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In tougher economic times where competition for full time work with benefits is fierce, how do you stand out from a crowded pack of IT workers? For starters, you need a resume that speaks results, say resume writing experts.
It’s not enough anymore to simply rest on your skills and experience, you need to put some serious thought in to how your resume will be read by its audience (who are sometimes non-technical)–an audience that wants to understand what impact you had with your skills and experience on business results, and wants to understand it quickly.
Start by sitting down with a blank sheet of paper or word processing software and answer, in as much detail, the following three questions (which have come from career expert Scot Herrick at Cuberules.com):
- How did I make money for my employer?
- How did I save money for my employer?
- Did I make a process more efficient to help productivity?
Not sure if you save any money for your company? Herrick puts it in context:
“Not every employee can do work that generates revenue for their company. But every employee can work on ways to reduce the costs of doing business for the department and help the department stay on or beat their budget.The value of cost savings is that the dollars drop directly to the bottom line (which is why companies, unfortunately, like laying people off because it drops straight to profitability…). So cost savings can actually be more important than increased revenue, especially in the Great Recession.“
Answering these questions means thinking a little bit more like a financial analyst. Your resume should highlight your strengths, and should depict specific situations that had a cause and effect. The golden rule, say career and resume writing experts, is that every bullet point under your job titles should have a resulting impact, as in, this process was broken, I fixed it, and it resulted in “X” amount of productivity or revenue or cost savings.
This could mean doing some research on your company’s financial statements, annual reports and your own performance reviews to pull out specific things to add to your resume.