By Adam Dachis
Many job applicants do more than just one thing, and that can
make getting a job difficult because employers often prefer you're great at one
specific thing. Having many skills is fine, however, if you focus your resume
and treat it like a sales pitch. Resume expert and co-founder of resume grading
service RezScore explains:
A resume is not a fact sheet. You do not need to, and should
not, include everything you've done, even if it was very important to you or to
the company. Your resume is an advertisement pitching a prospective employer to
decide to call you. That means you focus only on them—what do they want to
hear? If they care about your sales experience but not your IT experience, for
example, then don't
include your IT experience because it won't help you. The bottom line is to
write an employer-focused resume. If the thing you spent 10% of your time on is
going to be what you spend 90% of your time on at a new employer, then that's
the thing you spend your time talking about.
It's just like sales: figure out what the customer actually
needs and then craft your pitch. If you pitch a car by focusing on speed
because that's what you think is most important, but your customer actually
cares more about safety, you will lose the sale. The same principle applies to
resumes.
It might be tough to let go of those important deals from time
to time, but you have to remember that your resume's goal is to get you an
interview. When you're in the interview, you'll have an opportunity to talk
about your other skills if they seem relevant to the job. Keep your resume
focused and relevant, even if that means leaving a lot out, because if your
employer has to look for relevant experience on a text-heavy document you're
probably not going to get a call.
