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On one of my LinkedIn forum groups the question was asked... What makes a great resume? I couldn't resist the opportunity to respond ...

What makes a resume great?

First, in my opinion, a resume is a print advertisement of your professional work experience. It should highlight all of career "accomplishments" in positions you have held for the last ten years or so in roles RELEVANT to the opportunity you want to be considered for.

A resume’s primary purpose is to give someone who most likely doesn’t know you or what you bring to the table a tangible informed overview of just that. A great resume highlights all the best of your professional experience so that a hiring/ decision maker can quickly determine if someone has the right background/experience/track record/skills to consider them for whatever job opening or position they are looking to fill.

As a recruiter who has hired everything from 10.00 per hour customer service reps to CEO's for young startup technology companies I can honestly say I have looked at a ga-zillion resumes over the course of my recruiting career.

GREAT RESUMES from my perspective are resumes that allow me to assess a candidate’s work experience to the job requirements of the position I am hiring for in 30 seconds or less. THAT IS A GREAT RESUME. Doesn’t mean it will get you the job but that is A GREAT RESUME!!!!

Bottom line I want to know these things after looking at someone’s resume that I have never met or had contact with before:

1. Who have you worked for / in what capacity / for how long

2. In each role I want to know what were your major accomplishments in bullet format [I don't want you to describe you job function] I want to know the "value" you brought to the company in your role. Major accomplishments a hiring manager or recruiter is most interested seeing would be things that affected companies ROI at the end of the day.

3. Depending on the position, I want to know what degree's and certification's you have

4. Affiliations/memberships with industry associations relevant to your career [not your personal life]

• With regard to your personal life and including it on your resume be selective on what you choose to share. For the most part, don’t disclose marriage status, religious affiliations, recreational activities, political associations unless it can somehow benefit or be tied to your professional experience and accomplishments

5. If you have spoken at industry/business related conferences, authored white papers, or authored anything specific to your industry that is published list the title's, date's and/or events [I may ask to read something that you have listed, so be prepared that if you list something here you can back it up and produce a copy of your white paper, article.. whatever

6. If applicable your management/training experience / how many people you have managed / how long / in what capacity

7. If applicable projects you worked on - completed - managed -saved – designed. Please list your patents if you have any as a result of being on a design team or the creator of whatever you hold the patent on

8. If applicable your sales accomplishments should be in quantifiable terms. Bulleting accomplishments that are quantitative will speak volumes to whoever is reviewing your resume.

• I DON’T want to see vague accomplishments when it comes to sales positions. For example… “I met my monthly sales quota’s 100% consistently” or “I was in the top 3 of my sales group for year 1996,1997, 1998”
• I want to see things that quantify your sales ability. For example, using a “Sales Manager” role structure your accomplishments like this… “I built a sales team from zero to XX rep’s in XX amount of months. We launched a new product and sold X amount of widgets in so many days/months/ years that resulted in $$X$$ amount of dollars in revenue. My sales quotas were XX, and I consistently hit or surpassed these quotas by XX% every month. I was Salesperson of the Year for 1996, 1997, XXXX… Territories I managed/developed grew from XX to XX in [how much] time. I landed XYZ company account which resulted in XX amount of revenue or __% of new business for my company in Q4 / annually [whatever].”

How you craft your resume so that it qualifies as a GREAT RESUME is really subjective.

I have had my own resume reviewed by multiple “professionals” and “resume writers”. For what it is worth, each one thought whatever version of my resume I presented to them was bad or needed significant changes. Each applied their “expert” opinion to my resume info, made comments, added and subtracted info accordingly to their perspective. Hello, I am a recruiter for gawd sake, how could I be getting my own resume so wrong? I came to the conclusion that this could go on forever if I keep having resume “professionals” review my resume for its “greatness” potential. I finally settled on a version that nutshells and highlights my work accomplishments that are relevant to the type of roles I would consider at this stage in my professional career.

There will always be the exceptions to the rule, just like some of you have already shared… if your 10 page crazy resume gets you the job every time, don’t fix what isn’t broke.

A “great resume” is a resume that can consistently get your foot into the door of company or in front of a decision maker for opportunity you want to pursue is how I would define… “What is a great resume?” A great resume doesn’t get you the job, but it can open the door to opportunities that you might not be considered for had your “great” resume not fallen into the right hands at the right time singing all the right stuff about your career experience to date to the right decision maker.