The Simplest Résumé Hack
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter offers simple advice for writing a great resume using this hack.
From Paycheck to Purpose
When most people write a resume, then write his master resume and they prune out everything that is not going to be relevant and then mail out the same resume to every job that they apply to. Like the broken watch that is right twice a day, it works sometimes but no where near often enough.
Here’s the solution to the issue. It requires that you take the time to think of everything that you’ve done professionally.
What I want to do is to write this 1 grand master resume. It has everything in it that you have done – – role, responsibilities, accomplishments, if you are in IT, the technology that you have utilized. It also includes the revenue that is been generated by your work and/or the resume saved by your work.
Once you have that master, and it could be 10 pages long for all I care, but it’s most important for you to start with your most recent job, work backward, and then create this master document.
Then, as you apply to things, as you submit your resume to friends who tell you about opportunities, I want you to prune out irrelevant things and call attention to the major things that you’ve done that relate to that specific job.
When You’ve Been Made Redundant, Fired, Laid Off, RIF’d
Some of you are going to say, “Gee! That sounds like a lot of work!” In fact, it isn’t a lot of work. It is a lot more work to edit all the time than if you have a master document for which you are pruning each time into something useful for an employer.
After all, when you buy a personal computer (if you still buy them), it was a big deal when plug and play technology was introduced. What’s that? All the devices could be plugged into any computer and you could create something customized based upon the need of the individual buyer.
If the manufacturer was deciding everything that you needed, you would wind up with a lot of unnecessary things and a lot of unnecessary cost in your device. By creating plug and play, you got a customized system based upon your unique needs.
The same is true with a resume. You need to, deliver a customized product for every single job that you apply to. If you think that’s a lot of work. Let me ask you a question. Is a lot of work from your vantage point. To do this and “risk” getting a $15,000 or $20,000 raise or $25,000 or, for you veteran people, $50,000 or $75,000 increase? I don’t think so. When all is said and done, it is not a big deal.
Write the master. Create this enormous document. Call attention to every little bit of substance that you have done. Then, each time that you are submitting your resume, take the relevant parts of it per employer, pull it into a separate resume and submitted to that firm. That’s what you do. That’s the simplest hack I can give you for resume writing because what you are doing up until this point isn’t working, is it?
Try my way. It does work.
Transitioning to Another Industry or Field
ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
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