Dr. John Sullivan, who has “worked with major corporations on the design of their hiring and resume screening processes” observes that “nearly all applicants fail to adequately highlight themselves in a way that increases their chances of being selected for further evaluation. Thus, he came up with “30 ‘Power Factors’ to Bolster the Content of Your Resume.” Here are the next six; the rest will appear in later entries:
- Problem identification — if you can identify problems before they become severe, you are quite valuable. List situations where you identified a problem that no one else saw and show them that you thrive in situations where there are lots of problems. (Example: Worked with individuals from four departments to uncover unique situations that led to key customer complaints resulting in significant changes to long-standing customer evaluation and support processes).
- People management responsibilities — in addition to leadership skills, general people skills are often a differentiator for technical jobs. It is important to highlight any time you helped with training, hiring, supervision, coaching or employee development, even if done rarely and informally. (Example: Assumed responsibility for training team of seven new hires during department leads leave of absence).
- Financial responsibilities — demonstrating that you were given financial responsibility shows that management trusted you. List any time, even if it was brief, where you managed a budget, were responsible for cash or other major spending decisions (Example: Charged with evaluation and selection of $3.2M worth of new equipment for the ____ project.)
- Selling capabilities — no matter what your job, the ability to sell ideas and products internally or externally is extremely valuable. Demonstrate that you effectively sold executives, vendors, or owners on new ideas. (Example: Developed arguments for a maintenance proposal that led our vendor to alter the service level agreement and reduce annual maintenance fees by 27%.)
- Customer service — almost all jobs require some customer service knowledge and skill. Even if you were not in a customer service role, demonstrate that you have relevant customer service skills that apply across many situations. (Example: Worked with several colleagues following assignment of a new manager with a very abrupt management style to our division to restore positive working atmosphere and resolve assumptions limiting productivity.)
- Wrote/Presented — anyone that can write reports or who can make important presentations is extremely valuable. Include any time that you were asked to write something or to make a presentation. If the audience included important people or was large, say so. (Example: Selected by my team to develop and present key revisions and changes to product implementation methodologies before 4,000 key customers at our global user conference.)
