There’s lots of bad news impacting your executive job search. As of yesterday, we’re officially in a bear market. Layoffs are all around us. The job market is distressed. Competition for top jobs is fierce.
On the up side, companies need smart leadership more than ever. People who can turn things around will be in greater demand.
Resumes that make it abundantly and immediately clear how the candidate drives down costs, builds profitability, turns around failing business operations, and greatly impacts bottom line will hit the mark.
Think about the hiring decision makers you want to impress who are tasked with filling top-level jobs. The cost of hiring is higher than ever. Hiring mistakes cost even more and make decision makers look bad.
Your executive resume needs to scream out:
“Hiring me is a good investment”.
Generate Chemistry with Personal Branding
Strike a chord and make a vivid connection with your personal brand statement. Branding helps those reviewing your resume determine whether you’ll be a good fit for their company. Good fit is a critical component in sourcing viable candidates.
I talked about the how’s and why’s of executive resume branding in these posts:
Need Serenity Now? Reach for Personal Branding to Accelerate Your Executive Job Search
My Resume Stinks: Top 10 Executive Resume Mistakes
The Inside Skinny on Powering Up Your Executive Resume for Today’s Job Market
Show them the money in “Career Success Stories”
Drive home your promise of value with tangible, monetized evidence of how you turned things around for past companies and solved their problems.
Success stories, told in a Challenge – Action – Results framework, link your brand attributes (your strengths, qualities, and drivers) to your value proposition and ROI. Your stories help hiring managers picture you in the job they’re trying to fill.
Here’s a mini-story I used in a senior sales and marketing executive’s resume:
Revitalized stalled business and increased new sales/new revenue growth $5 million in the first 2 years by persistently networking and pursuing forgotten market pockets: lost sales – smaller, untapped businesses – prospects overlooked by the competition.
This kind of innovative action with monetized results reassures hiring decision makers that the investment in hiring this candidate will most likely pay off.
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