Are you a senior-level professional ready for the executive suite?
You might believe that your dedication and proficiency will automatically shine through on your resume.
However, if you aspire to the corner office, moving from searching to successful requires COMPETITIVE strategies to pique an employer’s interest.
Use these 4 tips to present a confident image on your resume, and look the part for a next-level promotion:
Look at your career contributions with dollar signs.
Employers are always interested in the bottom line. Can you add to it, or control the expenses affecting it?
Then, by all means, get those dollar signs and growth percentages onto your resume!
Ask yourself hard questions about the results of your work, and then put figures to as much of it as possible.
For example, when working with a sales director in the mortgage industry, after discussing his leadership of an underperforming location, we were able to turn dry task descriptions into “Turned around branch to achieve #1 status nationwide from initial ranking of 32 out of 40.”
As you can see, results such as these speak for themselves—and cut through any doubt about your abilities.
Rethink your format and presentation.
If you want to portray a standout image, look beyond the strategies used by countless other job seekers. Millions of people have used a do-it-yourself style or mundane resume template!
Given that this is arguably the most important document of your career, take a hard look at your presentation, and consider implementing some components found in professionally designed resumes.
You can find examples of executive resumes on many sites that show streamlined design, leadership presentation, and effective formatting that preserves both content and space.
Showcase your personal brand and leadership qualities.
Everyone has unique strengths and capabilities to offer their next employer. What are yours? Have you thought about the impact you have on the overall business?
Make a list of what you achieve that consistently affects revenue, the corporate reputation, or efficiency, and then describe the steps you’ve taken to attain these results. These wins can be gathered into an achievements area on the first page of your resume.
This example of an executive resume accomplishments section shows company-level impact, performance details, and contract awards – all related to the firm’s market results against other competitors:
Be sure to place this type of data-driven information front-and-center on your leadership resume.
You’ll find distinguishing metrics help frame your readiness for an executive role much more effectively than mundane duties and job descriptions.
Put yourself “in” the target role in your resume.
Act “as if” you’re already holding the desired role in order to show how you’ll perform at that level.
Research job postings for your dream job and look at LinkedIn Profiles of executives who already hold this position. Take note of the skills and achievements expected at this level.
Then, pull out career wins from your experience that demonstrate these competencies and describe how you’ve performed in the target job. Perhaps you’ve filled in for the COO on occasion or taken the lead on projects usually reserved for the VP of IT.
Highlight the right skills shown in the job postings and adjust your resume Summary of Qualifications to emphasize these capabilities.
Fast-tracking your career to the executive suite requires connecting your performance and personal brand to bottom-line results.
Show your readiness for the next level by writing an executive-style resume that reflects your leadership and personal brand.
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