my personal formula for a winning resume _ laszlo bock _ linkedin

10/13/2014 My Personal Formula for a Winning Resume | Laszlo Bock | LinkedIn

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Reinhold Niebuhr wrote a prayer that many of you will recognize. It goes roughly: Grantme the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things Ican, and the wisdom to know the difference.

What does this have to do with looking for a job?

Everything.

There's a ton of unfairness in the job search process. As a candidate, you cant controlwhether a company requires a work visa, whether some executives kid has an inside trackon your dream job, or whether your interviewer has some private or unconscious bias thatwill hurt your chances. Ill write about some of these -- especially unconscious bias -- in thefuture.

For now, I want to focus on the most controllable element of a job search: your resume.The sole purpose of a resume is to get you past that first screen and into an interview. Inmy last post, The Biggest Mistakes I See on Resumes, and How to Correct Them, Icovered the all-too-common mistakes that knock applicants out of consideration at manycompanies. Lets assume youve read that post and scrubbed your resume so its concise,error-free, legible, and honest. Youre already better off than at least half the applicants outthere.

But how do you make your accomplishments stand out? Theres a simple formula. Everyone of your accomplishments should be presented as:

Accomplished [X] as measured by [Y] by doing [Z]

In other words, start with an active verb, numerically measure what you accomplished,provide a baseline for comparison, and detail what you did to achieve your goal. Considerthe following two descriptions of the same work, and ask yourself which would look betteron a resume:

1. Studied financial performance of companies and made investment

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2. Improved portfolio performance by 12% ($1.2M) over one year by refining cost ofcapital calculations for information-poor markets and re-weighting portfolio based onresulting valuations

The addition of the 12% improvement makes the statement more powerful. Adding($1.2M) anticipates the reviewers question about whether 12% is a big deal or not. If youimproved investment results by 12%, but that meant going from $100 to $112, thats nottoo impressive. But adding $1.2M to the starting portfolio value of $10 million is huge.Explaining how you did it adds credibility and gives insight into your strengths.

Several examples inspired by actual resumes will show you what I mean. The first bullet istypical: not bad, but certain not to stand out. The second is a much better version of asimilar accomplishment from a different resume. My own suggestions are in italics.

College student who is a leader in her sorority

Managed sorority budget

Managed $31,000 Spring 2014 budget and invested idle funds in appropriate high-yielding capital notes

Managed $31,000 Spring 2014 budget and invested $10,000 in idle funds inappropriate high-yielding capital notes returning 5% over the year

College student participating in a leadership program

Member of Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT)

Selected as one of 230 for this 18-month professional development program forhigh-achieving diverse talent

Selected as one of 230 participants nationwide for this 18-month professionaldevelopment program for high-achieving diverse talent based on leadershippotential, ability to contribute to this MLT cohort, and academic success

Finance or consulting professional

Responsible for negotiating service contracts with XYZ

Negotiated 30% ($500k) reduction in costs with XYZ to perform post-deliverysupport

Negotiated 30% ($500k) reduction in costs with XYZ to perform post-deliverysupport by designing and using results from an online auction of multiple vendors

Sales support associate

Achieved annual business plan commitments for volumes, model mix, wholesalerevenue, selling expenses and brand

As a team member, contributed to 21% increase in advertiser spend by achieving158% of target number of customer contacts (80 contacts per week) and 192% oftarget interaction depth (20 minutes per customer)

Candidate with skill-based resume

Skills: Excellent customer service skills. Friendly and positive attitude

Skills: Excellent customer service skills and positive attitude as demonstrated byreceiving employee of the month in four consecutive months in 2014

Logistics expert

Reduce cost of goods sold strategy: Five years of line and supply chainmanagement experience at XYZ distribution centers and managing outsourcedthird-party logistics providers

Achieved 30% logistics cost savings by reducing returns, use of overtime, excessand obsolete inventory and targeted outsourcing

Achieved 30% logistics cost savings ($900k) over five years by reducing returns(-8%), use of overtime (-7%), and excess and obsolete inventory (-5%), and throughtargeted outsourcing (-10%)

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Studied the branding and marketing strategies of XYZ. Analyzed the pricingstrategies of XYZ in comparison to competitors

Led cross-functional 10-member team to develop and implement global advertisingstrategy for $X million XYZ brand

Led cross-functional 10-member team to develop and implement global advertisingstrategy for $X million XYZ brand resulting in 25-point increase in brand recall, 12%improvement in net promoter score, and contributing to 18% year-over-year salesimprovement ($XM)

Veteran transitioning to the civilian sector

Worked as a trainer with deploying units to ready their medical personnel for combataction and trauma medicine

One of three officers selected to lead comprehensive redesign of the XYZ trainingprogram for X,000 Marines and sailors, increasing measured unit proficiency by20% [This one is great -- I wouldnt change a thing!]

You might feel like its hard to measure your work, but there is almost always somethingyou can point to that differentiates you from others. Back when I was a waiting tables at theOlive Garden, I would have written, Exhibited the spirit of Hospitaliano by achieving 120%of dessert sales targets (compared to an average of 98%) and averaging 26% in tips pernight.

Well, maybe I wouldnt have mentioned the Hospitaliano....

And even if your accomplishments dont seem that impressive to you, recruiters willnevertheless love the specificity. Served 85 customers per day with 100% accuracysounds good, even if the customers are people you rang up at a grocery store. Its evenmore impressive if you can add, compared to an average of 70 customers at 90%accuracy for my peers. Providing data helps. Making it meaningful with a comparisonhelps even more.

Niebuhr said to change the things you can control. I agree. You cant control the biasesand attention span of whomever reviews your resume. You do control whats on the pagein front of him or her. Use the formula accomplished [X] as measured by [Y] by doing [Z]and recruiters will take notice.

Photo: Danny Sullivan / Flickr

Featured on: Careers: Getting Started Careers: The Next Level Recruiting & Hiring

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Eugeny Brychkov, Ph.D.Creator of GR8BIT and provider of The Real Engineering ExperienceLaszlo, there're two issues here:-- non-disclosure and confidential information. Do you think people are allowed to post their companyfinancial performance data in their resumes?-- these types of statements will exaggerate information to the extent of lie. For your example about $1.2Mwriter should really know how much performance was improved, and have approval to publish thisinformation. It's not a secret that many companies are having problems with reporting so that you can not getrequired granularity of the information to show YOUR result.--- Quantitative results are usually achieved by the team, even if we are talking about sale account manager.As bigger results are, as bigger team was involved.I treat your advice to make resume reading for HR people as automated process as possible. Just parsebullet points, detect keywords, and make an automated decision.HR people _have to_ make an effort to hire great people. Great people are usually humble. They will, withvery high probability, not attribute success of the whole team to just themselves.Like(56) Reply(5) 13 days ago

Robert MoyArchitecture Student at the University of IllinoisWhile this is valuable advice, please be aware that it is difficult to squeeze long descriptions ofaccomplishments, experience and skills fit onto a single page for our resumes. For a collegestudent like myself, this wouldn't be a problem, but for more experienced individuals, it would benearly impossible to do that.Like(17) Reply(4) 14 days ago

robert carsiaPrincipal at RCI Partners LLC (international management consulting)Ah, in today's world resumes and HR are generally and specifically worthless. Gatekeepersmust 'go away'. It's who ya know.Like(18) Reply(1) 13 days ago

Tim HetzelSystems Engineer at Milwaukee Electric ToolHow would this apply to IT?Accomplished 100GB of data storage savings as measured by the operating system by deletingall of the users' files.Like(24) Reply(5) 12 days ago

Luca BertozziBusiness Intelligence Manager at AbtranI don't know if I have to laugh or weep. The concept that all accomplishments should bemeasurable in numbers is so ridiculous that really makes me laugh; on the other hand, thisshows once again that HR people too often stick to pre-cooked models, which makes mewanna cry.Like(19) Reply(3) 12 days ago

Irina Ghazazyan | MA, CHRP CandidateBusiness Development & Recruiting Lead at RAPID Staffing Solutions | Pharmaceutical& BiotechnologyI certainly agree that this resume format is better than a resume where mere job duties arelisted. Nonetheless, I don't think there is a 'winning formula' for a resume.Such resume formatwill work for managerial roles, or independent consultants, but not for specialist roles, oradministrative roles, etc. Also taking into consideration nowadays team-based work structurewe as recruiters/hiring managers should always have second thought as to the fact how muchof others' work might a person have ascribed to himself on 'accomplishment-based' type ofresumeLike(8) Reply(3) 13 days ago

Jacek MonikowskiMr. Bock. I would like to see your application you once sent Google :)Like(16) Reply(1) 12 days ago

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Marilyn EmanuelTalent Acquisition Strategist & Career CoachAs a staffing recruiter who sees many resumes per week, 98% of those received don't have a performance-based resume, but are written as a dull job description which is unacceptable in today's competitive hiringenvironment. This article is a very clear, concise, instructional, thought-provoking article and much needed!Like(9) Reply(2) 13 days ago

Ketcia ThachNumbers are nice to have. But can you evaluate Passion ? Love for you industry? The energyyou are willing to put in your job because you know you can do it ? your creativity ? Numberssay what you achieved , it does not tell how you approached the issues. And sometimes it isbetter to know how you did something rather than knowing what you achieved.Like(12) Reply(3) 12 days ago

Sam ShawkiChief Executive Officer at MagicCube, Inc.A great read. What I cannot understand though is why a person of my experience would get analmost yearly call from a Google recruiter where an important question is my college GPA and areminder that not getting an MBA will disqualify me from moving forward with Google :)Like(11) Reply(3) 13 days ago

Douglas De Avila, PMPChange Management Lead, Asset Data Lifecycle ProgramThere is so much hype about resume writting. There is no substitute to relationships, activenetworking, face to face meeting and informational interviews. It is not what you know but whoyou know.Like(13) Reply 12 days ago

Laura LingleMore learning. Less waste. (tm) Jaqueline of Many Trades (tm)I'm confused. That's two "articles" in a row about resumes, containing nothing new orenlightening. Shouldn't an "INfluencer" have some obligation to provide something novel?Like(11) Reply 13 days ago

Marion Martinelli, MHRODOD Practitioner, Organization EffectivenessBoring.....There are much more important things to focus on than how someone writes theirresume...unless you are hiring a resume writer. We do not expect HR to value what we bring tothe table anyway. Perhaps Laszio's time would be better spent improving recruitmentpractices...rather than giving resume advice.Like(7) Reply(1) 13 days ago

Hope BryantFreelance Artist and DesignerHere's the rub, what if you don't know your numbers, or the exact numbers? What if there isn't away to get them? Or what of you just do not know what you contribution totals were for a givenjob?Like(8) Reply(2) 12 days ago

Joseph PaschkeInteractive Art Director, Project Manager, Pixel Tamer and Typographer120% of dessert sales targets? You counted every desert served? The restaurant ownersshared with you the amount you needed to serve to hit/exceed the target? I find some of thisvery hard to believe.

A lot of resumes that are written this way make me question from where the figures weregenerated. Many of the figures might not be available to the person who has the job.

And given the fact that many people put false accomplishments on their resume in order to padit, my reaction would be skepticism.Like(10) Reply 12 days ago



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Dmitry ShpakDirector, Operations at CognellaI very much like the referenced article, but as regards to numbers, they just get overused somuch on resumes. Increased sales by 24.5% ... how can you prove or anyone can check ifthat's even close to what happened? Facts - yes; numbers pulled from thin air ... not soimpressive.Like(9) Reply 13 days ago

Daren HowardSr. Specialist, Network Support at AT&TOf course, the only issue I have with creating this type of resume is that you don't get many keywords or phrases in the resume. The issue with this is that many companies utilize these tonarrow down the resume's to decide which ones a human actually looks at. If you use allaccomplishments you may not have enough key words but if you use descriptions you may nothave a resume that reads well enough to show accomplishments. My biggest issue is finding agood common ground that will accomplish both without writing a book that the HR departmentwill simply throw away... That seems to really be where the challenge is...Like(6) Reply(3) 13 days ago

Kim MurrayI read a lot of these sorts of posts whereby one is to be mathematical when creating a CV. Iaccomplished THIS by doing THAT and adding THOSE. But what does one do when theirparticular employement is not measurable? I work in a creative field. One in which you cannotsay this product is better than that product - it is quite like music. You may like one song, I mayhate it. No one is right. No one is wrong. So while sales people, or accountants, orprogrammers may create a winning CV with your post, the rest of us cannot.Like(8) Reply(2) 12 days ago

Dan KorenTopLinked 4444 Software Defined Director of Software EngineeringThere seems to be an implicit assumption behind this article that allhiring managers read resumes in the same way as the author, or asthe Google HR machine (or should). In fact, many do not. I find the"state and quantify every detail" approach advocated by Laszlo tobe a complete turn-off. What I look for in a well written resume isthe ability to articulate the essential, rather than the eagerness toenumerate all the detail. One can learn a lot more about candidatesby drilling down from the high level to the detail in a live interview,than by reading cut and dried numbers from a sheet of paper. I amfar more interested in finding out how people connect, interpret andarticulate the events that shaped their career, than by numbers whosemeaning can only be understood in contexts one is not familiar with.Like(8) Reply(2) 8 days ago

Mark ParrishHealthcare, Project Management, and Technology professionalWhat good are numbers if they are not able to be checked? How will an resume reviewer knowthat something wasn't 3% when I state that it was 300%. No HR department or manager willvalidate this. Instead of concentrating on what you have done with fancy figures, focus on whatyou bring to the table.Like(8) Reply 13 days ago

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