Do you need an executive resume if you expect to change jobs? You can be sure you do, because you can't do business without it. You can't convince individuals that they need you and stand to gain if they hire you, and should, therefore, ask you to come see them.
A few people don't need a resume to get a job, but most do. If you are entering your family's business or your Uncle Charlie sets you up with his long-time friend, the president of XYZ Corporation, or if you are now the president/CEO of a Fortune 500 company, you may or may not need one. But about 99 percent of us do need resumes in our job searches, and good ones if we are to get the job we want.
Who else needs a superior resume as besides business executives? Professionals do. From the Big Eight to the smallest of accounting firms, a resume is a foregone requirement for the jobseeker. Do lawyers need resume? Of course they do. So do college presidents, school district superintendents, high school and grade school principals, and teachers of any grade level. Engineers need resume. So do doctors, architects, and entertainers. In differing ways, each of these individuals is an executive, either working for someone else or self-employed. Resumes are their word-pictures of themselves.
Who wants a fine, effective resume? Put yourself in the place of an individual in one of the following three groups and decide if a resume would help you do your part in the employment procedure.
Potential Employers: Business, industry, organizations, the professions, government, and any other classification of employment you can think of demand a resume.
Executive Search Consultants/Recruiters: These firms will not and cannot work on a search assignment without this tool. There is no way they can consider you. the job-seeker, unless they have an accurate, concise summary of who you are, what you are all about, what your results have been for other employers, and what you want to do for your next employer.
Your Contacts: We all tend to assume that our friends and acquaintances know us well. They may know us, but often only within the context of our relationship. Does your tennis partner, professional association committee member, church-member friend, dentist, or civic-leader acquaintance know the details of what you do in your job and what you have achieved? They need to know, and in printed form for reference.
Your resume forms the basis of what you communicate to others in cover letters, in interviews, and in all other conversations you have about yourself in your job search. Your resume speaks for you when you aren't present.
The executive resume is useful not only in getting you interviews. Resume preparation forces you to take a good look at yourself. This sometimes startling self-knowledge can aid you in making career decisions and in getting a job.
Your resume is a direct on-paper communication to your interviewer, your boss-to-be, and others who may get to vote on hiring you.
THE FINEST POSSIBLE RESUME
Your executive resume is an asset. Well written, it is a tremendous asset. Badly written, it is a liability. And in that case, the negative impression becomes immediately associated with you. So write the best resume possible!
A superior resume stacks the odds in your favor. All those other resumes and letters being considered by the employer have the same purpose as yours: to get the interview. If your resume is the best, it can make an employer eager to meet you.
Think of how many resumes an employer may get for just one job opening. An interviewer may screen several, or dozens, or hundreds of resumes, depending on the job, the employer, and the market. This is a tough job. The best qualified person doesn't always win the position; the best qualified applicant doesn't always get invited to the interview. Why not? Because all that an interviewer has to go on is a resume, so, a person who is well presented, via a well-written resume gets the nod. If you are, in fact, the best candidate for a particular job, all will be lost unless you get the opportunity to sell yourself in person.
No resume by itself gets you the job. You've heard that advice dozens of times. But an excellent executive resume will open that important door. On the other side is the person with the power either to refer you upstairs or to hire you. Once inside, the other factors begin to take over: dress and grooming, interviewing ability, body chemistry and interpersonal relations, whether you fit the job, and what you did that brought results to your past employers.
Do you want a 90 percent chance of getting an interview as opposed to a 40 percent chance? Whatever the percentage, a fine resume puts you ahead of other job-seekers with ordinary resume. The Executive Resume Handbook shows you how to create an effective and far-better-than-average executive resume. It's up to you to come up with the best concept and then produce it. Work on your resume with enthusiasm. It will show up in the final product.
Prepare your personal resume as if your life depended on it. Actually, your future work-life probably does. You'll feel more confident and more comfortable with a superior word-picture of yourself.
