The Two Minute Resume and Interviewing Guide
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
Your job probably consists of solving hard problems or delivering projects or both.
So your resume should say what your company does and, if it is obvious (Central Bank and Trust, for example), it should also say the department where you work: Consumer? Treasurer’s Office? Capital Markets? This will give context to whatever it is that you do.
Pick the projects that best describe your mastery over the skills you want someone to buy from you; if it is not on your resume you will be deep into the interview before you get past this.
Explain it to them in detail using this format:
Name the problem to be solved (or the project to be completed)
Name your resources (time, people, technology, budget)
Tell them the outcome, if the outcome can be expressed as a metric: earned, saved, increased, decreased; then that is the first piece of information that should be seen regarding the project, and put it in bold. Saved $7,000,000, I promise, that will get read.
How Far Back Should My Resume Go?
Besides learning about the company and the industry, learn your resume. Write down step by step exactly how you went about meeting the challenge you were given.
This is not for your resume, this is for you . . . for your notes. Getting the details of a project too often turns into a semi-incoherent interrogation instead of the coherent and flowing conversation you are looking for.
Keep the answers short and ask how much technical detail they want. Stop at forty five seconds and ask if they would like more.
Ask if you can make a white- board presentation, only if it is appropriate and if you are really good at it. A mediocre whiteboard presentation is death.
Resumes That Work: 3 Steps to More Interviews
Managers hire people they think will make them look good. One of your jobs during an interview is to find out what will make them look good. You cannot actually ask that question but you can ask, “Assuming you hire me, at my annual review next year what will I have accomplished for you that will get me the best review you ever wrote?”
If you are going to be interviewed by a series of people or by two or three groups of two or three interviewers then ask to use the washroom after each interview. This will give you a chance to wash your face and rinse out your mind. It also gives you a chance to relieve yourself and re-visit how you answered certain questions so you can improve your performance. It may give you a chance to remember that the answer to the last question wasn’t right o target, so you can fix that immediately when you go into the next group.
Stupid Resume Mistakes: No Months
ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
People hire Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter to provide No BS Career Advice globally because he makes many things in peoples’ careers easier. Those
things can involve job search, hiring more effectively, managing and leading better, career transition, as well as advice about resolving workplace issues.
Schedule a discovery call at my website, www.TheBigGameHunter.us
He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with over 2600 episodes.
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