Dear Resume Writer,

Your resume should not be a carbon copy of your job description.

Most people simply find the job description that attracted them to the job they’re transitioning from (and usually hate), cut, copy, and paste it to their resume and think they are done. WRONG! That’s the surefire way of attracting more of your did instead of more of what you want to do in the future. Most people’s bullet-points kill them.

BULLET-POINTS THAT KILL

• Lead the sales team for our leading product and managed a team of 15 people
• Completed weekly product reports to evaluate performance and progress
• Supervised and trained 40 new staff members for the sales division
• Led weekly staff meetings focused on employee development

The #1 thing you want to communicate is that you CREATE VALUE.

A resume speaks to the patterns of behavior you will resume at your new jobs and the #1 thing to communicate is that you CREATE VALUE wherever you go. If you’ve worked at a place for more than a year and can’t speak to how you created change in that organization, then I wouldn’t hire you. The sad thing is that people do great things in their organizations, but for some reason they don’t effectively communicate it on their resumes. Wherever your next job is—whether it’s in the same industry or especially if it’s in a new one—you need poignant points that communicate the value you created while you were there.

I call this the Point A to B (Point A2B) resume. The basic premise is, how did you move your last organization and/or yourself from Point A (where it was when you got there) to Point B (where it is when you leave). That’s how value is created. You can read more on value creation in my post on increasing your personal velocity here. The bullets for the same resume as above using the Point A to B resume model would look as follows:

POIGNANT POINTS

• Built a sales team of 5 to 15 and increased the market share of our leading product by 10%
• Established an online accountability process to evaluate weekly progress that didn’t exist before
• Created a sales training curriculum that increased retention rates and first year sales of 40 new employees

Bullet #1: Point A = team of 5 » Point B = team of 15
Bullet #1: Point A = market share of N% » Point B = market share of N+10%
Bullet #2: Point A = no accountability process » Point B = online accountability process
Bullet #3: Point A = N% retention rate » Point B = > N% retention rates
Bullet #3: Point A = $N first year sales » Point B = > $N first year sales

Conclusion

The best source of content for your resume is probably in your quarterly or yearly evaluations from your boss—not your job description. A lot of times it just means thinking deeper about what your did and rephrasing what you already have. If you didn’t create any value at your last organization, then I don’t know what to tell you. Why would a potential employer want someone who didn’t create any value at their last job? I guarantee that the Point A to Point B resume will be more effective at getting you the job you desire than the traditional job description resume.

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