Targeting Your Résumé

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

 

In this video, Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter explains the importance of targeting your résumé when you submit it to an employer.

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I’m Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter. I’m referred to as The Big Game Hunter because I’ve been hunting down leaders and staff organizations for more than 40 years. Now, I want to give you some advice about your resume and I want to be clear.

I’m not talking about the generic resume that you put up on a job board for people to find you with. That resume should be as large and broad and as inclusive as possible, particularly with regard to the last 10 years of your career or the most recent experience that you have. Why? Because it’s likely that you’re going to be hired based upon your last two positions.

I want to be clear. When I use last two positions, I’m not talking about consulting assignments which could run three to six months. Think in terms of four or five years.

So, in that resume, it has to be full and encompassing, particularly with regard to the last decade and particularly with regard to the last five years. However, with the resume that you’re submitting to an employer directly, you can’t send that resume. Why? Because it carries a lot of extraneous things that this employer doesn’t care about.

You remember the 80-20 rule? You know, you make 80 percent of your sales with 20 percent of your clients. So, what you want to do with your resume is focus it in on the elements of your experience that fit what this firm is looking for. Now, if you’re applying for a job based upon an online listing, you’ve got the roadmap there with the ad.

If you have a referral to someone who’s hiring and someone has told you about this position, well, they know about the job and you tailor your resume to what’s important to that firm and minimize . . . I didn’t say eliminate . . . minimize the other stuff. Why? Because they don’t care. What they care about is what they’re trying to find in the way of an employee.

Remember, when you meet with them, they don’t want to talk with you about what you’ve done. They want to talk with you what you’ve done and achieved that matters to their needs. And if you start by focusing your resume on that, I can assure you, you’re going to get more interviews.

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