Top Resume Tips for Aspiring Leaders

Top Resume Tips for Aspiring Leaders Are you a senior-level professional or manager wanting to transition upward in your career? If so, you may believe that your dedication and proficiency will automatically shine through on your resume. However, many leadership professionals experience minimal results when they fail to adequately express their true strengths and core competencies. If you aspire to the corner office, moving from searching to successful requires using some key strategies to pique an employer’s interest. Consider these tips to present a confident image and look the part on your resume: 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 this information 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 themselvesâ€"and cut through any doubt about your abilities. As with any business communications, consider your presentation. If you want to portray a standout image, look beyond the strategies used by countless other job seekers. Case in point: millions have used a do-it-yourself style or worse yet, that Microsoft Word resume template, to create their resumes. 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 online at many websites, including An Expert Resume, 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 company’s 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. Ensure that this information takes center stage on your resume, rather that just listing mundane details and job descriptions. In summary, accessing today’s fast-track jobs requires connecting your performance and personal brand to bottom-line resultsâ€"thereby ensuring that your resume gets noticed.