What Does Your Resume Have to do to GET the Interview?

Writing a résumé that provides information about your credentials, experience and accomplishments is the easy part.

Writing a résumé that forces a hiring manager to pick up the phone - NOW - and invite you in for an interview - PRONTO - is a whole other question.

What do Hiring Managers want, anyway?

Simple - they want:

1) Clarity – they want your story - clear, concise and in a format they can easily read.
2) Criteria - they want a candidate that meets their hiring requirements. They want to see the qualifications, education and experience needed for the job they're trying to fill.
3) Correctness – no "gilding the lily". They want a truthful, accurate picture of who you are, what you can do, and where you did it. They don't want typos, spelling errors or grammar mistakes.

So, if all things in the résumés of two job applicants were essentially equal, why would a hiring manager contact one candidate for the interview over another?

It's all about how you sell your personal brand. It's the things that make you the "must-have" candidate that everyone wants to interview.

You have to create a sense of excitement – a buzz – around your brand. Remember, a résumé is a marketing tool. It has to highlight your strengths and your contributions in a way that make YOU the standout applicant.

You have to tell the story of your professional life in a compelling and powerful way. When I work with clients on rewriting their résumés, I ask them to run the "so what" test on every single sentence. Here's how the "so what" test works: read each line in your résumé, then ask yourself, "so what? Would someone hire me because of this?" If the line is a reason to hire you, great – leave it in. If it's not, you should probably take it out.

Hiring managers and recruiters see and scan thousands of résumés every month.

Make your résumé the one they actually READ – and GET the interview!