Would you believe the quality of your resume can make a significant impact on your income?

Properly crafted, your resume can open doors of opportunity, attract interest from “higher-level” employers, give you negotiating power for a higher salary, and ultimately change the trajectory of your career.
The majority of job seekers think of their resume as a simple historical view of their career –a backward focused document that reads like an obituary (a brief biographical review listing where they worked and responsibilities held). When reading this type of “resume”, the employer cannot decipher the true value the job candidate offers.
Think about any given job. Since we all shop (whether for it is just for essentials or for fun), in this exercise we will use the position of Store Manager. They:
– Hire, train, and supervise employees.
– Oversee profit and loss for their location.
– Make sure products are on the shelf.
– Carry out directives from their regional and/or district manager.
– Hold store meetings.
– Plan for sales / special promotions.

From the above, can you decipher how well the Store Manager performs their job?
Here is what you need to know –the hiring authority already knows the “tasks” associated with the position they are seeking to fill and they are weeding through hundreds of documents that look and read the same way.
What the screener is wanting to know (and cannot find on a career obituary) is how well the person can do the job.
When writing or updating your resume, make sure you prove your worth by quantifying the value of your work using numbers. Here is an example:
– Increased sales $50K per month by creating an innovative merchandising strategy that bolstered brand awareness.

The benefit of using numbers …
– Provides the reader concrete data about why you are valuable to the company.
– Gives you a boost of confidence. As one client explained, “seeing all my information and experience laid out so succinctly is a huge confidence builder.”
– Shows you can contribute to the bottom-line.
– Puts you in a position to negotiate your total compensation package which is not only salary but also benefits, including bonuses, stock options, vacation/sick days, health insurance, relocation expense, tuition, and/or company car allocation.

To attract higher-level employers (and be able to negotiate a better starting salary), you need to make the case for your value. All prospective employers want to know what is in it for them –how you can make a difference to their bottom line.

To do that, you need to go beyond the traditional black and white “this is where I worked, this is what I did” type of resume and construct a powerful career story that packages your value, goals, and experience that not only shows your unique value, but will also make the reader sit up and take notice.

Done right, a resume can deliver a return on investment like no other “piece of paper” can.

Tammy Shoup, Executive Resume Writer & CareerStoryteller
Positioning VPs and Managers for Jobs They Love!