Have you ever heard of the Proactive Department? I hadn’t. Its a great name, implies great service but what does that term tell me ? I have to imagine what it means, but then, why would I do that?
The client who’s resume proclaimed he worked for the Proactive department was looking just at the tree, when there is a forest out there. My professional opinion was, he needed a serious resume rewrite.
A resume is your marketing product. It is composed of facts and information that convey what you achieved given the job duties you were assigned. It shouldn’t use terms that ask the hiring manager to imagine what you might mean.
Who else, outside that company could know what the Proactive department did or achieved? The client actually was surprised when I asked what his department did. He’d worked at the company so long, he wasn’t aware that that was a company specific title. He assumed other companies used the same department name.
This is where seeing the forest comes in.
You want a job somewhere else, so it follows that you begin to expand your way of thinking, beyond your employer’s terminology and ways of doing things.
It means take a step back from what you do and where you work. See a bigger picture: realize others may not understand your company’s lingo.
You want to market your skills and talents. Think about common language, descriptive words that are more generic and easily understood. Understand that you need to explain to others the internal workings of your job and your company.
If you are coming up for air after years with the same company, how do you figure out what other companies want and how they describe their work? Read. Read alot. Read local newspapers; read online. Go to the bookstore or library and research your field or the field you’d like to enter. You’ll begin to have a broader picture and that translates into more applicable ways of referencing your skills and work experience.
If there is a company you’ve identified, research their inner workings, so that you can relate what you do and know to their way of doing things. Try to find others who work at that company through your network. Ask good questions so that you’ve got a way of merging your ideas with their way of doing things.
So if your resume uses terms that others won’t understand, let go of hugging just your tree, your job, your way of doing things. Start to identify a bigger broader picture of how to talk about your work.
Take a walk in the forest.
And here is a link that might inspire you to get that resume polished off. Entitled, They’re Hiring, this article in cnn money states there are a number of national companies with job openings.
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/fortune/0904/gallery.F500_hiring.fortune/index.html
