executive resume writing services

executive resume writing services

The Art of Crafting an Impactful Executive Resume: A Comprehensive Guide

1. Introduction to Executive Resume Writing

Moreover, writing a resume – that has to be written to detail a company’s products and services – clearly requires a vastly different skill set than one needs to persuasively present their personal and professional strengths when asked about them. Sometimes, even more than other job seekers, senior managers and c-level executives are unfamiliar with selling any product other than their companies, many of which are often filled with products and services they did not originally launch. In writing their resumes, senior-level managers infrequently are comfortable or enthusiastic about selling their most unique and valuable product themselves. While entry-level job seekers often have more experience in the private sector-provided job search process than their counterparts at the highest professional levels (about 90% of chief executives spot other senior managers as the ones who frequently conduct faulty or non-research in handicapping challengers in the race for a highly sought-after job as reason #1 for the fact that errors in hiring decisions can often run as high as 50%).

Challenge often lies not in writing the preliminary document, commonly called a resume or curriculum vitae (CV). While job seekers realize they have so much valuable and highly sought-after senior management and c-level executive experience, they often lack the skill to articulate that experience and its subsequent bottom-line results into a resume that potential employers should logically find attractive and want to learn more about. Layer in that the job seeker may not have needed to write a resume for a significant number of years, and an unbeatable executive resume that can make a critical difference between a candidate’s success and demise in the job search process seems about as probable as asking most people to flawlessly execute a diving backflip or legally bowl a perfect game.

2. Key Components of an Executive Resume

Accomplishments. The phrase “Accomplishments Summary” can be an encouragement, reminding you that the vast majority of job-winning resumes contain powerful, focused, quantified, and “target role”-relevant accomplishments, heightened with keywords. The main difference between an “Accomplishments Summary” and the tired “Experience” and “Job Responsibilities” slant that many job hunters initially take is their positioning on the resume. Your resume may effectively be the first, and sometimes the last, paragraph of your online profile. It could become the document to quickly snare your next great opportunity. Alternatively, if poorly presented, it could become a stumbling block that damages your employability. If your confident goals are important, invest well in presenting yourself effectively.

Your Executive Resume Career Brand

Executive resumes (after a summary or branding statement) differ from standard resumes that most people use to apply for jobs. You need to present your career profile and impact in generally familiar sections in fresh, powerful ways. Let’s take a tour of the items where the biggest changes are necessary, investigating all relevant aspects and providing insight to prepare you to perform to the best of your abilities.

Key Components of an Executive Resume

Summary – This section introduces some of the standard elements present in an executive resume.

3. Strategies for Tailoring Your Resume to Targeted Roles

Your resume must mirror your personal brand, mesh with the company’s corporate branding, be readable, and most important, show current and potential contributions that companies want now. Highlight your competencies, not necessarily just your career chronology. Your resume must be custom-tailored targeting the companies and an in-depth understanding of the soft skills companies are seeking is essential. Does your resume clearly demonstrate your leadership style and how you approach solving problems and achieving results? These factors, as well as a history of success in making valuable contributions, often are the keys to unlocking the offers you want. A winning resume blends your acquired skill sets, academic and professional accomplishments, and professional brand into a cohesive, readable document that sticks in the minds of hiring decision-makers.

Your resume is the powerful tool that will get you in the door and on your way to the next chapter of your career. Your resume must be a strategic marketing document that functions as your “personal broadcast” – a mapping of your professional brand that communicates how you’re going to help your target company and HC succeed as a bottom-line performer. It’s not a factual report of your previous career – point person for financial models, two public offerings, planned and executed a massive build-out of Asia, contributed to a better working environment, etc. The resume is a medium designed to parallel your professional brand with the needs and future goals of the companies you’re targeting, focusing on what makes you distinctive and what companies expect you to deliver.

4. Tips for Showcasing Achievements and Leadership Skills

This is the first section hiring managers read, and this section will draw a mist across your most important information. Keep this in mind as you prepare your resume. It is an echoed thought that your resume is only glanced at for 15 seconds, and if you can’t draw the reader’s attention immediately, you have lost the 15 seconds to make an impression. This simple step will take you into the conscious process of preparing your resume, realizing your skills, work knowledge, and promises kept, unlocking your true value.

It should go without saying that your resume is not a laundry list of job functions. But even so, I often see professional executives of all levels undervalue what they did in their most recent positions. Make a list of what you did in your position or your former positions and take action upon each item as you come up with solutions, hit important deadlines, and are recognized by the CEO or higher-ups for your accomplishments. If the numbers should be confidential, translate your impact into a higher level of efficiency or enhanced revenue. Draw the link between the work you’re doing now and the work you’ve done in the past.

5. Final Touches: Editing, Formatting, and Proofreading Your Executive Resume

With the right formatting, your resume is comfortable, easy to read, and provides a recruiter with the new and exciting information they are looking for. Your challenge is to factor in those critical minute details and apply them for a holistic approach.

Sidebars and Footers: Any and all additional information, such as certifications, terms of employment, or informational links—except your name, of course—should be positioned in the footer. Squeezing such information into the body of the resume can take up valuable space and is distracting to the reader who wants to see what you have to offer. To highlight your brand, the best strategy is to customize your resume with a backdrop that best displays your brand and emphasizes your skill. Small decorative elements such as bars which divide your resume into different information sections are optional, though they help keep it looking clean and clear.

Section Titles: Section Titles work like headlines, and you want each title to clearly specify the business function that follows. To do this, you have to highlight your title to draw attention to the section. Use a slightly bigger font. For example, your headline font size is 10pt, then you can use 11pt or 12pt for section titles.

Headline and Body Font: Use an easy-to-read headline font that is simple, elegant, and bold. Nick Haase has created a font called Elekto which is both simple and elegant and works well in italics for a unique sparkle. Whichever font you select, use it consistently throughout your resume. For the body font, use a combination of typefaces that are easy to read and contrast well. Use up to two types of font at most and make sure they are distinct, different, and each adds to the appeal of your resume. Headline font size should be between 10pt-12pt and body font size should be 10pt – 12pt. Instead of using the same font size throughout your document, create a hierarchy where text is broken into different groups, each with its own size and font.

Now that you have crafted your executive resume, it’s time to put on the final touches: editing, formatting, and proofreading.