Position yourself for a promotion

in bullet points, creating a lengthy resume with little prioritization.

What

Mitchell’s original resume did not position him for the senior leadership role he was seeking. In fact, because of poor formatting, inclusion of unnecessary sections and lack of content prioritization, it would not get the time of day in front of the recruiters who were pursuing him.

In his Professional Experience section, it was clear he had copied from job descriptions — something that would immediately disengage the reader. The Qualifications and Achievement section was lacking in content for someone with 14 years of experience.

hOW

First, Mitchell needed a resume that popped. The format and content were going to be vitally important in attracting and keeping the attention of readers given their limited time and the competitive nature of Mitchell’s field. Therefore, I designed a format that would serve as a great backdrop for him to tell the impressive story of his career.

Opening Mitchell’s resume with a robust Qualifications Summary was critical in positioning him for how he wanted to be seen. By featuring key accomplishments, core skills and excerpts from performance reviews, his new summary reflected his professional character and work ethic. When contrasted with the Objective Statement on his original resume, Mitchell’s new resume appears immediately more effective than his original version.

For the Professional Experience section, I took time to better explore Mitchell’s responsibilities and accomplishments, placing them in a bullet-point/paragraph style to better highlight where he had contributed value. This format allowed for better prioritization of experiences and was designed to draw the reader’s attention to the most important details on the resume.

Mitchell’s resume ended with his education and industry training. Mitchell originally placed education on page one, as he had recently obtained a degree, but because his education did not differentiate his candidacy, the more appropriate placement for it was at the end. Mitchell’s Samantha Nolan is a certified professional resume writer and owner of Ladybug Design. You can reach Samantha at 614-570-3442 or dearsam@ladybug-design.com. Visit ladybug-design.com for more information.