A Quick Guide to Resume Optimization By: Yu-kai Chou
Under: Experienced Hire, Interview, Now What?, Resume, WorkplaceAfter editing over a hundred resumes, I realized that most people’s resume is only at around 10-15% capacity. I have seen people who have been working on their resumes for hours every week for 6 months, and it barely reaches 50% capacity. As a result, FD created a system and philosophy of Resume Optimization. The resume is very important because it is your ticket to be even considered by a company. It doesn’t matter how strong your skills are, if you cannot sell yourself through your “brochure,” you won’t get inquiries, and you will never get the job.
Building your Resume is a Craft
The Resume is a craft in which, given your GPA and experiences, how do you best express to recruiters that you can create unique value for the company and that you are a very likable person, all within one page. Everything you put in must create unique value. If a sentence does not create unique value, take it out. If a word does not create unique value, take it out.
Basic Principals
2 Things Recruiters Look For:
a) Can you create unique value for the company?
Your resume must show that you can create unique value for the company. Why should they hire you, as opposed to the numerous other applicants? What value do you bring to the company that no one else can?
b) Are you likable?
Even if you were the most brilliant person in the world and the most qualified person for the job, if whenever people see your face they get angry, you won’t get a job offer. Some individuals can create a lot of value for a company him/herself, but lowers the ability to create value for everyone else, and companies don’t want these people. Especially at entry levels, companies hire for culture and attitude more than brilliance.
ALWAYS REMEMBER THESE 2 THINGS DURING INFO SESSIONS, INTERVIEWS, AND EVERYTHING ELSE DURING RECRUITING.
Valuable Real Estate: You are one page
Resumes must be succinct and effective, and should be limited to one page. Besides good networking(which you should do), you are just a name to the recruiters, and you have one page to communicate to them that you have what they want. Every section, sentence, and even every word must create unique value. If it does not, you should remove it.
20 Seconds to Establish a Connection
Depending on company and industry, a recruiter will only spend about 15-25 seconds to view your resume, if not less. It is important to make it “feel” good and impressive. As a result, you want to put your most impressive achievements first instead of trying to explain the mundane tasks you did for each experience.
Building an Image Through the Resume
Here’s what many recruiters look for in the resume:
The applicant
(1) can lead
(2) can work in a team
(3) can think analytically
(4) can come up with innovation solutions
(5) is organized
(6) can communicate with clients
(7) is good at some technical skill
(8) assists others
(9) possesses strong academic abilities
(10) tries to create the most value
(11) knows how to do research.
Apply Diminishing Marginal Image and try to communicate as many of these through bullet points.
Diminishing Marginal Image
If all your experiences in your resume are about being a great leader, the point that says you are a great leader will mean very little. It will not create new value in the recruiter’s mind compared to the first. Rather, you should put that you did other things, like managed finances, even though you were the leader in that experience too.
The Ins and Outs within an Experience
When you have an experience, companies look for your “Ins” and “Outs.” Ins are the lessons and functions you have learned from the job, whereas Outs are the unique differences you made for that company. Ins are usually summed up by your position title, so in your bullet-points it is more essential to put down your Outs. You are not trying to say, “I am impressive because I had these positions,” but rather “I am impressive because WHILE I had these positions, I did this this and that, which no one else who has the same position would have done.”
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