It’s natural to stumble through the beginning steps of developing your new résumé as you hash out the specifics of your job target, the type of job to which you’re best suited, what you want and what you don’t want, which specific industries or locations. An astute professional résumé writer will ask you some pointed questions at the start of the process, and it’s very common for clients to get stumped, stymied, or tongue-tied. That’s okay. It’s part of the process! We’ve seen it a hundred times before.
As the process progresses and you refine your job search target and list of target companies or markets, you will begin to develop a sense of control and order of your job search. If conducted thoroughly and effectively, the process of developing a new résumé usually has several positive side effects:
1. You fine-tune your career action plan for a targeted job search.
2. Your writer will most likely ask you to frame information into a series of C.A.R. stories (Challenge, Action, and Result) (JobSeekers How to Tell Stories to Stand Out) that highlight your accomplishments and strengths such as leadership, teambuilding, corporate strategies, or organizational development. This format is extremely helpful to your writer when developing résumé content, and for you when developing answers to commonly asked interview questions.
3. Once you have developed these C.A.R. stories, you will have well-developed accomplishment-based statements in your pocket for possible connections or opportunities and to present yourself as a solution to a problem.
So while your professional résumé writer may give you quite a bit of homework up front, and you may not sound like the smoothest or most pulled-together professional in some of your early conversations with him/her, it is understandable and quite common. You will be pleased at how the final results pull together and how prepared you’ll be to dive in to your job search!
Be ready for the onslaught of job opportunities that are forecasted for the first part of 2012. December is the perfect month to review your résumé and consider an update. Want to get started today? We’re here to help.
Great post Laurie!
Sometimes I compare the “homework” to the regular workouts required to get in shape.
As a career coach, we can help our clients get to their goals as quickly and effectively as possible with targeted work just like this.
I appreciate the share and look forward to learning more from you!
Sincerely,
Bryan
Thanks, Bryan! Glad to know you enjoyed it — and I like your comparison to working out. So true!