February /March 2004

Volume 44, Number 4

November chapter meeting review: 21st Century professional resume workout

by Ron Arner

The job market is tight—there's no doubt about that. But, squeezing into a new position can be a lot easier if you have a top-notch resume. Linda Brown, a Team Lead Consultant for Drake, Beam, and Morin, shared her insight on "How to Write a Resume that Will Get Results" to a very well-attended November Chapter Meeting at StorageTek in Louisville.

Ms. Brown opened by telling about her own varied and impressive work background. She did this to help illustrate her first major point, which was: "Your previous accomplishments are what get you hired." Potential employers live by the creed that time is money, and they will look at your previous achievements to see how you can save money, make money, save time, and develop people.

To show potential employers what your previous achievements are, you need to develop PARS statements. The P in PARS stands for the problem(s) you faced. The A stands for the action(s) you took to solve the problem(s). The R stands for the results of your action(s). All these things add up to make the S, or statement about your achievements that you will use in your resume.

Because PARS statements are the attention-grabbers of your resume, Ms. Brown went on to share the best advice she gives to all the jobseekers she meets: "Write down your accomplishments as they are completed, or else you will forget them." In addition, Linda pointed out that when you are developing your PARS statements, you should keep the following points in mind:

• Start with a past-tense action verb (but not the verb "worked"), even if you're talking about your current job
• Describe the action(s) you took in succinct terms to avoid verbal vomit
• State the results in quantifiable terms
• Do not exceed three lines in length

Here is a brief outline of the example resume layout Ms. Brown handed out at the meeting:

In the outline above, the summary should be written in such a way that it targets the work you want to do. Remember that your resume will only get 8-12 seconds worth of a recruiter's time, (if that, as it will very likely only be scanned), so your keywords and your summary are the most important things to concentrate on.

One very humbling statistic that Ms. Brown shared is that job sites like Monster.com are getting 8.4 million hits a day in our present economy. That means that employers who have jobs posted on Monster can get as many as 250 resumes per hour in response to an ad. With that kind of competition, an effective resume is the only way to get you in front of the interviewer!

Here are some more tips from Ms. Brown's handout:

Ms. Brown's final piece of advice should not be something new to technical communicators: Proofread, proofread, and proofread! With the competition that you will face when trying to land a new job or contract, remember Ms. Brown's advice and use it to create a cutting-edge resume that will get you the opportunity to discuss the position face-to-face. After that, it's up to you!