It's just a little Snip

During 14 years in the classroom, my resume grew to almost 3 pages.

I was very active.

I also thought it was necessary to list EVERYTHING I did on my resume.

Dumb.

What I wanted my resume to say was, "Look at me! I am so capable. Look at all these things I can do!"

This "skills dump," combined with a spaghetti approach, was a failed solution to get out of the classroom.

After a year, and I don't know how many applications (close to 300), I didn't get one interview.

Enter my savior. (OK, that's little dramatic, but it was certainly what I needed to flip the switch).

My father-in-law was senior management at a very big retailer before he retired, and as such, he has read a lot of resumes. He offered to look at mine. What follows is mostly his advice and some stuff I figured out on my own . . . Eventually.

1. Only list roles or job titles that are relevant to the role to which you are applying, or your target (see "Why the Spaghetti Approach Doesn't Work").

Examples:

Let's say I'm applying to be a tech doc writer (I did apply to a few of these before I found my real target, instructional design).

Bad Example	Better Example
​Teacher, Team Lead, Trainer at Job 1 2014-current -Designed curriculum -Facilitated daily lessons -Championed district and school initiatives -Designed and facilitated training sessions for teachers Teacher, Curriculum Writer, Trainer, Coach at Job 2 2002-2014 -Aligned curriculum to state standards -Facilitated daily lessons -Designed and facilitated training sessions for teachers	​Curriculum Writer @ Job 1 2014-current -Collaborated with cross-departmental team to align K-12 curriculum with state standards. -Completed revision of department curriculum ahead of schedule and was approved by all stakeholders in first review. -Restructured existing curriculum to align with new standards and progressive delivery Instructional Coach at Job 2 2007-2014 -Organized, developed, and delivered training sessions to 100 staff in order to promote common vocabulary and singular vision -Tailored training to meet specific needs for each of the five departments -Worked one-on-one with staff and stakeholders to ensure full adoption and seamless transition to new curriculum
Why it's bad: I had the same roles at two jobs and none of them are aiming at the target. My bullets are just stuff I did, nothing special and not very impressive.	Why it's better: I am a self-starter I have follow-through I can do tedious I have attention to detail What would make it great is if I had actually written a technical document of any type, or any other experience that is more aligned with this role that I could include in a portfolio. Ultimately, I realized I didn't want to do this because it wasn't where my passion was.

In a nutshell:

The Problem: I didn't really understand the role to which I was applying, it sounded like something I wanted to do and would be "easy."	​The solution: Identify only the roles relevant to the position to which you're applying.
I didn't invest any time into digging through my career to find roles and projects that showed the skills required for this role.	Group your "Jobs" by role. No one actually cares where or when you did what, just that you actually did it and that you can do it again.

If you want to see how I tailored my resume to Instructional Design check out this blog post.

Moving on:

2. Your "bullets" need to aim at your accomplishments not at your duties. Just remember: Duty rhymes with doody. And they both stink.

This was the hardest part for me. When my father-in-law asked me what I've accomplished, I think my exact words were, "Nothing. I'm just a teacher. I'm not even the 'best' teacher in my grade level."

But when he started asking me questions, I started seeing my accomplishments.

So here are some questions to ask yourself:

1. What did you do better then others? How did you do it? What was the result? How do you know your way was better? How was this measured?

2. Did you take on any projects? Which ones? Were they high-profile? What was the outcome? Did you finish early? Were you under budget?

3. Have you won anything? Awards? Recognition? Were you chosen for something by your peers or supervisors?

4. Have you pursued any certifications or courses to prepare yourself for the new role?

Once you start measuring your accomplishments by these metrics, you'll start seeing how amazing you are. And what's even better, your new boss will too!

Good luck. You got this.