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By Root 565 0

part of your Guerrilla Resume as an executive summary of the best, most relevant points about you. It should be so powerful and relevant that employers should not need to read any further to determine that you are the right person for the job.

In fact, according to many hiring managers I’ve talked to over the past 20 years, this section summarizing your key qualifications is the most important part of your resume. Employers who have to read hundreds of resumes are looking for shortcuts—and this section gives them one.

To make this section effective, it’s vital that you target your reader. You need to understand who your reader is because different people read resumes looking for different things. For example:

• Recruiters look for “hot” marketable skills because they want to make money marketing you. If your skill set is not in high demand, they won’t call unless you are an exact fit for a job order they have.

• Human resources folks look for an exact skill fit with a job first, then your stability, then your personality type.

• Hiring managers look for skill sets first, then how flexible you are, and finally what they think your ability to learn on the job is.

How long should this section be? About 3 to 5 bullet points in length—not much more. If you need a dozen bullet points to “summarize” your experience, you’re not really summarizing, are you? And it’s always an odd number—3 or 5 are best. (Why? Go ask an advertising copywriter.)

What title should you give this section, Select Accomplishments or Special Skills?

In general, people who produce revenue, such as sales or marketing folks, will have an easier time talking about accomplishments. Other folks, such as people in IT, customer service, accounting, and so on, have skills to highlight.

There are exceptions, of course, so feel free to break this rule. In fact, if you have a strong mix of specific achievements and skills, you can include both a Select Accomplishments and a Special Skills section in your Guerrilla Resume.

Here are 3 rules to help focus your accomplishments:

1. The accomplishment must be important to someone, ideally the organization itself, or its customers.

2. The result should have had a favorable impact, that is, enhanced their bottom line or increased their visibility/viability and ideally both.

3. The accomplishment must specifically illustrate your competence as it relates to the position for which you are applying, highlighting your skills, experience, and personal qualities.

Now let’s take a look at your current resume from an employer’s perspective. Here are examples of both kinds of sections:

SPECIAL SKILLS

Operating Systems: Windows NT/XP/Vista, UNIX on Sun SPARC and MS-DOS.

Programming Languages: C, C++, HTML, and Java. Software: Microsoft FrontPage, Image Composer and Word; Lotus 1-2-3 and mSQL.

SPECIAL SKILLS

Execution: regularly delivering to fixed time schedules against all odds.

Experimentation: relentless probing for new R&D and product approaches.

Management: optimizing people and finances to meet objectives with customers.

SELECT ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Developed a Global Strike Team to rapidly engage customers in the FP1000.

Delivered triple digit growth numbers 5 times since 2000. Ignited sales for a U.S. multinational, closing $6 million in year one.

SELECT ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Sold a 2-year global software contract to XYZ Company valued at over $10,000,000.

Developed a Global Strike Team to engage senior level management at 17 Level 1 financial institutions, including Client A, Client B, and Client C.

Initiated leveraged worldwide partnership/relationships with Client (London), Client (Geneva), and Client (Hamburg) Client (OPQ) in 2006.

GUERRILLA TIP

Attention Recent Graduates

If you don’t have much work experience, be sure to make the most of any university and part-time jobs you’ve held. You can include a bullet point or two that summarizes the best of your experience, no matter what you did—so long as you make those