Show you are the best candidate by showing your sizzle.
You have spent a considerable amount of time on your résumé. You know how to target your résumé for the position. You have listed the activities you’ve done in your positions. It looks just like the samples you’ve seen. It’s perfect, no typos or grammar errors. But you feel that there is something missing. There’s no sizzle. You don’t show how you will solve their problem the best.
Your qualifications will keep your résumé on the keep pile. But the sizzle is what is going to put you on the short list. Merely listing day-to-day tasks isn’t riveting reading for the recruiter. They want to see action that is qualified. They are looking for a superhero, show them how you are the best at doing day-to-day activities.
To make your résumé sizzle, take standard resume phrases and make them come alive. Look at the examples below and see more effective the after statements are.
Before: Responsible generating new clients.
After: Developed strategy and process and defined new marketing/sales tools needed to acquire new clients in the targeted market.
Before: Excellent communications skills.
After: Wrote a weekly article on automotive care reaching 4,000 readers.
Before: Highly motivated.
After: Created innovative training programs for new employees in the accounting, human resources, and legal departments reducing training time from 6 weeks to 4 weeks.
Before: Experienced professional.
After: Awarded number one in sales rank for 10 years by exceeding goals by 15 % to 25% each year.
Before: Outstanding interpersonal skills.
After: Worked with customers and company engineers to determine improvements in the next product upgrade.
These changes will make the reader sit up and take notice of your résumé.
Here is a partial list of terms that need to be qualified:
- Strong work ethic
- Team player
- Met or exceeded
- Results-oriented
- Highly qualified
- Proficient
- Effective
- Detailed Oriented
- Worked with
- Strong (skill name i.e., organizational, prioritization)
You have done more than you think you have. It’s difficult to brag about yourself. Or maybe you think you were just doing your job. But what you don’t realize is that you did more than just your job. Take a look at past performance reviews, emails, or recommendations on LinkedIn to find your sizzle.
