How many times do you use the boring, passive verbs “led” and “managed”, and the tired phrase “responsible for” in your executive resume, career biography, other career documents, and online profiles?

These words are used to death and may not precisely and vibrantly describe the unique promise of value you offer potential employers. They’re not very likely to ignite interest in the people you’re trying to impress.

If you’ve done your personal branding work, you’ve identified your key personal attributes and pivotal strengths with precise words and keyword phrases.

Take the time to match the right action verbs with your top attributes and strengths in your personal marketing materials.

Need some help defining your personal brand? Read my post 10 Steps to Uncovering and Building Your Authentic Personal Brand.

Recruiters and hiring decision makers say they’re looking for executives who are energetic and passionate. These vital traits need to come across in your career marketing communications.

Your excitement about what you do best should shine through in your paper documents (executive resume, career bio, cover letters, achievement summary, etc.) and the online profiles you develop based on those documents.

Of course, you’ll need to use “led” and “managed” sometimes, but don’t settle for those words alone. Make your documents and online profiles a more interesting, compelling read.

Use an online thesaurus to pinpoint precise verbs — Thesaurus.com or Merriam-Webster online.

Here are some of my favorite action verbs:

accelerate ~ advance ~ amplify ~ architect ~ benchmark

brainstorm ~ brand ~ capitalize ~ capture ~ catapult

champion ~ collaborate ~ compel ~ conceptualize

cultivate ~ decipher ~ deliver ~ devise ~ differentiate ~ direct

embrace ~ empower ~ engage ~ engineer ~ envision

exploit ~ fortify ~ generate ~ harness ~ incentivize

innovate ~ inspire ~ intensify ~ launch ~ leverage

maximize ~ mentor ~ monetize ~ optimize ~ orchestrate

pinpoint ~ pioneer ~ propel ~ reinvent ~ renew ~ revitalize

revolutionize ~ safeguard ~ seize ~ spearhead ~ stimulate

strategize ~ streamline ~ synergize ~ synthesize

systematize ~ target ~ transform ~ transition

troubleshoot ~ unify ~ unleash ~ visualize ~ win

What are your favorite vibrant verbs? Did I miss any good ones?

An Executive Personal Branding, Online Identity and Job Search Strategist, Meg is a 20-year careers industry professional and one of only a handful of people worldwide to hold both the Reach Certified Personal Branding Strategist and Master Resume Writer credentials.

“I love my work collaborating with savvy corporate leaders and entrepreneurs who know where they’re going, but need help differentiating their unique promise of value in the new world of work and executive job search, and positioning themselves to work their passion. My clients are typically C-suite, Senior-level executives and rising stars.”

Find out more about Meg at Executive Career Brand, and by viewing her LinkedIn profile and following her on Twitter.

Support me by sharing this post:

A senior-level executive recently told me he was so impressed with a resume sample of mine that he was tempted to copy some of it. Instead, he decided to work with me to create one capturing his own unique promise of value and written for his career target.

You probably know that thousands of good resumes are readily available online and thousands of resume books are full of thousands more.

Because strategic resume writing is always changing to meet the needs of hiring decision makers, it’s a good idea to take a look at up-to-date samples by top resume writers to get a handle on new trends in formatting and what kind of relevant key words and content to include.

But it’s not okay to actually use the content. Why?

► A great resume uniquely brands that specific job seeker. What you read in a sample may sort of  sound like you, but it isn’t really you.

Don’t you want hiring decision makers to clearly know what differentiates you from everyone else and why your value proposition and ROI make you the best hiring choice? You can only do that by differentiating your resume with your own personal brand message crystallizing your own unique combination of key attributes, pivotal strengths, and passions.

► The achievements on the sample couldn’t possible be the same as yours. The situations, people  involved, numbers, and facts are all different.

Your own approach to solving the problem that led to the achievement will provide the evidence to back up your personal brand promise. Don’t settle for some generic achievement that sounds good, but doesn’t specifically brand how you make things happen.

► Your resume needs to target the specific kind of job you’re seeking and resonate with hiring  decision makers assessing people for that job.

The sample that’s tantalizing you can’t possibly align what you have to offer with the stated qualifications for the job(s) you’re seeking. You HAVE to determine the key functional areas  required for the job and pump your resume with your expertise and contributions in those specific  areas.

► The formatting of your resume depends upon the compelling content you’re working with and  how  best to position your value promise.

Create the content first and then decide on the format. Don’t just choose a template and fill in the blanks.

► Even though the resume samples you see probably have fictionalized names and other identifying  information, they’re most likely real resumes written for real people who may still be actively job  searching.

The resume sample that you copy may be in circulation right now for the same jobs you’re interested in. It may be hitting the computer screens or desks of the same recruiters and hiring decision makers you’re trying to impress.

How do you think it will impact your chances, if someone reviewing your resume realizes it’s suspiciously similar to another one they’ve got in their files?

► “Using” published content is stealing and violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

ANYTHING published online is automatically copyrighted to the author, whether or not they clearly state the copyright. Integrity is a critical attribute for any business leader worth her or his salt. Certainly, your ethics should dissuade you from plagiarizing.

If that doesn’t stop you, do you really want to risk a law suit that could possibly tarnish your online and offline brand reputation?

There’s just no way around it — you have to invest the time and do the work yourself or hire a professional (and still expect to do some hard work), if you want to make your mark in today’s overly-competitive executive job search landscape.

–

Related series of posts:

Best of Executive Resume Branding Tactics and Advice

A C-level/Senior Executive Branding, Online Identity, and Job Search Strategist, Meg Guiseppi loves collaborating with forward-focused corporate leaders to differentiate their unique value proposition, demystify the new world of executive search, and strategically position them for job search acceleration. She is one of only a handful of career professionals to hold both the Reach Certified Personal Branding Strategist and Master Resume Writer credentials. Meg is also a Certified VisualCV Creator and Certified Professional Resume Writer. For a wealth of insider tips on personal branding and executive job search, visit her Executive Resume Branding Blog/Website. Follow Meg on Twitter.

Support me by sharing this post:

A really great resume – one that captures attention, gets interviews, and lands jobs faster – has always been all about differentiating that job seeker and their promise of value from others competing for the same jobs.

Personal branding is the best career marketing tool today to get you there. And branding generates the kind of chemistry that helps hiring decision makers pre-qualify you as a good fit and sound hiring investment.

If you need help uncovering and building your personal brand, see my post The Personal Branding Worksheet.

Resumes these days often take the form of an online profile or part of an online career portfolio. Whether online or on “paper”, follow these 7 tactics to brand and power up your executive resume:

1. Lead with a personal brand statement.

Forget about an anemic “objective statement” outlining what you want in a job. Nobody cares what you want. They want to know what you will do for them. Use this prime real estate, the first thing people will see, to tell them about the unique value you offer that no one else does.

Placing a stand-alone brand statement at the top of your resume, in itself, is a powerful differentiating feature. Few job seekers are doing it. A dramatic element like this that links your personal brand with your value proposition and ROI will immediately draw in the reader.

Craft a statement of 3-5 lines that comes from your own voice, gives a feel for who you are, and lays out your brand attributes, pivotal strengths, and vitality. If a stand-alone brand statement on your resume doesn’t feel right for you, instead it can easily become part of your career bio and the foundation for your 30-second elevator pitch.

2. Format your resume with the readers’ needs in mind.

More and more hiring decision makers are reviewing resumes on the go – on PDAs, netbooks, or other small screens. Brief, brand-driven statements of value surrounded by enough white space to make them stand out will have the greatest impact. Long, dense paragraphs make it hard for the reader to quickly access and digest important make-or-break information about you.

3. Tell your story above the fold.

People reviewing your resume may have to look at hundreds or more resumes for any given position, so they don’t have much time to spend on each one. In fact, they may only give your resume 10-15 SECONDS to capture their attention. If you don’t draw them in immediately and hold them, they may move on to the next resume and forget about you.

► Showcase your most important and compelling information at the top of page one, since this is the first, and possibly only, section that will be read. Consider this: if you tear off the top of the first page, it should stand on its own as your career branding communication.

► Include 2 or 3 achievement statements or standout contributions you’ve made to companies, leading each with the quantified WOW! results. Show them the numbers! These provide evidence to back up your personal brand.

► It’s okay to move certain information from the second page to above the fold on page one, such as special training, hot certifications, or career milestones – especially if they’re relevant to your job target. If you have an MBA, don’t hide it at the bottom of the last page. They may never get there!

4. Keep your resume to 2 pages.

It may be difficult and painful, but you can do this. The purpose of your resume is to generate interest in you, compelling decision makers to want to talk with you. A resume is not a comprehensive career history covering every job you’ve ever held. It’s a career marketing document that needs to say just enough about you to do its job. So precision-writing is the key. And in most cases, there’s no need to go back further than 10 to 15 years.

To keep it brief, pare down and consolidate your value proposition and all your great achievements to just the essentials.

You can put together deeper slices of contributions, “success stories”, and your softer side in collateral 1-2 page documents (Leadership Initiatives Profile, Achievement Summary, Career Biography, Reference Dossier with Accolades, etc.).

5. Highlight your key areas of expertise just once.

Instead of taking up precious space repeating obvious lists of responsibilities under each position, consolidate them in the form of relevant key word phrases at the top of the first page. For best impact, position them in nicely formatted columns or a shaded graphic box, titled something like “Key Areas of Expertise”. Or, depending upon space, sprinkle these relevant key words throughout your achievement statements.

For the header “Professional Experience” or “Work History”, consider using a relevant keyword phrase, such as “Senior-level Management Experience” or “IT Management Experience”. Fill out the section with short statements of key contributions to each company and achievements that provide evidence of the value you will bring to your next employer.

6. Transform your executive resume into an on-brand LinkedIn profile.

This is a great way to extend the value of your resume while building your online presence and brand reputation. I’m sure you know that recruiters and hiring decision makers are searching online to source candidates and to pre-qualify those they’re considering. If you’re invisible online, you don’t exist to them. And of course, LinkedIn offers endless networking benefits.

Everything in your branded resume can be copied and pasted into appropriate sections of your LinkedIn profile. Here are a few tips:

► An abbreviated version of your personal brand statement becomes your LinkedIn professional headline – the first thing people will see, along with your photo. You can pack quite a punch with the allowed 120 characters.

► The top half of your resume, before the “Experience” section, becomes the “Summary” section for your LinkedIn profile.

► Remember to break up dense chunks of information and add plenty of white space, just as you did with your resume.

► LinkedIn may not accept some graphic bullet points that you used in your resume, but you can get visual impact with various characters that are right on your keyboard, such as: * ~ > = - <>

► Once your profile is all done, LinkedIn lets you easily convert it to a PDF file.

► Include a link to your LinkedIn profile on your resume, along with your contact information at the top.

7. Take advantage of Google Profiles’ search results power.

A few days ago, Google Profiles trumped LinkedIn and other social networking sites for building brand-solid search results, by adding a customized listing that includes your photo on page one of results for “your name”. Check it out by typing “meg guiseppi” in a browser window and scrolling down the page until you see my photo and link to my Google Profile. That’s an attention-grabber!

Google makes it very easy to set up a Google account and put your profile together. In fact, it’s much easier than LinkedIn. Cut and paste your resume into the body of the profile, add your photo and an on-brand headline under your name, and pop in links to your other online profiles, websites, blogs, etc.

Google Profiles is now a must-do online branding strategy and another great way to extend the value of your executive resume.

For more in depth strategies to brand and differentiate yourself in your resume, see my series of posts, Think Like an Executive Resume Branding Expert.

Author: Meg Guiseppi

Support me by sharing this post: