We recently worked with a Connecticut College senior who came to us with the standard request to help with her resume. Her resume was not the problem with her job search.
Based on the information that was contained within her resume, we only needed to tweak the resume format to make it perfect.The problem was that there was a mismatch between her strategic positioning of jobs she hoped to obtain and what she had presented on her resume.
Specifically, she knew she wanted a job “in business” but she had no real idea of what specific area of interest suited her. Her resume’s objective: “to obtain an entry-level job with a growing business” demonstrated her lack of business savvy. The manner in which she presented her previous jobs and activities did not provide a clear cut view of how she could contribute to a business.
That she had applied to “hundreds of jobs” and had no response was a mystery to her since she had good grades. She blamed her lack of job search success on the fact that she had majored in English while at Conn College.
While liberal arts majors are not optimal for many business jobs, writing and communicating effectively are desirable skills for many business positions. In addition, Conn College is an excellent college. Getting good grades from a strong college is a big asset for any job search.
Through discussion, we discovered that she had many experiences that clearly suited her for marketing. For example, she had listed on her resume that she had “led fundraising efforts” for one of her activities. But, she had not mentioned that she had created several effective print advertisements that generated thousands of dollars in donations.
In her first resume, she noted that she had “handled various tasks” at a local real estate agency. But, she had not mentioned that one of those tasks was submitting descriptions of various properties that were listed in real estate magazines. This is “marketing”.
As we continued through the editing process, the light bulb went on and she realized that she had many experiences from volunteer experiences that were similarly marketing oriented.
She now has several interviews lined up.