or somebody like me).







2 Resume

writing

Job search

coaching

Preparation

for

interview

questions

DO RECRUITERS SAY YOUR RESUME IS

AMAZING? WHY NOT? HOW I CAN HELP: Each month, I peruse more than 100 resumes. Most of these resumes are only “average” – no impact, nothing stands out, destined for trash – so they fail to win the interview. In other words, each month, I hear from a hundred talented people who have no idea their resumes are killing them. Very often, I can fix that problem. I can transform these weak resumes from average to amazing. SOMETIMES I CANNOT HELP: If I cannot make your resume amazing – if I don’t see some good raw material to work with – I will say so. I can’t do my magic unless you possess some career assets, for example: promotions, turnarounds, education, results for employers, or innovation. I need that raw material. I am a master packager of business and technical talent, but I am not a magician. Before I can accept you as a client, I must hear some career “success stories” that I can work with.. • ARE YOU GOOD AT WHAT YOU DO? How much time and money have you already invested in your education and career development? If you are really good at what you do, does your resume show that within six seconds? • SIX SECOND TEST: If you possess real career assets and accomplishments – but you’re not getting interviews – then something is probably wrong with your packaging. When you send your resume to strangers – for example, people outside your familiar network – you get only 6 seconds to WOW the interviewer and move forward to an interview.



Good luck in your search!

I sincerely hope this resume evaluation will give you some insights into some the realities of the current employment market. I hope it leads you to that elusive “ideal” scenario you’ve been musing about for years. Never give up in your search, and tune out all the “doom and gloom” you’ve been hearing in the media.

Every week – from my vantage point as an executive career coach – I hear from people who are landing better positions despite the current job market – and you can land in a better position as well. I promise that you’ll eventually reach your career goal if you focus on a target, build your personal network, and present a “Million-Dollar” resume to your prospective employers.

Thank you again for contacting me, and good luck in your search!


http://www.executivepromotionsllc.com/

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Donald Burnsexecutivepromotionsllc.com › wp-content › uploads › 2014 › ... · ©2014– 5 • Donald Burns..... .....Email: [email protected]