So I came up three different ideas, which, used in combination, have the potential to transform your resume. Think of this as a lifehack for your job search. Separately, you can find these thoughts in different places, but here they are in combination.
I'll call these ideas:
- Word Map your Resume
- Heat Map your Resume
- Life Hack your Resume
Word Map Your Resume! My first idea uses a popular software tool - the Word Map - why not put the content of the resume into a word-map tool to see what pops out. You've seen the output of this genre of tools. They take a bunch of text, and based on the number of times a word is used and its context, the word will be larger or smaller, and possibly a different color, and an artsy text-based graphic is produced. Here's an example of the use of a popular online tool, Wordle, on today's Wall Street Journal article entitled "Markets Shrug at Shutdown Even as Debt Battle Looms", now in Day four:
A few things pop out at you. After reading it, the main theme in the article is that investors and markets are somewhat unfazed by the shutdown. The word map reflects the same thing: it doesn't show any sign of panic, right? None of the words that might indicate trouble are big. In fact, the word "calm" is larger than "threatens," and much larger than "Volatility" or "warnings". So there are some great insights you can obtain from this distillation of the article.
We're looking for similar insights into the resume. Here's a version of my friend's resume word map. What jumps out at you? Marketing, market, product development, Million - all good words. The resume as currently written is about a marketing/communications/product development person with Million dollar impact. The problem is, those kinds of people are a dime-a-dozen. The resume word map highlights his marketing skills, but not the leadership or team-building skills.
This is an image of a "regular Joe" in marketing.
So, I'm thinking that if your main themes are about leadership and teamwork, and your resume pops out of the word map software like this, you may want to rewrite it to focus more on leadership and teamwork, so that those themes are more prevalent. I'm betting that the automated tools that HR screeners use, perform a function like this in finding keywords (to determine traits and experience of candidates). (HR types, chime in with your comments.)
So I modified the resume to place more emphasis on areas of strength. Here is the result. How about this: you could even make the word map the last (or first) page of your resume for additional impact. I have consolidated some similar words to develop this simpler, more effective word map.
This image is of an executive leader in market strategy and execution.
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Heat Map Your Resume! My second idea was to use "heat maps" to discover what parts of your resume are being looked at most frequently. This idea comes from Internet usage research. People's eye movements are tracked to see what they are looking at on the screen - the idea here was to improve the user interface, so people see and act on what they want more easily - and it's been ported to many other businesses, including how consumers look at retail displays and advertising (which is why I thought of it). The red areas are where the eye spends the most time; the yellow less, and the blue the least. Clear areas aren't even looked at. Here's a picture of how a recruiter looks at a resume in a matter of seconds:
It turns out that new study produced by The Ladders (from which these images are taken) offers insight into how recruiters (and resume readers of all types) look at your resume, by using heat maps. The study team analyzed a couple of different versions of the same resumes and came up with some interesting insights you can use to edit your own resume. The study can be found here. Of course, you don't have access to this technology, but you can use the concept in redesigning (or having someone else redesign) your resume.
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Life Hack Your Resume! My third idea is borrowed from this great Ted Talk by Amy Webb, who lifehacked the online dating system to get the boyfriend (later husband) of her dreams. The idea here is to tailor your online profile (i.e. LinkedIn) to attract the suitor of your dreams - make yourself more attractive to him/her. Her approach involved creating a few fake profiles online, and experimenting with word counts and specific word choices, to see what works, and what doesn't with her target audience. She created an algorithm - and you can, too! You probably shouldn't create fake LinkedIn profiles or fake Monster.com jobs for people to post to, although that would achieve the same result that Amy got. But you can certainly find people who have recently been hired into your ideal job - and analyze their online profiles (which successfully landed them the job) - then modify your resume and profile accordingly. You could also reach out to them - I'm SURE they'd be happy to talk with you about their experience.
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Of course, first, you have to figure out what you want to do with your life, which is an entirely different matter and subject for another post...
So there you have it - three tangible hacks to improve your job search.
Good luck, and tell me what you think of these three ideas!
