Alternative to a Resume: a cover letter with credibility and heart

A client asked me to review his resume. Here is its summary.

• Energetic executive and project manager.
• Goal-oriented, multidisciplinary professional with superior communication ability.
• MBA with experience in international commerce.

Reading that reminded me of how unhelpful resumes are. What he wrote was, like most resume verbiage, unlikely to make his application rise to the top of the stack. And on reflection, even the "ahead-of-the-pack" resume strategies I tout are often insufficiently powerful.

So I suggested my client go home and draft a radically different kind of "resume" -- a one-page narrative that tells the true story of his career, including his failures, successes, detours, dreams, doubts, plus interests and skills that have nothing to do with career. Rather than a resume, it's more like a cover letter with credibility and heart.

Of course, many employers will be turned off, but I'm wondering whether it will result in the right employer being turned on. Such a narrative will reveal the person's true self, which means that if the boss likes that person, the candidate is more likely to be successful and happy on the job than if hired based on the usual obfuscatory resume. Besides, very few employers with a good job opening would be turned on by the standard cliche-filled resume unless it includes words like "Harvard" and "record-breaking" and shows a meteoric rise through the ranks culminating in being perfectly ready for the subject job opening.

Have you tried something like that? Or, if you're an employer, would you consider this Cover Letter with Credibility and Heart a plus or minus if submitted instead of or in addition to a resume?

To Help Your Resume Rise to the Top of the Pile

Unlike when the economy was stronger, I must admit that I am not having great success in helping average and below-average candidates land decent jobs.

It's not easy even for excellent candidates, but these strategies are helping their resumes rise to the top of the applicant pile.

Focus on what would make you better than your competitors for the desired position. Examples:

• Critical skills not held by your competitors. For example, I had a supply chain manager stress his expertise in sourcing not only from Beijing and Shanghai but also from even lower-cost suppliers: inland China, Viet Nam, and Thailand.

• Quotes from customers or from your latest performance review. For example, "Jane Jones has the rare combination of brains, great work ethic, and being fun to work with." (from my most recent performance review.)
  

• Evidence that you not only have experience critical in the target job but excel at it. Examples:

-- In each of my four past performances reviews, I received the top rating: "Exceeds Expectations."

-- A PAR (problem-approach-resolution) story(ies) that demonstrate your excellence: Our employees were unhappy with our desktop support. I created the concept of "Your Personal Geek," in which our IT staff were assigned to specific employees so a relationship could be developed. Satisfaction with desktop support has jumped.
-- Not a broadbrush statement like, "Spearheaded efforts that saved the company 20%." Even if that were true, few readers would believe you could attribute that solely to your efforts. Better: "Located better sources for components for the XPR video card, lowering the cost 9%, a saving of $64,000, while retaining its low MTBF rate."

You want a concentrated, not a dilute resume. Minimize the number of statements that don't present an important advantage you have over competing applicants: non-critical details, attributes that some of your competitors likely have, and redundancies with statements already in your resume.

Highlight your most compelling advantages over the competition. The top of your resume should usually include a highlights section with three or four easy-to-understand, one-line descriptions of your most compelling advantages over your competition for the desired position. Alternatively, present a one-or two-line summary that makes the case.

As always, I welcome your comments, for example, your favorite strategy for ethically helping your resume rise to the top of the pile.