Résumé Information–Job Search Lessons Learned: 12 Key Take-Aways (05)

Résumés should be custom made for each role you are applying for and are supposed to be two pages or less with an appropriate amount of white space. Sometimes that is a pretty tall order. You need to have a reliable source of truth that is easily accessible. That is where the document entitled “Detailed Résumé and Supporting Information” comes in to save the day.

This document will be quite large since it will contain all of your career, volunteer, internship, and part-time job history. Along with all achievements, skills, education, references, supervisor information, addresses, phone numbers, and past salary information (never share that with recruiters or hiring managers). It can also contain common questions to ask interviewers and answers to common questions of interviewees.

I am currently going through and revamping mine, and it will be over 30 pages! So you know this will be a lot to take in, but if you trust me, I am sure it will be worth your time and effort.

I have all my past résumés stored in a folder and from that, I performed a ‘brain dump’ and created the Detailed Résumé. This has everything you would need to build out your [advertised] résumé and more. The flow of the document is structured basically the same as your résumé would be, but there is also going to be whole sections you leave off of your résumé. For example, I do not have volunteer or internships on my résumé, but I still want to keep track of that information. For easy navigation of this document, the following should be a Heading 1.

• Summary
• Skills and Strengths or Competencies
• Professional Experience
• Professional Certifications
• Education
• Volunteer
• Internships
• References
• Typical Interview Questions Asked
• Interview Questions To Ask

Within each applicable section of the detailed résumé, it is listed in reverse chronological order.

Summary

Within the Summary section, have every iteration of a past summary. This includes even slight verbiage utilized. This is especially helpful if you are open to multiple types of roles. For me, as an example, I am open to Senior Project Management, Management Consultant, and IT Service Management. Therefore, I should have three distinct summaries. Within those distinct ones, there might be slight variations of the same based on the job description. Because of all the changes that can happen, you want to keep track of it in one place. I have even found that after so many iterations, I might combine them to make a more concise, even generic, phrase.

Skills and Strengths or Competencies

List out all of your Skills/Competencies, and depending on the job you will take a number of these out for your résumé. I would also advise having a start year and end year or ‘present’. Dice.com is now asking for this for your skills, and I have seen a number of company application websites asking this as well.

According to BusinessDictionary.com, a skill is an ability and capacity acquired through deliberate, systematic, and sustained effort to smoothly and adaptively carryout complex activities or job functions involving ideas (cognitive skills), things (technical skills), and/or people (interpersonal skills).

My suggestion would be to have three main bullet points and then the corresponding skills as sub-bullet points.

• Cognitive
• Technical
• Interpersonal

Professional Experience

In your advertised résumé, your Professional Experience goes back about 10 years. In the detailed version, you will not only list everything, but it will also be a lot more detailed than in your advertised résumé. I gave each role/job title, even if it was multiple within the same company, its own section. To make it easier to navigate, the role name is formatted as Heading 2. In addition to the role name, you would have the company, city and state, start date, and finish date. Under that, there were seven (7) more headings using Heading 3.

• Achievements or Highlights of Accomplishments.
  • Achievement, accomplishment, award, recognition, and so forth. If you have them, have values listed, such as dollars saved, the percentage of time wasted reduced, revenue increased, and so forth. This section should really highlight how you made a positive impact and foreshadow what you could do for a potential employer.
• Role.
  • Each task is its own bullet point. If I had reworded that task at all, the most recent one used would be in indention position one and any previous ones utilized were in indention position two. Recently, I started beginning the bullet point with a skill or category, such as ‘Project Management – ‘, ‘ Management and Leadership – ‘, ‘Business Relationship Management – ‘, and the like. Then list out the role that belongs to that category.
• Job Description.
  • Even though we all know the company job description rarely matches the actual role, it is good to have that handy.
• Projects.
  • Stats such as timeline, budget, resource allocation, and the like. Scope, results, and other applicable information.
• Supervisor Information.
  • Name, job title, full company address, main contact number, email. If you can use this individual as a reference, even better.
• Salary Information.
  • Base, bonus, commission, 401k match, HSA company contribution, cell phone allowance, and the like; then total it. This is private information. If the application requires it, try ‘n/a’ or ‘negotiable’. Never lie, but in my experience, this skews the offer as opposed to offering a fair market value for your worth and the role, it might be just enough of a raise to entice you.
• Reason for Leaving.

Professional Certifications

On your advertised résumé, you might not have ever certification listed out and you more than likely won’t have the below info on that either. In my case, since I have a PMP, I do not list Project +. Since I have ITIL Expert, I do not have the Foundation and Intermediate certifications that led to that.

For each certificate, format it as a Heading 2 and you can have the following listed.

• Certification
• Examination Institute
• License number
• Issued Date
• Expiration Date (if applicable)
• Score (if applicable)
• URL for the certificate (if applicable)

Education

For each degree, format it as a Heading 2 and you can have the following listed. Of course, your résumé won’t have all this information on it.

• Degree
• Major
• Minor
• Institution
• City, State
• Start Date
• Completed Date or Projected Completion Date
• GPA
• Credit Hours
• Societies
• Awards / Achievements
• Key Subject Areas

Volunteer

Similar to professional experience, you would list the role name, organization, city and state, start date, and finish date. Then, bullet point the tasks you do or did along with any goals or mission. Depending on the role you are going for, this will more than likely be left off of your résumé.

Internships

Similar to professional experience, you would list the role name, organization, city and state, start date, and finish date. Then, bullet point the tasks you do or did. Unless you are a recent graduate, this will more than likely be left off of your résumé.

References

You should have a minimum have three (3) references. I typically ask my references if I could use them generally as I start to search for a job. If they are asked for specifically, since we don’t list them on the résumé, I then also email them with the heads up and the job description.

• Name
• Phone number
• Email address
• Relationship (Friend, colleague, supervisor, client)
• Time known
• At which company
• Title at the time
• Company now
• Title now

Typical Interview Questions Asked

I’ve searched the internet for the most common and put together a list from that and my personal experience from both sides of the table. I bullet point these out, and then with sub-bullets have answers and/or examples. Now, I don’t pull this sheet out during the interview, but I do tap into my student skills and study prior to the interview.

• What do you know about the company?
• Why do you want this job?
• Why should we hire you?
• What is your greatest professional achievement? (This is a good time to pull out STAR.)
• Tell me about a challenge or conflict you’ve faced at work, and how you dealt with it. (Also a good time to pull out STAR.)
• Where do you see yourself in five years?
• Why are you leaving your current job?
• What’s your management style?
• How would your boss and co-workers describe you?
• How do you deal with pressure or stressful situations?

What questions have come up for you in the past that I missed?

Interview Questions To Ask

Same research as before, these are the questions you can ask.

If it is the first interview, in my experience it is typically a 30-minute phone screening with a member of the Recruiting or HR team. Therefore, you will need to have your questions for that audience and know you only get about three.

• How would you describe the company culture?
• What makes you excited about coming in on Monday morning?
• Is this a new position or is this a backfill?
• Can you tell me about the teams/clients I would be working with?
• What are the current goals that the company is focused on, and how does this teamwork to support hitting those goals?
• Do you have any hesitations about my qualifications?
• Is there anything else I can provide you with that would be helpful?
• What is the next step in the process?

After the first interview, you should be speaking with team members and management. Depending on how that company does the hiring process, this could be 30 to 60 minutes on the phone or face to face. So prepare accordingly.

• What is the most important thing I could accomplish in the first 90 days?
• If you could offer one piece of advice on how to be successful in this position, what would it be?
• What are some challenges that will face the person filling this position?
• How is success measured? / performance evaluated?
• What is a typical (day, week) for a person in this job?
• When you’ve hired your new arrival and they’ve been in the job six months, what will have gotten better for the department and/or for you personally because of the impact of your new hire?
• What brought you here?
• Beyond the job description, what opportunities are there for this position to contribute to the company?
• What have you enjoyed most about working here?
• What would you say is the biggest obstacle in your way right now?

Are there any questions that you typically ask that I missed?

I know that is a lot to take in. As a Project Manager, I am all about planning more ahead of time to save on the execution side. It might also be that former Boy Scout in me about always being prepared. This has helped me out in so many ways from organization to focus. I am hopeful you will find some use out of this idea, too.

So here is a question to the community:

“If you have done something similar in the past, has it helped you?

If not, do you think something like this will help you?”

Thank you for your time,