New Year, New Job? How to Make Your CV & Resume Pop

Perry Maddox explains how to make your CV or resume stand out so that you’re ready to make it a new year, new job, come what may.

New Year, new job?

Maybe you’re job searching, maybe not. Either way, begin the year by polishing your CV or resume. January is a natural time to look to the future and an ideal time to revisit the documents that will help land your next job.

You never know when you’ll need it. Don’t miss an opportunity because you didn’t have your latest information to hand.

Channel some of those new years vibes to ensure that you pop off the page.

Stop Smothering Your Success.

Let’s do a little test.

Which of my summary sections reads better?

Option A:

CEO of Restless Development, a field-leading, global organization known for innovative impact and progressive advocacy. Leader of high-performing teams, managerial excellence and a values-driven culture that generates diverse leaders as core business. Scaling impact through others, I have trained, coached and supported diverse, senior leaders and social justice organizations to increase their impact via excellent performance.

Option B:

• Global Executive with 12 years’ senior leadership in the C-suite & Boards of global organizations.
• Strategic Leader of 8,000-person teams reaching 500,000 people weekly, collaborating with 1000 partners in 74 countries, and ensuring financial health of budgets over $20 million.
• Champion of Diverse Talent developing 100s of diverse senior leaders to unleash 30,000 new leaders for impact from grassroots communities to global advocacy.
• Values-led Transformation leading: all-time performance highs; $15 million funding wins; and, 99% staff satisfaction. Described by Board Chair as “humble leader who builds leadership spaces that are inclusive”

Which one strikes you most?

The content is similar, but notice the different formatting. Option A smothers my key points in a heavy paragraph. On the other hand, Option B pulls them out for the reader to grasp easily.

How to Pop off the Page.

Honestly, did you even read Option A?

It’s a fine paragraph, but do you remember what it said?

Notice how much easier Option B is to retain when you skim through it. Like it or not, hiring managers will be skimming at first read, so your application must pop.

Here’s how:

• Make it Easy to Read. Lists of bullets, with bold headers, are easier to process than blocks of text. Slim those heavy paragraphs into concise bullets to help readers grasp your key points.
• Tailor to Them. Tailor every application to the job and organisation you’re applying to. I try to align my bolded summary bullets (see Option B above) to the headline bullets in their job description. Then I edit my work experience, choosing the best, relevant examples for this unique job.
• Show, Don’t Tell. Instead of painting your picture by telling people that you’re great, demonstrate it through the success you’ve achieved. Every applicant says they’re a great team player, but the candidate who offers “5 years’ experience with high performing teams of 10 people achieving 98% targets” stands out as a proven team player.
• Prove it: Numbers. Where possible, quantify what you’ve done to demonstrate scope, scale and impact . This can be done at any job level. A cashier who conducted 1000 daily transactions for 2 years with 0 loss of money is just as impressive as those global CEO numbers above. Calculate your best numbers and share them.
• Prove it: Qualitative. Not everything that counts can be counted. Also use non-numerical evidence like descriptions of success (ie “all-time performance” above) or quotes from a performance review.
• Never do this. Never paste the bullets from your previous job descriptions into your work experience section. Don’t waste space simply listing your previous job duties. Instead…
• Tell a Story. Demonstrate the impact you created in those jobs. Ask yourself, what was the situation before you, what did you do, and what was the outcome. What did you improve, adapt, grow, change? Show the impact you created, not the job you performed.

Make it a New Year, New Job.

Your goal is to use every line in your application to stand out.

Apply these tips to your summary and work experience sections. Take some time to work through, line by line. Do you tell a story? Is it evidenced? Is it easy to read and digest?

Trust me, it’s a pain to overhaul this way at first. Keep at it, though, and you’ll never see your CV or resume the same again.

Not a bad way to start the year.

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