“Just the facts, ma’am.”
For those of us old enough to remember the television series “Dragnet,”
that phrase was made famous by Detective Joe Friday. Detective Friday stayed at peak productivity
by focusing his interviews on the facts.
The facts speak for themselves, or at least they should. Irrelevant, or superfluous information is a
waste of precious time. Detective Friday maximized his productivity
and effectiveness by sticking to the facts.
During my corporate career, I learned many principles of
effective communications. Two of those
points stand out above the rest, at least to me. The first principle is: Tell them what you are going to tell them;
tell them, and then tell them what you told them. Every presentation has a beginning, a middle,
and an ending. The beginning states the
objective of the presentation; “tell
them what you are going to tell them.”
The middle presents your case; “tell them.” The ending, or summary, “tells them what you
told them.” Your resume format follows
the same principle to a point. Your
Career Summary sets the stage. It reveals what you plan to tell them in the
body of your resume. Your job history is
the meat of your resume. It speaks to
the relevant details of your career, which are the key accomplishments. Your Career Summary is your personal
positioning statement. Your job history is
supporting evidence. One must support
the other.
Focus On Your
Accomplishments:
- Career Summary positions your general contributions.
- Skill Sets provide definition to your strengths
- Employment Summary: bullet-point significant accomplishments, “the facts.”
The second principle is to know your audience. Who are they?
What is their background? What
are they looking for? What do they want
to hear? What code words are they
looking to hear? How much time do you
have to make your point? Knowing your
audience is fundamental to delivering a successful speech. This principle is equally important to
crafting an effective resume. When you
consider the audience for your resume, understand that they are looking to
maximize their productivity as well.
“Just the facts, ma’am.”
As with any communications vehicle your resume must make an
impact on the reader. When the reader
puts your resume down, she should be able to recall your top three attributes;
your unique selling proposition. Yeah, I get it! So,
your resume must be highly focused and to some extent repetitive. Repetitive in the sense that key themes are
reinforced throughout the document. All
too often I see resumes where facts have been obscured by superfluous adjectives which render the message trite and meaningless. “Just the facts, ma’am.”
Think back to successful networking events you have attended. Who did you meet that stood out from the
pack, someone you remembered? You can
probably still tick off two or three key points about that person. He must have impressed you enough to remember
him. His message was likely to have been
clear, concise, and to the point. Your
resume should be no different, except that it lacks the full dimension of a
face-to-face meeting. A resume is
consumed by only one of the reader’s senses, her vision. Coupled with the fact that resumes are
briefly scanned for content, the burden is on you to get your message across,
understood, and remembered. The content
must necessarily leap off the page to be absorbed by the reader. The best way to make an impact to be
remembered is to present key information in short bursts. To be remembered, focus on the facts of your
accomplishments and reinforce your theme throughout your resume.
Thank you for visiting my blog.
Your feedback helps me continue to publish articles that you want to read. Your input is very important to me so please leave a comment.
Jim Weber, President
New Century Dynamics Executive Search
www.newcenturydynamics.com
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