Most executives don’t know how to write an executive resume for today’s job search.
All too often I see resumes that look and read like the ones I was writing 15-20 years ago.
If your resume has the same look and kind of content you’ve been using for decades, you’re probably in trouble.
People assessing you through your resume will probably peg you as older right off the bat, and that could increase your chances of experiencing age discrimination.
It’s time to modernize your resume for today’s job search.
Here’s one of the things many job seekers don’t understand about today’s executive resume, as I noted in another article, 7 Things I Learned About Resume Writing That Changed Everything:
A resume is a personal marketing document, not merely a career history.
For many years resumes consisted of a chronological list of jobs with maybe some responsibilities.
Education, training, honors, and other distinguishing information followed the professional experience section.
Sometimes an objective statement or brief generic summary might lead the resume.
Today, and for a long time now, a resume has needed to market the candidate by reinforcing what specifically makes her valuable to potential employers.
It needs to convey personality, so employers will get a feel for how she works with others, and if she’ll fit in with the company’s culture.
The easier a resume makes it for recruiters and other hiring professionals to connect the dots between the candidate’s qualifications and abilities, and what their unique needs are, the better the resume will work.
This also means that the formatting of the resume needs to be attractive and reader-friendly, with important points highlighted to draw the eye to them.
In other words, as a candidate writing your resume, you need to be empathetic. Put yourself in their shoes.
With this comes the need for clean formatting overall but using some enhancements (when appropriate) to make it easier for people to quickly get to the information that will help them assess you as a candidate.
What one recruiter said about resumes
IT recruiter Ed Han described his method of sorting through the many resumes that came to him, during his busy days:
You’ve probably heard that recruiters can review a resume in mere seconds. While I haven’t hit that mark, it also doesn’t take a full minute either before I can confidently make a decision that I don’t need to read the rest. That’s when I click on the reject button in my ATS.
But the resumes that pass that initial scan are read a second time more closely.”
What was he looking for? The resume should answer this question:
“Is this person memorable as a strong fit for the position given what the hiring manager wants?”
How do you accomplish this? He said:
Relevant bullets. Responsibilities and duties alone are boring: STAR stories kick them to the curb.
Editing. Grammar and spell check are part of every word processor. Use them. Ed literally had a hiring manager reject someone for bad spelling. And be sure to take out the red squiggly proofing marks in Word or Google Docs.
Clean format. A busy format may look pretty, but it will probably be a chore to read and make for a bad reading experience, especially for people reading a bunch at once, which is often the case.
You’ll see more about all of this below.
Tweaking your old fashioned resume alone won’t be enough.
With all of this in mind, it should be clear that merely tweaking your old-fashioned resume from several years ago probably won’t cut it.
As you’re reading my tips below, be aware that they mostly apply to the more formatted “pretty” version of your resume that you’ll use while networking your way into jobs.
You’ll also need a plain, unadorned (or ATS-friendly) resume version when you apply for posted jobs. Read about this version at the bottom of the list below.
Also, don’t forget to include a cover letter whenever you send people your resume. Cover letters matter.
Some people – recruiters, other hiring professionals, and other people – won’t read them or care whether or not you include one. But you never know who will and who won’t care. Don’t risk turning people off.
25 Tips To Write an Executive Resume for Today’s Job Search
1. Spend time researching and information-mining before you start writing.
Here are the things you need to identify and learn about:
- Determine which companies and kind(s) of jobs you will target.
- Determine why (in specific terms) your target companies need you. What problems will you help them solve?
- Define your personal brand around what makes you unique and valuable to your target employers.
My proprietary worksheets for personal branding and executive job search will help you with these essential first steps.
2. Customize your resume for each type of job and employer.
The better you draw a direct line from you to the job (or kind of job) you’re targeting, the easier you make it for employers to see you as a good hiring choice.
So, if you don’t customize your resume around the specific things you will be able to do for them, and what makes you a good fit, people assessing you as a candidate won’t clearly see your potential. They may pass you right by.
3. Be empathetic towards the people reading your resume.
As you’re crafting your resume, always have in mind the people who will be reading it and assessing you for the jobs you want – employers, recruiters and other hiring professionals.
Be sure your resume makes it abundantly clear that you have what they need.
And make it easy for them to find this info in your resume.
Write in clear, plain English. Don’t assume that everyone assessing you through your resume will understand your acronyms and lingo.
Anyone, even people not in your industry and field, should be able to understand what you’re saying and the value you offer.
They shouldn’t have to search through the document to get to the meat. Don’t hide the most important things on the second page. Put them on the first page where people will immediately see them.
4. Don’t include things in your resume that don’t belong there.
Some things are no longer included in resumes, like your street address in the contact info. Some things never should have been there like an objective statement, your headshot or professional references.
If you’re over 50, it’s especially important not to put things in your resume that will show your age.
5. Keep all the content focused on what makes you a good hiring choice for that particular employer.
Your mission is not to accommodate all the information (relevant or not) that you feel needs to be in it.
Keeping your focus on what will resonate with your target employers will help you keep your resume to a reasonable length.
Although there’s no set length for an executive resume, it shouldn’t be too many pages long. (More about this below.)
That means ruthless editing to exclude irrelevant information, like outdated training and certifications from 20 years ago. It also means excluding great accomplishments if they have nothing to do with the job(s) you’re seeking.
6. Make it an interesting read.
You can imagine how many resumes hiring professionals put eyes to every day.
Your resume is much more likely to be read (and probably entirely read) if, along with an appealing, clean format to capture their attention, it pulls them in with vibrant content that makes you come alive.
7. Get your personality and soft skills in there by building in personal branding throughout.
Similar to the item above, generate chemistry about who you are, how you get things done and how you operate.
Resume branding is not just a catchy brand statement in the summary section at the top. Your personal attributes should be evident throughout the document.
8. Modernize and optimize it.
Add hyperlinks in your resume to:
- Your LinkedIn profile in the contact information at the top, as long as it contains lots more info about you. If not, it’s time to get busy with that.
- Your other social media accounts in the contact information, if you’re active there.
- Any relevant articles, publications or media coverage you’ve noted anywhere in the content.
- Your personal website in the contact information, if you have one.
9. Don’t write about yourself in generic terms. Be specific.
One mistake I see all too often: People generalize the content in their resume. They use same-old descriptions of what they do that could apply to anyone else like them.
Sameness won’t sell you. Differentiation will.
You do this by including specific examples of contributions you made to past employers that will resonate with your target employers. Storytelling using the CARs approach will help you.
10. Streamline your resume header.
To avoid confusion and keep your resume header clean, include just one phone number – the one you’re most accessible via and will frequently check voicemail on. That’s typically your cell phone.
Set up a designated job hunting email account (not associated with your current employer) to put on your resume, with an address using your first and last names.
Think about getting a private email account with “yourname.com” and avoid free email (like Gmail and Yahoo). It’s safer, more secure and gives a better first and lasting impression of you to employers.
11. Pack a punch above the fold.
Brand yourself above the fold – the top third or quarter of page one. Busy hiring professionals generally allow only 10 seconds or so for a resume to draw them in or turn them off.
They may go no further than that initial page view when screening web pages or digital documents.
As much as possible, make this section stand on its own as your calling card.
Some suggestions for above the fold branding:
- Forget the very old fashioned objective statement. Instead, create a keyword-rich headline (right above the summary section) that zeroes in on your good fit for the job you’re seeking with that employer.
- Include a personal brand statement that showcases both your hard and soft skills.
- Add a powerful quote or two from a recent performance review or someone you work with.
- Include 3 or 4 value-driven achievement statements with metrics.
12. Lead your achievement statements with the WOW result.
This you already know: People read from left to right, so they’ll see content at the beginning of the sentence first.
Loading the impressive metrics of your achievements at the beginning should make perfect sense.
For instance, the first example here is okay:
Led the HP team through a 12-week data center assessment and business case development that saved $1.4B over 5 years.
But put the big metric at the beginning like this for better impact:
Saved $1.4B over 5 years leading the HP team through a 12-week data center assessment and business case development.
13. Don’t rely on boring, anemic resume clichés.
Phrases like the following won’t differentiate and distinguish you from your competitors:
- Responsible for . . .
- Demonstrated success at . . .
- Proven track record of success
Imagine the impact on recruiters and other hiring professionals when they see these and other bland phrases show up in resumes over and over again.
These clichés get in the way of real and useful information about you.
Information that will make them interested in you and lead them to put you in the running.
14. Proof carefully for grammar and spelling errors, and typos.
I hope it goes without saying that such errors in your resume reflect badly on you as a candidate.
They can actually tarnish your personal brand.
Surely, it’s no surprise that candidates demonstrating a strong grasp of the English language are more desirable. People assume they’ll be better written and verbal communicators and leaders on the job.
But we all make mistakes. Prevalent typos like “manger” for “manager” plague all of us, and should be forgiven, right?
Well, maybe. But don’t count on it.
15. Tell the truth and tell your own story!
Your resume must be 100% truthful and relate your own story.
Stretching the truth or including outright lies will catch up with you, and damage your credibility and reputation.
Even a little white lie can result in your being suddenly out of the running, or subsequent immediate termination, if you’ve managed to squeak through and get hired.
By the same token, don’t copy the content from someone else’s resume. It could easily get you into BIG trouble.
16. Make it eye-catching, impactful and easy to read.
Sparingly use design elements like graphic boxes, shading, colors and bullet points to make the most important points stand out.
But don’t overdo the enhancements! Going overboard with this can make you look unprofessional and make your resume dizzying to read.
17. Don’t cram in information.
Include plenty of white space to make it easy to read and help draw readers’ eyes down the page.
Break up long chunks of information into no more than about 3-4 lines.
Overall, keep in mind that many people will be reviewing your resume on their phones or other small screens.
18. De-emphasize or explain employment gaps.
The stigma of employment gaps has diminished since the pandemic, but you’ll need to clearly explain that you were being productive during that time.
Describe what you were doing in work-related terminology that will help employers see that you were upskilling and have more to offer them because of the experience.
Volunteer work can be a life-saver with this.
19. Think twice about using AI to write your resume.
AI can be very helpful for some aspects of resume development, including creating your list of target employers and then researching each one to identify what makes you a good hiring choice for them.
That information will help you to some extent know what things to put in your resume, and what things to leave out.
AI can also be good for correcting spelling and grammatical errors.
Part of the problem with an AI-written resume is that AI outputs are typically generic and the resumes of other job seekers like you who are using AI may include the same content.
That sameness does nothing to differentiate you all from each other.
Also, AI is miserable at writing personal brand content.
AI can’t authentically define anyone’s personal brand, because that would require information about the person that AI doesn’t have, and the human touch that AI doesn’t replicate well.
Only you can uncover these things, by yourself or with guidance from someone who knows how.
20. Don’t include certain personal or irrelevant information.
In general, these items should be left off your resume:
- Personal information – date of birth, marital status, health etc.
- Hobbies – save those for your bio, if relevant
- Personal/professional references
- Irrelevant or outdated certifications, professional development, awards, etc.
- Any superfluous information that doesn’t zero in on your good-fit qualities for your target employers and job(s).
21. Don’t worry about having too much information.
You’ll be gathering a lot of information for your resume.
Initially, don’t worry that you won’t be able to fit it all into 2 or 3 pages. Nothing will go to waste.
Excess information can be used in your ATS-friendly resume version.
This document can be longer than the nice-looking formatted version. More content means more of the keywords that will help your resume sail through the Applicant Tracking Systems.
Any extra information you’ve culled can also be used in collateral supporting documents and/or for interview prep.
22. Keep your resume to a reasonable length.
Don’t get bogged down by confusing dictates you may have heard about resume length, like “your resume must never be more than 2 pages”.
Focus instead on detailing what makes you a good fit for your target employers, based on the research you’ve done to determine their current pressing needs, and how you’re uniquely qualified to help them problem-solve.
A three page resume is fine, especially for c-suite and senior-level executives . . . if you’ve ruthlessly edited down to the essentials, and included only the things that will matter to your target companies.
Include a link to your LinkedIn profile – which should include the whole story – and direct people to find more details there.
That advice about length applies to most situations, except for these two (and perhaps others):
- Executive recruiters have been known to ask for a lengthy resume (sometimes 5 or more pages) including ALL your career history in depth. Provide them whatever they require. They know what their client companies want.
- An ATS-friendly resume has no length restrictions. In fact, longer is probably better. More content means it will contain more of the relevant keywords the ATS will be looking for. (More about ATS resumes below.)
23. Sync your resume and LinkedIn profile.
You’re probably aware that your LinkedIn profile allows for much more content than you can reasonably put in your resume.
You can put additional career information in your LinkedIn profile (here’s where the “Projects” profile sections are very useful), and refer to it in your resume.
You can then include a link in your resume to your LinkedIn profile and note where people will find the info on your profile.
For instance, let’s say you completed some very impressive, relevant projects at one company that needs to be described in detail. But you can’t fit all that information in your resume.
Put that information in a “Project” on LinkedIn, tied to whichever company is appropriate.
In your resume, include a line such as this in the Experience section for the appropriate company, with a hyperlink on the phrase “my LinkedIn profile”:
“Please refer to the Projects section of my LinkedIn profile for further information.”
24. Use storytelling to help people better relate to and connect with you.
Storytelling helps you describe in more detail your contributions that benefitted past employers, and to back up claims you’ve made about yourself in more general terms.
A storytelling device resume writers have been using for decades is the C-A-Rs approach, or Challenge – Actions – Results, also known by other acronyms such as S-T-A-Rs (Situation – Tasks – Actions – Results).
25. Create an ATS version of your resume.
You’ll need a nicely formatted version (as described above) in both Word and PDF formats.
You’ll also need a stripped down, barely formatted text or ATS-friendly version to make it through Applicant Tracking Systems. This can be created as a Word document.