I Showed Up vs. I Left a Wake

Dear friends,

I have been reviewing resumes like crazy lately. Evidently a lot of
people have "Get a new resume" on their 2009 To-Do list.

Here's one item that jumps out at me. A huge amount of resume 'real
estate' in most of the resumes I see is spent describing what the
resume's owner did each day on each of his or her jobs.

Here's an example:

WISE POTATO CHIPS
Customer Service Manager 2001 - 2004

Led a department of six customer service reps, reporting to the
Director of Operations. Hired, trained and managed staff to handle
incoming calls. Created reports detailing calls received and
answered, hold times and problem resolution. Represented the
department at management meetings.

-- This kind of stuff, I call "I Showed Up" information. It
says, "Believe it or not, after I got the job, I did all the stuff
that the job required." This is a waste of resume space. We already
know what a Customer Service Manager is expected to do. We could
guess that you hired and trained staff and created reports.

A better use of your precious resume real estate is to invest it in
the I Left a Wake category. While you were working at that job, what
did you make better? What did you add to the mix, what big problems
did you solve, how did you leave the place more functional than it
was when you got there? Here's the Customer Service section rewritten
in I Left a Wake form:

WISE POTATO CHIPS
Customer Service Manager 2001 - 2004

When I arrived, our six-person Customer Service department had 14-
minute average wait times and a 68% customer-sat rating. Via regular
group discussion, a peer mentoring program launch and the use of
group incentives, we reached two-minute hold times and 91% customer-
sat levels in one year.


Both approaches use the same number of words. The I Left a Wake
approach is always stronger! Is your resume a litany of what you did
at nine o'clock and ten o'clock and two-thirty in the afternoon? If
so, you want to shift it to show the reader how you left your mark.

Cheers! Liz