No one that is any good at making great hiring decisions hires someone because of what a candidate has done or what their Internet presence is. WHAT? That’s right. Candidates are hired because of what the hiring authority believes you can do! They develop a belief about what you can do by understanding how you accomplished what you have done. This needs to be addressed upfront in your resume.

Let’s start first with the need to hire someone in the first place. Any job that is created exists to produce against a set of business objectives in a way that will have concrete impact on business metrics. Nobody is hired to produce effort. Everyone is hired to produce results.

Back calculating from the set of business objectives a position is chartered to achieve will imply a specific set of executive capabilities, skills and acumen that a candidate must possess to have a chance at successfully executing against the business objectives the position is chartered to achieve.

Let’s start first with the need to hire someone in the first place. Any job that is created exists to produce against a set of business objectives in a way that will have concrete impact on business metrics. Nobody is hired to produce effort. Everyone is hired to produce results.

Back calculating from the set of business objectives a position is chartered to achieve will imply a specific set of executive capabilities, skills and acumen that a candidate must possess to have a chance at successfully executing against the business objectives the position is chartered to achieve.

All what you have done is to an employer is a sanity “check in the box” that confirms you have held the requisite scope & scale of responsibility that confirms the role they are trying to fill isn’t to big a step up in scope & scale of responsibility such that you’d be in over your head. For example, given an employment opportunity with $150M P&L responsibility role. Has your previous P&L responsibility maxed out at $15M, $50M, $100M, $250M, etc.? If you’re close to the level of responsibility, that’s just a check in the box that lets you play in the interview game.

What an employer needs to get to is how you have accomplished what you’ve done.

Example: “We need to fill a $150M P&L role that is chartered to grow this to $300M over the next 5 years. I see that you have grown a P&L from $75M to $250M. That’s great. Can you tell me exactly how you drove that outcome?”

Most executives fall flat on their face when attempting to answer a straight forward question like this by starting their response with, “Um, well, I uh…” not well thought out response follows. It doesn’t mean you don’t know – how – you drove an outcome. It simply means you’re not practiced at concisely articulating – how – you drove an outcome. Unfortunately, this does not leave the best impression with the person interviewing you.

This all too common unfortunate situation should have been addressed all the way back when you were actually writing your resume.

100% of the resumes recruiters see fail at concisely articulating an executive’s value proposition. That value proposition is a combination of two inseparable components: The specific quantified impact you have had on business metrics by achieving measurable objectives COMBINED WITH the specific set of executive capabilities, skills and acumen you leveraged to drive that measurable impact. When a resume lacks either of these two inseparable components, it doesn’t answer questions about your unique executive value proposition – it creates them. A resume should not create questions; it should answer questions.

By addressing these issues upfront when writing your resume, you will not only be exposed to more and better opportunities, you will be exposed to opportunities over someone that has better career experience than you, but has done a great job of keeping his/her value proposition hidden in his/her resume. In addition, you will be practiced at concisely articulating responses to the interview question: “So tell me how you did that?” As a result, you will leave an infinitely better interview impression.

It all starts with your resume.

An expert in mission critical retained executive search, Ron Bates is a Managing Principal with the retained executive search firm Executive Advantage Group, Inc. (http://www.executive-advantage.com).

Ron has also coached former SAP, E&Y, Oracle, WorldCom, et al. executives responsible for multi-billion dollar business units, and co-founded http://www.CV-Advantage.com, a self-guided executive coaching process and resume development toolset.

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