If you will take this simple next step in identifying your value you can improve the quality of your resume content and separate yourself from the crowd. Here is exactly what to do:

  • List your 5-12 most valuable areas of experience (your "assets")
  • Define the value of the experience you have in each item in the list
  • Arrange the items in priority order.

Your most valuable areas of experience consist of: Role Titles you have experience in (whether or not you were given an official title) e.g. software developer, project manager, business analyst. Technology Skills: computer applications, programming languages, financial concepts, physical and practical skills. Personal and Leadership Skills: working in or leading teams of certain sizes, the level of your interactions (Were you reporting to or leading senior managers, supervisors, or interacting with the public?). Subject matter and Industry Experience: Financial, Insurance, or Construction Industry experience; IT Consulting, Sales and Marketing experience

The value of experience in each skill can be defined as the total length of time you have spent working with a skill combined with information about the context in which the skill was used. E.g. 5 Years of experience in C# desktop software development experience working on project teams of 3-5 resources on applications related to fraud detection on high volume credit card transaction processing.

Arranging in priority order means arranging in order of importance and not necessarily in order of the length of experience. For example 1 year of project management experience could be the most important item because a project management position is the goal.

Don't expect recruiters to identify your value for you. You need to know the value of all of your most important skills. You need to be able to define this in writing and present it on your resume. Some people define their value partially. A few people think about arranging these "assets" in order of value. However, not one person in 10,000 identifies all of their most important assets, arranges them in priority order, and defines the value of their experience. This is the information recruiters and companies crave for. When presented properly it enables recruiters and companies to quickly determine a candidate's value to their organization.

Presenting this information effectively on paper takes time, thought, and knowledge. While you can do this for yourself, doing it well, will likely require some guidance. Please feel free to contact us for help.