10 Best Executive Resume Branding Tips is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

(The following is my latest article as the Personal Branding Expert at Job-Hunt.org.)

You’re suddenly facing a job search, so you rush right to your resume (if you can find it) to update it. But wait. You may not be ready to tackle your resume yet.

If it’s been several years since you revisited your resume, or if you’re one of those lucky people who never needed a resume, you may not be aware of how much resumes have changed in the past several years.

Before working on your resume, re-think how to update it, so that you’ll create a career marketing document that will optimally do its job – land you interviews.

Have you been paying attention to all the talk these days about personal branding? How your brand should be built around what makes you a good fit for your target employers? How resume branding can help you clearly identify and communicate what differentiates you from your job-seeking competitors?

Most importantly, you may not understand that step one in job search is NOT diving right into writing your resume.

Step one is laying out the groundwork with targeting and branding. Once you’ve done that, you’ll have the information about your target audience and yourself that you’ll need to write a compelling resume.

Here are 10 tips to build an interview-generating, brand-reinforcing resume:

INFORMATION-MINING

1. Targeting

Before you can define your brand and create content for your resume, you need to know who you’re targeting . . . who will be reading your resume. You’ll need to decide what kind of job you’ll be seeking, compile a list of companies you want to work for, research their current challenges and needs, and determine how you can help them meet those challenges.

Doing this will help you align everything in your resume with what your target employers will be looking for in candidates. Industry and company research, and the information you’ll find in job descriptions, will help you identify required qualifications and those all-important relevant keywords that need to be in your resume. A Google search of your target companies, the companies’ websites and Indeed.com are good resources. And check out Job-Hunt’s Company Research articles.

2. Personal Branding and Value Proposition

Branding is no longer optional. Your competitors could well be using this method to differentiate themselves. You need to brand yourself and the unique value you offer, just to keep pace with them.

My 10-step Personal Branding Worksheet will help you uncover and communicate the combination of attributes, passions, strengths and qualifications that differentiate you from them.

As you’re building your brand, create a vibrant brand positioning statement for your resume.

3. Write Down Your Career Success Stories

Instead of merely listing a string of relevant keyword phrases in your resume, back them up by providing specific examples of your achievements and how they impacted the company – saved them money, made them money, improved processes, improved customer satisfaction, etc. Show them the numbers! Think of the best contributions you’ve made to your employers, in terms of highest value to them.

My article on Challenge – Action – Results (C-A-Rs) stories will help.

WRITING YOUR RESUME

4. Skip the Objective Statement

Employers don’t care that you want a “challenging position to advance my career”. They want to know what you’ll do for them and whether you’ll be a good hiring choice. Objective statements waste valuable space and prime real estate on the page.

5. Real Estate and Strategic Positioning

Busy HR people and other hiring decision makers typically allow only 10-15 seconds to scan a resume and decide whether you’re a person they want to interview.

Their eyes will go right to the top third or half of page one first, and may go no further. You need to capture their attention and hold it by encapsulating the best you have to offer in that spot on the page.

Suggestions for branding “above the fold”:

Lead with a hard-hitting personal brand statement that includes your most important relevant keywords and describes your ROI (Return on Investment) value to your target employers.

• Add a powerful quote from a recent performance review or someone you work with.
• Include 3 or 4 short value-driven bulleted statements with numbers.

6. Readability, Formatting and Length

Avoid densely packed, hard-to-read information. Remember that, when you email your digital resume, the reader could open up and view your document on their PDA . . . that’s a very small screen. Shorter chunks of information are easier to read – on your digital or paper resume – and will draw the reader’s eye to continue down the page.

Keep the formatting attractive, consistent, and clean. Don’t use more than 2 different fonts (one for headings, another for content), and don’t choose frilly, unprofessional fonts. Use graphic lines sparingly and avoid underlining text.

As far as length, recent grads or those with only a few years’ experience should be able to keep it to one page. Executives and more experienced job seekers should try not to go over 2 pages.

Remember that a resume is a career marketing communication, not a career history. It needs to incorporate just enough compelling information to generate interest in you. Everything in your resume must be there for a reason. Nothing should be arbitrary. Pare down your content ruthlessly!

7. Typos and Grammar

It should go without saying that typos and errors in grammar are the kiss of death. They may also convey misinformation. Proofread several times and have someone else do it, too. Don’t rely on spellcheck. Make sure your contact information is correct.

8. Overused “Resume-Speak”

You’re not like everyone else. Your resume shouldn’t read like everyone else who’s competing for the same jobs. You’ve done the branding work, so you know what differentiates you. Make that come across in your resume. Keep the content interesting and don’t fall back on dull phrases that don’t differentiate you, such as results-oriented, visionary leader, excellent communication skills, proven track record of success, etc.

9. Passive Verbs

Avoid the anemic, boring phrase “responsible for”. Show your vitality with robust action verbs, identify your personal brand attributes, and explain your niche expertise with relevant key words. Use strong words like advanced, drove, spearheaded, accelerated, optimized, streamlined, leveraged, etc.

10. Repetitive Job Descriptions

Don’t waste precious space in the “Professional Experience” section reiterating obvious responsibilities. Readers will already know the basic duties for your jobs. Reinforce your brand by highlighting your relevant keyword phrases linked to specific examples of the value you offered your past employers.

Bottom Line:

Yes, all of this takes a lot of time. But the work you do, and the content you create, defining your personal brand and developing your resume (and biography and other career documents) around it forms the foundation for all your personal marketing materials, online and offline, and offers many benefits:

• Energizes you with what differentiates your value proposition to your target employers.
• Helps you know how to tell your network how they can help you achieve your career goals.
• Prepares you to speak confidently and knowledgeably about the value you offer.
• Provides a wealth of on-brand information to re-purpose for each of your online profiles and any web pages you create.
• Prepares you to network and interview well.

Related posts:

The Biggest Executive Resume Writing Mistake

The Future of the Executive Resume According to Martin Yate

4 Reasons You Can’t Write Your Own Executive Resume

Coming Soon! My Ebook on Executive Branding and Job Search is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Over a year ago I decided to write an ebook to guide executives through defining their brand and navigating today’s job search.

After all, I’d been blogging and writing articles about this for several years. I had lots of good content to work from. Most of the work was done, right? I figured it wouldn’t take very much time. Just piece it all together, make adjustments to keep it flowing and then figure out how to package, market and sell it.

So, back then, I wrote a basic outline and came up a boring title, something like – “Executive Branding and Your Job Search”.

I knew I had to cover the following areas and detail the strategies involved with each:

• Job Search Targeting
• Personal Branding
• Resumes and Other Career Marketing Documents
• Online Identity
• Social Networking and Social Media
• Networking
• Interviewing

That took me about 10 minutes. And there it sat for almost a year. I’d go back to my outline from time to time, but did nothing with it. I wasn’t excited about working on it. Probably because my approach wasn’t inciting me to move forward. It was too much like so many other how-to job search books.

Then, last December, I had a breakthrough that instantly revved me up. Why not work from the questions executive job seekers ask me every day that point to their utter confusion about how to find a job? The wrong thinking that keeps them from landing the jobs they deserved.

Suddenly it all made sense! What I had to do in my ebook was address their sabotaging ways and, step by step, walk them through shifting their mindset and mastering the new world of search.

The new working title and sub-titles are:

Avoid The 10 Deadliest Brand-Diluting Phrases in Your C-level Executive Resume is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Are you still relying on anemic, overused phrases like “results-oriented” and “team player” to sell yourself in your executive resume and other career marketing communications?

Don’t fall into the trap of boilerplating your resume to read like your competitors. You and your promise of value to potential employers are unique. The words you use to describe your executive brand and value shouldn’t be generic.

Take the time and care to pinpoint precise words to differentiate the unique set of characteristics you have to offer that no one else does.

To find out what the other 8 deadly resume phrases are, read my post at Executive Career Brand, 10 Brand-Diluting Phrases That Can Ruin Your Executive Resume.

Related posts:

How to Write An Irresistible C-level Executive Brand Resume in 10 Steps

How to Write a C-level Executive Career Brand Biography

VisualCV: The Social Media Executive Resume

Top 10 Secrets of a Great Senior-level Executive Resume is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

In the new world of executive job search, your “paper” or Word document executive resume will probably not be your first introduction to recruiters and hiring decision makers. Whatever they find out about you online may be the deciding factor – often before you know they’re assessing you.

Today’s c-level / senior-level resume takes the form of a LinkedIn profile, VisualCV, or online portfolio. Savvy executives know they have to have a strong online identity, leading hiring professionals to accurate, on-brand information about them.

Everything that’s in a great, personally branded paper resume can be transformed into an online career branding tool. You’ll still need that paper resume at some point in the hiring process, but maybe not until the interviewing process begins, or after.

Many of my clients either don’t have a resume when they come to me because they’ve never needed one to get a job, or haven’t updated their resume for years. Either way, they’re completely at a loss as to how today’s power executive resume needs to look and read.

Here are the 10 most important DO’s and DON’T’s for senior-level executive resumes (or the equivalent online version):

DO’s

Four things that too many executive resumes don’t have:

1. A clear job target

A generic resume that tries to cover too many bases will probably fall flat. If you don’t write to a specific target audience, your resume won’t speak to the recruiters and hiring decision makers reading it or help them connect you to the job they’re trying to fill. They don’t have the time or inclination to sift through irrelevant information to see if you warrant interviewing. Everything in your resume has to fall in line with what they’ll be looking for.

2. Personal branding

Especially in an economic downturn, personal branding makes more sense than ever. In a nutshell, branding links your passions, key personal attributes, and strengths with your value proposition, in a crystal clear message that differentiates you from your competition and resonates with your target audience.

Companies are looking for vitality, good fit, and personal chemistry. Branding generates chemistry and makes you come alive on the page. See 10 Best of Personal Branding Strategies, Lessons, and News.

3. Value proposition

The value you will bring to your next employer needs to be abundantly evident, monetized, and linked to your personal brand. SHOW THEM THE NUMBERS! And show them how you accomplished those advances.

4. Career success stories

When you explain how you make things happen – how you were able to capture profitable results – you help your target audience zero in on what you’ll do for their organization. They can begin to picture you doing the same things for them. Follow a “Challenge – Actions – Results” framework to illuminate your successes. See How to Leverage C-A-R Storytelling for Executive Branding and Job Search.

DON’T’s

Six things too many top-level executive resumes have, but shouldn’t:

5. An anemic “Objective” statement.

No one cares that you want a “growth position that will utilize my expertise in XYZ”. They want to know what you’ll do for them. Instead of leading your resume with a statement saying what you want from the job, start with a professional headline spotlighting the relevant key word phrases readers will be looking for. Then follow with your executive brand statement, showcasing your unique promise of value to them.

6. Densely packed, hard-to-read information.

More and more hiring decision makers review resumes on their PDAs. When they open a document or web page, it’s more likely to capture and hold their attention with concise on-brand, value-driven statements surrounded by plenty of white space. Shorter chunks of information are easier to read and will draw the reader to continue down the page.

Pay close attention to what lands above the fold on the page – the top third or quarter of the page. Busy decision makers generally allow only 10 seconds or so for a resume to draw them in. They may go no further than that initial page view. As much as possible, make this section stand on its own as your calling card.

7. Too many pages.

Keep it as close to 2 pages as you can. Remember that an executive resume is a career marketing document, not a career history. It needs to incorporate just enough compelling information to generate interest in you. No need to go back further than 10-15 years. If your earlier career is relevant, and you have room, you can encapsulate that experience in a few lines.

8. Typos, grammatical errors, and/or poor formatting.

This probably goes without saying. Typos and errors in grammar are the kiss of death and may also convey misinformation. Proofread several times and have someone else do it, too. Don’t rely on spellcheck. Keep the formatting attractive, consistent, and easy to read. Don’t use more than 2 different fonts (one for headings, another for content), and don’t choose frilly, unprofessional fonts. Make sure your contact information is correct.

9. Tired resume-speak.

Write your resume from your own voice. You’re not like everyone else. Find the precise words that describe what makes you unique and valuable. Keep the content interesting and don’t fall back on dull phrases that don’t differentiate you – results-oriented, visionary leader, excellent communication skills, proven track record of success, etc.

10. Passive verbs and repetitive job descriptions.

Avoid the over-used, boring phrase “responsible for”. Show your vitality with robust action verbs and explain your niche expertise with relevant key words. Use strong words like pioneered, envisioned, accelerated, benchmarked, incentivized, leveraged, etc. Don’t waste precious space in the “Professional Experience” section reiterating obvious responsibilities. Readers will already know the basic duties for your jobs.

If your resume (or its online equivalent) is getting no action, it’s probably not you, it’s your resume.

Always keep in mind that real people with particular sets of criteria are reading your resume. Put yourself in their shoes and give them the information they’re looking for in a document or web page that’s easy to read and digest. Make it easy for them to assess your “fit” for the position and corporate culture. Make it easy for them to hire you. 

To see how it all comes together, take a look at a sample executive resume I created for a CEO Entrepreneur – Business Process and Profitability Consultant.
 

Related posts:

C-level Executive Career Biography or Resume, Which Comes First?

12 Best of Executive Resume Branding Tactics and Advice

C-level Executive Job Search Secrets: Do You Have a Good Ear For Networking? is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Successful networking is all about “giving to get” – slowly and gently creating evangelists for you and your personal brand.

One of the best ways to attract people to you and engage them to want to help you is by being a good listener because:

• Most people love to talk about themselves and be heard with intent interest by the listener.
• Most people are not being listened to, but crave it.
• Most people, especially at networking events, have their own agenda and are not good listeners.

People move about so quickly these days. They’re self-absorbed and have short attention spans. Keen listening seems to be a lost art, along with so many other basic courtesies and good manners. It’s a rare personal attribute – one that is greatly valued and can differentiate you from your peers.

Being listened to makes people feel valued and good about themselves. People remember those who give them that boost by being truly interested in what they have to say. They’re much more inclined to keep that good listener top of mind when they hear of an opportunity that may be a good fit for them.

Are you a good listener in these important ways?

♦  Are you paying attention to ways you may be able to help this person?

♦  Do you keep your ear to the ground for others in your network to determine if this person you’re talking to now could be the answer to their organizational needs?

♦  Do you ask questions and listen to challenges facing this person’s organization? Maybe you’re the answer to their problems. If you’re not, you may know someone who is.

♦  Do you listen carefully to determine if the person you’re talking with is someone you want to continue to network with or is she/he an energy-drainer? After all, it’s nearly impossible, and quite exhausting, to be a sounding board for everyone who needs your ear.

Your takeaway:

Good listeners set themselves up for reciprocity in networking. Being an intent listener may just make you more memorable than the powerful personal brand message you express when networking.

Related posts:

Top 10 Tactics to Build a Vibrant Executive Network

Executive Networking Secrets: Mind Your Manners When Building Your Personal Brand 

Executive Job Search Secrets: Power Up Your Email Signature With Personal Branding is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

If you’re like most people, you’re constantly sending emails to all kinds of people. In executive job search, you’re probably sending more emails than usual. How do you sign them? With just your name and maybe a phone number?

Your email signature is one more great opportunity to leverage your personal brand and market your unique promise of value.

Why not take the time to put together an email signature that will leave a lasting impression and also lead people to all the on-brand information they’ll need to know about you?

It’s easy enough to set up an automatic signature for all outgoing emails, or once you’ve created one, you can easily insert it or not, depending upon the recipient.

When creating your email signature, assume that the reader will know nothing about you. Keep it uncluttered and concise, but brand-evident and compelling.

Here’s what you need in your signature:

♦  Your full name, not a nickname. Even if you know the recipient well, your email may be forwarded to someone else who has no idea who “Bobby” is.

♦  Your current title and company name. If you’re not with a company now, include your professional title, such as “Global Business Operations Leader” or “Senior Turnaround Management Executive”.

♦  Your best phone number to reach you anytime. Cell phone is probably best so you don’t risk someone at work or someone you’d rather not intercepting the call.

♦  Send a clear message with your abbreviated personal brand statement of one to two lines. Haven’t worked on your brand statement? Then invest some thought in a short brand tagline that showcases your strengths while differentiating the value you offer from your peers. Make your tagline, and therefore you, memorable.

♦  Your personal email address. Probably not a good idea to use your email at work.

♦  Your LinkedIn badge or URL, linking to your on-brand profile, and/or your VisualCV badge or URL, linking to your multi-media rich executive portfolio, and/or a link to your personal website, if you have one.

An expanded email signature with the above components will mark you as a professional who is savvy to today’s Internet-driven world of work and help decision makers vetting candidates learn what makes you stand out from the competition.
 

Related posts:

Being Authentic in Your Executive Personal Brand Statement

10 Steps to Uncovering and Building Your Authentic Personal Brand

Executive Job Search Secrets: The Power of A Hand-Written Thank You Note is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

If you’re contemplating a career move or you’re already in the thick of a job search or you want to galvanize evangelists within your network, here’s a piece of advice to position you ahead and above everyone else:

Invest in some quality, attractive-looking thank notes and plenty of postage stamps, and start using them regularly.

This isn’t really a secret, just a woefully underused career management best practice. Sending a thoughtful, hand-written thank you note is so rare that it can have tremendous impact.

Clients have told me that thank you notes were the deciding factor in landing a new job. The decision was down to the wire. My clients sent thank-you’s, the others didn’t. The people hiring them said they were so impressed by the effort that they knew they wanted to work with them.

Emailed thank you’s are okay, and sometimes the better choice to get something out quickly, but they just don’t have the impact a snail-mailed one does.

Think about how you feel when you get a thank you note in the mail, for whatever reason. It’s kind of a thrill isn’t it, to realize that someone took the time and consideration to sit down, pen some thoughts, and pop it in the mail.

Here’s what a well-written, personalized thank you note accomplishes so beautifully, following an interview:

• Conveys courtesy toward the interviewer for their time.
• Reminds the interviewer of you and puts you top of mind again.
• Mentions highlights of the interview conversation and reiterates your interest in the position.
• Provides an opportunity to bring up information you poorly addressed or forgot in the interview.
• Provides an opportunity to ask about the next step in the interview process.

According to Laura DeCarlo and Susan Guarneri in their excellent new book, “Job Search Bloopers”, to which I contributed, some things to keep in mind with your thank you notes:

→ Make sure to have the full name, correct spelling, and title of each interviewer before you leave. Asking for business cards is a great way to do this.

→ Directly following the interview, jot down answers to the following:

• Key questions that were asked.
• Answers that captured their interest or which they said represented important skills for the position’s requirements or organization’s challenges.
• Concerns they voiced.
• Information you wish you had shared in regard to their requests.

→ Don’t send generic or canned thank you letters.

→ Don’t hand a thank you letter to the employer at the end of the interview.

→ Don’t forget to sign the letter.

Beyond those who actually interviewed you, don’t forget the people in your network who provided leads for those interviews. For that matter, don’t forget to send thank you’s to your network for their help and kindnesses. It can make all the difference in keeping you and your personal brand top of mind with them.

Related post:

Executive Networking Secrets: Mind Your Manners When Building Your Personal Brand

Executive Networking Secrets: Mind Your Manners When Building Your Personal Brand is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

So much about networking well draws from the basic lessons we all (hopefully) learned growing up:

→ Treat others as you know they’d like to be treated.

→ Be kind, polite, and considerate.

→ Help others feel good about themselves.

→ Be thoughtful of others’ needs and do little favors for them.

→ Listen with patience and interest.

→ Say thank you, a lot, for others’ kindnesses and help.

→ Compliment others on a job well done . . . even their smallest accomplishments.

Sounds simplistic, doesn’t it? But these are precisely the practices that highly successful networkers continuously sharpen.

One secret to purposeful networking for great results is to understand it’s all about giving.  Don’t ask for a favor or an introduction or a piece of someone’s time, until you’ve first made the effort to help that person.

One of the biggest networking blunders is overwhelming people you’ve just met with requests for favors. Think about how you’d feel, being bombarded in this way.

Coming on too strong will most likely guarantee losing a potentially valuable contact.

According to Liz Ryan, Job Search Networking Pro at job-hunt.org, “New relationships are for cultivating, not harvesting.”

In a recent article, Managing the Networking “Second Date”, Liz offers some suggestions on how to softly ease into and slowly build what could be a lasting, mutually-beneficial business relationship. An easy-going approach is the ticket for healthy online and real-life networking.

Mom and Dad were right. Good manners matter and will serve you well in all respects.
 

Related post:

Top 10 Tactics to Build a Vibrant Executive Network

Executive Resume Writing Secrets: What Contact Information to Include is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Since most resumes these days are not delivered by regular mail and your privacy and security come into play with Internet use, the issue of contact information has shifted.

These days I rarely, if ever, include a physical address on executive resumes. I doubt that recruiters and hiring decision makers will take the time to write you a letter, and they probably don’t need to know where you live. You may, or may not, choose to just include your general geographic location (“Atlanta, GA area”).

Here are some mostly common sense suggestions on resume contact information:

→ Most importantly, make it easy for people to get hold of you. Since you’re likely to be contacted during business hours, include a phone number where you can be reached directly during the day, and an email address that you check frequently.

→ To avoid confusion and keep your resume header clean, it’s probably best to include just one phone number. Most of my clients choose their cells. I know that, as an executive, you have hectic days and can be hard to reach, but it’s important to check your voicemail frequently and return calls quickly when you’re in a job search.

→ Get a new email address if yours is inappropriate or off-color. I’ve seen some downright offensive email addresses. Don’t turn people off before you give them the chance to consider you. And a silly, unprofessional email address may land your email message with resume in a spam filter.

→ For obvious reasons, it’s not wise to use a phone number or email address that’s connected to the company you work for.

→ List the same phone number and email address that’s on the first page of your resume at the top of the second page. Again, this just makes it easier to locate where to contact you and provides the info on each page, in case the pages of your paper resume become detached.

→ If your job search is confidential or you have other specific privacy issues, and/or you’re posting your resume to online job boards, you may need to put other safeguards in place. For more useful tips and advice, check out job-hunt.org’s articles on cyber-safe job searching.

For the whole story on putting together a top interview-generating executive resume, see my series, Think Like an Executive Resume Branding Expert.

Executive Resume Writing Secrets: Lead Your Achievement Statements With the WOW Result is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

To capture attention and drive home your promise of value to your next employer, follow these suggestions when crafting bulleted statements describing critical contributions you’ve made to past employers:

→ For optimum impact, lead with the WOW result, instead of the actions you took to get there.

→ Monetize or quantify the WOW result whenever possible. Numbers speak volumes.

→ Link your personal brand attributes with your value proposition and ROI.

→ Keep each statement concise (3-4 lines at most) and to-the-point, surrounded by enough white space to make each one really pop.

→ Because space on a 2-page executive resume is at a premium, choose only your most impressive accomplishments to showcase your value proposition.

→ Group together no more than 5 achievement statements in a row. A list with too many bulleted items is dizzying for the reader.

→ Position a few of your most powerful achievement statements above the fold on the first page of your executive resume.

→ Replace lifeless, overused phrases like “responsible for” with robust actions verbs like:

Drove, propelled, launched, maximized, benchmarked, generated, innovated, monetized

Which of these achievement statements for a CEO – Global Operations Management do you think packs the best punch?

Before

“Responsible for process improvements in each department, resulting in increased revenue, cost reductions and better quality metrics.”

After

“Increased revenue 28%, improved quality metrics 33%, and reduced costs over 25% spearheading continuous process improvements across all global business units (IT, HR, P&L, Accounting, Administration, Legal, and Customer Service).”
 

For many more strategic executive resume writing tips, see

Think Like an Executive Resume Branding Expert