Are Your Resume Bullet Points Shooting Blanks?

Does Past Performance Matter?

There’s a common caveat in the investment world:

Past performance is not an indication of future results.

Does that mean that we should ignore past performance when making decisions?  Of course not.  Whether it’s an investment decision or a hiring decision, past performance is a critical criterion.  In either case, we need to know there is no guarantee that history will repeat itself. But performance is still the primary influencer.

Looking Through The Achievement Lens

How well does your resume demonstrate your ability to get results for the people who have paid you?  What was their return on their investment in you?  Are you leading the reader to believe you can generate similar returns for them?  Or are you just listing stuff you did?

Do Your Resume Bullets Hit The Target?

Here’s an important guide. Review your resume. For each of your resume bullet points, as yourself:

Is this an activity or is this an achievement?

Listing activities will serve to demonstrate that you have experience at a task.  But activities do little to describe the quality of your work.  So they do little to portray your ability to get results.  And ultimately hiring decision makers want results.

The “So What?” Solution

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  Achievements: Your Silver Bullet

  Examine the bullet points on your resume.  How many bullets describe activities?

• Examine each activity bullet and ask: “So what?”
  • When you did your job and did it well, what happened as a result?
  • How can you quantify the results?
• Re-write your activity bullets and convert them to measurable achievements.

This is the surest way to influence those results driven decision makers and allow your experience to stand out over your competition.