Quintessential Careers Press:
The Quintessential Guide to Storytelling that Propels Careers
Chapter 5: Resumes That Tell a Story
Page 63
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- Reduced customer requests from 500 to 12 within three months by designing and implementing centralized customer task-tracking system.
- Reduced errors, saved time, achieved nearly a 100-percent paperless environment, and saved money by implementing central Web-based database that houses all client data, realizing remarkable return on equipment investment in less than a year.
Creating a Resume Addendum to Enhance Your Resume’s Storytelling
Even if you’ve used storytelling to describe your accomplishments in your resume, space limitations have likely prevented you from providing much detail. Deborah Wile Dib, a CEO coach with multiple certifications in resume writing and career coaching, is an enthusiastic champion of the concept of resume addenda. Noting that these story-based addenda are “a good read,” she gives them a variety of titles, such as “Critical Leadership Initiatives,” “Marketing Milestones,” “Performance Milestones,” “Key Engagements” (for a consultant), “Career Success and Distinctions,” and “Major Campaigns.” Dib encourages clients to identify their “career-defining accomplishments” and then rank-order the top five that align best with the job-seeker’s targeted employers. For Dib, most accomplishments can be summed up in the phrase “accomplished solutions provider.” The employer, Dib notes, is primarily interested in whether the candidate can solve problems and make/save money. The addendum supplies information – that the more concise resume can’t accomplish – about the challenge the candidate faced and the process used to achieve the result, Dib says. To enhance the storytelling power of her resumes and addenda, Dib sometimes even breaks the cardinal resume rule against using the pronoun “I” in her documents.
Also touting the idea of the resume addendum is well-known resume writer and career author Louise Kursmark, who refers to these addenda as “ROI documents,” replete with stories that illustrate the Return on Investment the employer will gain in hiring the candidate. Kursmark’s own special twist on the resume addendum is the Job Proposal, which tells a future story of what the candidate can do for the employer. The proposal presents the candidate’s understanding of the employer’s challenge, a section entitled “My Value” that explains how the candidate is the most qualified person to meet the challenge, and offers a “Proposed Solution.”
Dib cautions that not everyone involved in the hiring process likes resume addenda, and my PhD bears out that caution. But as long as the employer also has your “story lite” resume, he or she can choose whether or not to review the addendum. Some recruiters in the focus-group research liked the option of being able to obtain additional information from addenda. One participant said, “I like addenda because they don’t get in my way, but if I choose to delve deeper when presenting to a hiring manager, the info is there.”
The addendum can also make an excellent artifact for your career portfolio. See Chapter 6.
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