In addition to the skills, abilities and experience that you offer potential employers, your resume carries critical subtext that HR professionals will evaluate when deciding whether to let your resume continue through the hiring process. Subtext is the underlying message that you’re trying to convey. Because your resume will be very similar to many other candidates in terms of skills and experience, it’s vital that you answer these five questions:
Can you communicate effectively?
All jobs, from pest exterminators to Fortune 100 CEOs, require the ability to communicate effectively. A quick glance at a well crafted resume will reassure hiring managers that your communication skills are worthy. Conversely, a typo or ill-formed narrative creates a first impression that is often impossible to overcome.
Do you work well in team environments?
Can you work well within a larger team? Unless you’re in an outside sales role, you’ll likely rely on co-workers (and vice versa) to complete your work. A resume that highlights examples of this collaboration puts your future employer at ease that you’ll fit in.
Are you adaptable?
With corporate employers relying more than ever on a smaller amount of employees to do more work, employees with broad skill sets are far more valuable. While your resume should remained focused on your core talents/pursuits, sprinkling in other workplace skills and successes you’ve had will definitely elevate your candidacy.
Do you learn new and increasingly specialized skills?
Hopefully, your resume demonstrates a progressive history of responsibility and skills. That is to say that each job is a little more important and demands more skills than the one preceding it. As the manufacturing base shrinks, the knowledge, engineering, healthcare and service sectors are going to drive growth – all of which require the ability to rapidly learn and master new skills.
Do you “own” your role and require less supervision?
Valued employees all exhibit one key characteristic: a strong work ethic with a keen sense of personal responsibility. Your resume should tell that story, through accomplishments and duties that indicate that you require limited supervision in effectively carrying out your job.
If your resume can answer “yes” to most or all of these questions, the chances that it leads to an interview are greatly improved. If it doesn’t, well then, you’ve got some changes to make!
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