7 Executive Résumé Strategies

A résumé isn't designed to get you a job. A résumé can't make you qualified for positions outside your area of expertise. A résumé won't, all by itself, open up doors or knock down obstacles in your path. But there is a lot that a good résumé can do... and those job seekers with them have an edge in the job search.

To be competitive, your résumé needs to communicate more than just your work history, job duties, and even key results of your efforts. At the executive level, hiring authorities want to know more than just "what" you did; they want to know "how" and "why" so they can better assess your fit within the organization and its goals. Compared to entry-level or mid-level résumés, executive résumés tend to be longer (two or even three pages is the norm), a bit more detailed, and emphasize strategic contributions. Everything in the résumé should support a specific career target, and the entire document should present a sharp, focused, cohesive picture of who you are and why you're valuable.

Consider these strategies for a powerful executive presentation of your capabilities.

1. Start with a summary rather than an objective. Objective statements on résumés are passé. Instead, begin with an overview of your strongest selling points -- those things about you that will make a reader sit up and take notice. Make sure this summary clearly indicates the type and level of position you're interested in, and be certain to include highlights of your career contributions.

2. Show your chronological work history. If you're sending résumés to recruiters and responding to print or online ads, you'll do yourself a huge disservice if your résumé shows a confusing career history. Nearly all executives are best served by a traditional reverse-chronological format introduced by a powerful summary. Even if you're trying to downplay some less-than-stellar recent experience in your work history, be certain to show job titles, employers and dates of employment. Otherwise, you risk being quickly eliminated in a flash.

3. Don't write "job descriptions." Your résumé should be more about what you did than the duties of the job itself. Briefly describe your scope of responsibility, then highlight your achievements and contributions -- things you did that improved revenue, profitability, productivity, customer satisfaction or contributed to other business objectives. As an executive, you should be more focused on strategic contributions than day-to-day administrative duties: Be sure you're communicating the "big picture" in your résumé. Keep in mind that résumé readers are pretty intelligent. They can make assumptions based on job titles and general descriptions; they don't need to have every task spelled out for them.

4. Be specific. Avoid vague qualifiers such as "substantially" and "significantly." Instead, use hard numbers to lend credibility to your accomplishment statements.

5. Describe context and challenge. Your accomplishments will have even more impact if you present them in context or in relation to a specific challenge. Instead of writing "increased revenue 23 percent," it might be even more meaningful to write "reversed a five-year declining-revenue trend by focusing business development efforts on niche markets; grew revenues 23 percent and achieved profitability for the first time since 2002."

6. Be concise. Even though a two- or three-page résumé is acceptable for an executive job search, it's still important to use a tight writing style so that you can communicate important information without losing your reader in a sea of text. Edit ruthlessly to remove information that isn't essential to your message.

7. Use format to increase impact. Make it easy for readers to skim through your résumé to pick up important information. Use type enhancements, bullets and indentations to create an organizational hierarchy that makes your information easy to absorb. Above all else, make sure you don't make spelling, punctuation or grammatical errors. Your résumé is important. If it's powerful and focused, it can help advance your career. If it's vague and unconvincing, it can leave you languishing in a protracted job search. Time, energy, thought and care spent on résumé development is an excellent investment in yourself and your career.

Louise Kursmark is an award-winning résumé writer and executive career consultant who has written 18 books on career and business topics; her most recent title is "Executive's Pocket Guide to ROI Résumés and Job Search," published in 2006 by JIST. In her private practice, Best Impression Career Services, Kursmark works directly with executive-level clients to create powerful career marketing documents. She has earned multiple industry certifications and was the first person worldwide to earn the Master Résumé Writer credential from the Career Masters Institute. Louise can be contacted via her Web site at www.yourbestimpression.com or blog at http://careerhub.typepad.com/main.