The 3 Things Your Resume is Missing

If you’re an experienced professional, chances are you’ve got the basics covered in your resume: Quantifiable results. Check. Page length limited to two pages. Check. Keywords from the job posting included in resume. Check.

BUT often times, experienced professionals forget to provide important details on their resume that help a recruiter or hiring manager see how their experience is relevant to the job they applied to. This is even more important when changing careers or industries as one-third of Americans have considered doing since the start of the pandemic. You very well may find yourself applying to jobs where the recruiter or hiring manager reviewing your resume isn’t familiar with the names of your current or previous employers and where they stand within their industry.

You wrote six new standard operating procedures (SOPs) that resulted in a reduction of direct mail production times of 10% per campaign. You oversaw three staff to deliver on $6.5M in new business last year. Incredible. Amazing. But, wait. What does your company do? And is $6.5M a lot of business in your industry? Maybe, but if you’re a production manager working in direct mail advertising applying to production manager jobs in the publishing sector, for example, the publisher recruiter may have no clue or zero experience in the advertising industry, especially if they never heard of your company, or don’t know anything about optimal production times for direct mail campaigns.

I recruit senior professionals and below are the three things that are often missing from their resume. Not including this key information forces the recruiter to do further research on the candidate to see if they are qualified, or worse, a recruiter will skip over their resume and application entirely.

With the average hiring manager spending no more than six or seven seconds reviewing a resume, you need to include this background information to make it worth their time to keep reading and considering your application.

These are easy and quick fixes, so there’s no need for you to spend more than 15 minutes making these updates.

Industry Status or Placement

Where does your employer fall in the industry? Are they the biggest or one of the biggest? Are they small but one of the fastest growing in your industry? Are they “the only” one providing that niche product or service in your sector? If so, state this in the first bullet point or one of the first bullet points so the recruiter or hiring manager has more information on your employer without having to do further research. Here’s an example for a Brand Manager:

•  BEFORE: As Brand Manager, led product launch for two new meal-kits resulting in a 15% increase in FY21 sales.

• REVISED: As Brand Manager for fastest-growing vegetarian meal-kit company in the U.S., led product launch for two new meal-kits resulting in a 15% increase in FY21 sales. 

Including “fastest growing vegetarian meal-kit company in the U.S.” provides additional information on the company and where it stands in the industry. This is especially helpful when applying to jobs outside of your industry.

Context

What was your company going through during your time there? Was your company going through massive growth in funding or staffing, a merger or acquisition, layoffs? You may already have these in your resume if you spearheaded initiatives related to these changes, but if your role wasn’t directly involved in these changes, then you may think they aren’t necessary to include. WRONG! Employers want to know that you have experience working in different company growth phases or have worked in a variety of challenging environments to gain a clear picture of your experience. Here’s an example:

• BEFORE: Senior Software Engineer for recruiting software company that grew 20% in FY22.

• REVISED: Senior Software Engineer for fast-growing recruiting software company that grew 20% and received series C funding in FY22.

The “series C funding” text is important in this example, so that companies know you have experience working with a company in a more advanced scaling stage and may want to consider software engineers that have worked for start-up companies at this growth stage rather than series A or B funding or those with large publicly-traded companies.

Another context example related to results for a manufacturing company:

• BEFORE: Developed SOPs that reduced manufacturing time for semiconductor chip from 4 months to 3.75 months resulting in increased production of 12% in FY21.

• REVISED: Developed SOPs that reduced manufacturing time for semiconductor chip from 4 months to 3.75 months (industry average is 4.25 months) resulting in increased production of 12% in FY21.

If you’re applying to a manufacturing job that doesn’t work with chips then the reduction in production time may not be relevant to the recruiter or hiring manager reviewing your resume. Spell it out as plainly as possible why that is such a significant achievement for your industry or role.

Connect Individual Performance to Overall Company Performance

How do your individual results contribute to the performance or results of your department/division/company? This one may be not as obvious for individual contributors whose roles are not directly tied to the financial targets of a company, but it is important for you to demonstrate you know how your role contributes to the overall performance of your company. Here’s an example with an individual contributor working in IT:

• BEFORE: Led IT training for ~200 employees across various departments (HR, finance, accounting, business investment, and program delivery) for state tourism board.

• REVISED: Led IT training for all new employees (in-office and remote) for third largest tourism board in the U.S. that doubled in size over a three-year period (from 200 to 400 employees) and generated a 10% increase in tourism dollars from FY18 to FY19.

This revised text demonstrates the individual worked for a fast-growing organization and has an understanding of the importance of onboarding new staff quickly. The faster new staff are trained-up on IT functions, the faster they become productive in their new role and the greater the impact on overall company performance.

Now get to revising your resume and landing more interviews!